Page 13 of Jewel in the Rough

Benny snickered, biting his lips together. When he and Teagan had encountered each other years ago, it hadn’t been a time for introductions. Maybe Ciarahadtold him and he’d forgotten—ADHD and all that.

Would Teagan know about the Sureños? Did Benny feel safer knowing Teagan was a cop or did it make him nervous? Honestly, he didn’t know.

“We’ll be in the creamery for a few hours. Come say hi to everyone if you can escape.” Ciara was talking and walking backward in the direction of the smaller buildings on the other side of the barn. “I’m glad you’re here, and seriously, let’s have dinner or something soon.” She turned back around and strode away.

Benny nodded. “Not here, though. Did you know your brother can’t cook?” he called after her. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he automatically took it out to see who was trying to contact him. “Everything in his kitchen comes out of a can and has enough preservatives in it to last a century,” he added so she’d understand the extent of his suffering.

Sadly, this time, he hadn’t checked his surroundings before he spoke.

“Nice,” Teagan remarked from far too close.

Benny spun around. Teagan’s hands rested on his lean hips and his habitual scowl graced his otherwise handsome face. Benny opened his mouth to apologize, or something, anyway, but he also stepped backward, trying to remove himself from the zone of influence radiated by Teagan, and tripped over a clump of weeds lurking behind him. Wheeling his arms comically to keep himself from falling, Benny’s feet tangled together, and he crashed to the ground. His cell phone went flying to land several feet away in the dusty yard.

CHAPTER7

Teagan

The going’s getting narrow…

Too used to the man’s clumsiness to be surprised by it, Teagan bent to retrieve the cell phone while Benny scrambled back to his feet. Teagan hadn’t meant to startle him. And it was concern that had Teagan checking the screen for damage, but instead of a crack, he found a missed call from a number Teagan was very familiar with—one from his past life. The life he had before taking a career-ending bullet to his thigh.

“Why is Tristan Brown calling you?” His voice came out rougher than he intended, but shock had him reverting to his more asshole-ish behavior.

Lurching toward him, Benny tried to snatch his phone from Teagan’s grasp.

“Tristan who? Don’t stick your nose into my business!”

“This cell phone number,” Teagan ground out, waving the offending gadget in front of Benny’s face and refusing to relinquish it, “belongs to a member of the Gang and Narcotics division of the LAPD. Why the fuck is Tristan Brown calling you?” Tristan was also Teagan’s closest friend—or had been. The one thing, the one person, he missed the most from Los Angeles.

“Oh, that.” Benny’s hand dropped to his side as he stopped trying to retrieve his phone and instead bit his lip, looking everywhere but at Teagan. Teagan suspected whatever came out of Benny Brambilla’s mouth right this minute would be complete fabrication. “Tip. Hotline. Yes, that’s it. Uh, a friend of mine thought he saw something and—”

Teagan tuned out Benny’s jabbering as he tugged his own phone out and pocketed Benny’s. He swiped his thumb across the screen and pressed ‘Tris’ in his favorites.

Within seconds, Tristan’s deep voice came across the line. “Long time no chat, my friend. How’s the dairy business?”

Guilt for not returning Tristan’s recent phone calls surged, but Teagan struggled with not being on the force any longer, and Tris was a reminder of the life he’d been forced to give up. Today was especially hard because it was the anniversary of the shooting.

“It’s a lot of cow shit.”

“Not a surprise. Why are you really calling? Not to finally talk about what happened and the fact that you left without saying goodbye?”

Even after a year of silence, Tristan knew him far too well.

“Why are you trying to reach Benny Brambilla?”

The was silence on the line for a heartbeat. “Brambilla? Probably because he’s the most solid witness we’ve ever had against Talache. Not dead yet, as far as we know, so that’s a plus, too.”

“An actual witness?” The task force where Teagan had met Tristan had been working for years to take Talache down, but the creep always got off on a technicality, or witnesses to his crimes disappeared and were assumed to be buried somewhere in the desert between LA and Vegas.

“Yep. In Vegas. Talache is going down this time—if we can get Brambilla to testify. The guy refused witness protection and disappeared on his own. If we don’t find him first, Talache’s people will, and the outcome will not be pretty.”

“You are fucking kidding me.” Teagan was still speaking into the phone but directed the words to Benny, who was standing a few feet away from him, chewing on his fingernail. Catching Teagan’s gaze, he quickly looked down again.

“Wait a sec,” Tristan spoke slowly. “How come you’re asking about Brambilla?”

“I’ll call you back in a few hours, I promise.” Teagan clicked off the call to eye his visitor. “Does my sister know you’re on the run from the Sureños gang, specifically from Talache, who heads up the Vegas and LA branches?”

Benny stared back at Teagan and blinked. “Um, no? I just kind of told her I needed a place for a while, took her up on an old offer to visit. To be fair, I’m not the one who committed a crime. The only thingIdid wrong was take a fucking smoke break when I’d promised myself I’d quit. But I was having a kind of stressful day, and tips suck on the day shift. If I’d known just how more stressful it was going to get—and I didn’t even get a smoke—you can rest assured I never would have opened the cancer sticks. That fucking unlit cigarette cost me my job, my apartment, and my friends, and then the marshals wanted me to go into witness protection. No way, no fucking way.”

---