by DJ Jamison
Full Disclosure
Real Estate Relations: Book 1
Copyright 2017 DJ Jamison
Published by DJ Jamison at KDP
Cover design by Sloan’s Design Stop
KDP Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Amazon.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content suitable for mature readers.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Epilogue
Thank You
About DJ
Other Books
Acknowledgements
As always, I have to thank my beta readers, loyal readers and fellow authors who have given me such great advice as I build on my career. Writing can be a very isolating activity, but thanks to the great community of LGBT romance authors and readers, it’s brought me new friends all over the world. Thank you for reading, and I hope you always find a bit of enjoyment – and truth – in the worlds that I create.
Chapter 1
Camden
I shimmied my hips, which in turn shook my moneymaker.
Sadly, I wasn’t on the dance floor, swishing for attention. I was wiggling and jiggling to reach my phone, which was inconveniently positioned in the waistband of my briefs.
The phone rang — and vibrated — turning my shimmy into a spastic hop.
People stared. Though that might have been caused by the hot dog costume encasing me in a sweaty, straining mess rather than the bun action going on. (See what I did there? Bun action. Ha, ha. No, seriously. My life is a joke.)
The sidewalk baked under my feet, and the thick, humid heat of a Kansas summer hung heavy in the air. A fan inside the costume kept me from heat stroke, but sweat still poured from my body. The phone slipped and slid against my skin, evading my grasp.
My shoulder twanged with pain, but I managed to pull the dang phone free.
“You’ve reached Camden Lewis,” I answered breathlessly.
With luck, I sounded at least a bit professional. I didn’t intend to be the hot dog in Dogs N Stuff’s marketing campaign a minute longer than necessary. I had already launched my new venture, as a real estate agent, but business was a little slower getting off the ground than I’d hoped. And my safety net — i.e. my well-paid boyfriend, Austin — was no longer a viable option.
Thus, the humiliating, poorly paid work.
“You’re the real estate agent?”
“Yes!” I responded with a little too much excitement. Clearing my throat, I tried to rein myself in. “Yes, sir, I am. How might I help you today?”
“My name is Reid Bishop. I inherited the place on Ivy Lane, owned by my great-uncle, Robert Winters? Have you heard of it?”
Nope. “Yes, sir. Are you looking to sell then?”
Please, please, please!
“I am. I live out of state, and I have no idea what condition the property is in presently. I need an agent I can trust to go check out the house and advise me on any steps I need to take to prepare it for market. I will be coming to town in a week or two. I’m not sure of the timetable just yet.”
Score!
“I can absolutely help you with that, Mr. Bishop. There’s some paperwork to get the process started, even if you’re not ready to go on market. I could fax that to your office?”
A loud, nasally voice interrupted my surprise sales call.
“Cam! I’m not paying you to talk on the phone!”
Damn. Dogs N Stuff’s manager, Mike White, who thought supervising a fast-food restaurant made him hot shit, was crossing the street at a jog.
“Fax works. Should I give you the number now?” Reid Bishop asked, his deep baritone smooth as coffee in my ear.
I could listen to that voice all day. But I didn’t have all day, or even all of a minute. Edging down the sidewalk, I put more distance between me and Mike while talking fast.
“Actually, Mr. Bishop, I’m driving. On my way to a showing. You know how it is, all work for us busy real estate agents! But if you want to text the info, I’d be happy to get everything started when I get back to the office.”
“Sure, sounds good. I normally do more homework and check reviews, but I’ve got my hands full.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Bishop. If you’re not satisfied with my work, you can withdraw the listing and work with another agent. There’s very little risk.”
“Well, you sound like you know what you’re talking about. Thank you.”
Yesses. Score 1 for the art of bullshitting.
“Thank you. Talk to you again soon, sir.”
I ended the call not a second too soon.
“Cam!” Mike bellowed as he grabbed my arm. “I pay you to work, not take calls. Hot dogs don’t have cell phones!”
I turned an irritated look on him. “Hot dogs don’t have legs. Do you want me to cut off my legs?”
“What? No—”
“It was an emergency call. It won’t happen again.”
God, please let it happen again.
If someone else called, maybe I’d finally have enough clients to leave the hot dog business.
***
Reid
I cleared out my office for my “extended vacation,” which was just a way of sugarcoating the fact I was being asked to take a leave of absence after five years working for Moore Security. Add to that the fact that I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back, and it might as well be my last day.
Still, it was a going away party compared to the way I’d left my post as a U.S. Federal Marshal. Disgraced. Humiliated. Those were two of the adjectives that came to mind for that career finale.
I’d loved the job and hated the politics. When you refuse to play the game, you’re the first scapegoat when the shit hits the fan. Which tends to happen when dealing with witness protection.
Needless to say, my reputation was shit when I left there.
I couldn’t explain away the trouble at Moore Security, though. I lost track of my client in a crowd because my head wasn’t in the game, plain and simple. Maybe I was burned out. Baby-sitting minor celebrities and spoiled rich shits wasn’t what I had in mind when I went into training. I’d loved working with witnesses. Even working with prisoners. It wasn’t all safe houses a
nd shoot-outs. There were plenty of boring parts to the job, but it gave me a sense of purpose. I’d made a difference. But following around some wannabe musician at an awards gala and watching him do drugs in the bathroom? No, thanks.
So, here I was, taking leave after fucking up a crowd control situation. My client had gotten pushed to the ground — and scared. I did feel bad about that, and I didn’t argue when my supervisor suggested I take some time to get my head screwed on straight.
You’d think in five years I might have accumulated more personal effects in the office. Something to show the long hours I’d poured into the job instead of a social life.
All that time people spent taking their kids to the zoo, throwing birthday parties, having family dinners — hell, creating families to have those dinners with in the first place — I had been working. I’d skipped over dating, content to get casual sex when I needed to scratch an itch.
All those hours – years – in this place, and my belongings fit in a damn shoebox.
I stared down at the contents: a gun-shaped paper weight I’d received at the last office party; assorted pens and highlighters, some working, some not; notepads covered in writing that might be considered sensitive documents if they were legible to anyone but me (and sometimes not even me); and a small cactus that survived no matter what the hell I did to it.
The fucker just wouldn’t die.
It felt wrong to throw a living plant in the trash, so I packed it up with the rest of my stuff, sparse as it was, and prepared to leave.
I was a minimalist, and I’d never been sentimental enough to keep photos of my mother or brother, the only family I had left. We saw each other on holidays and talked on the phone, but we didn’t feel the need to be in one another’s pockets. My jobs generally wouldn’t have allowed that anyhow.
Didn’t stop me from wishing I had more than a shoebox to show for all those years, though. The older I got, the less content I was with a long resume and an empty house. I wanted something more. I just wasn’t sure how to get it.
Knuckles rapped on the door frame, and I looked up to see my boss. For however much longer that lasted.
“I need to see you before you leave.”
I nodded. Today was my last day on duty. Afterwards I’d be … adrift.
I hadn’t quite worked out my future beyond returning to the small Kansas town where my great-uncle had bequeathed me an old house. I needed a project, and I figured a falling-down Victorian would fit the bill. Visions of working out my problems while stripping wallpaper played through my head. There were worse ways to re-evaluate your life.
Stuffing my pathetic shoebox under one arm, I followed Harry Moore to his office.
Rather than sit, I hovered in the doorway, waiting for the awkward goodbye. Moore circled the desk and collapsed into his chair with a sigh.
“Get the door and sit down, Bishop. I’ve got a job for you.”
My eyebrows shot up, but I did as he asked. I wouldn’t have expected Moore to trust me with a task as simple as reloading the stapler at this point.
“I thought I was on leave after today?”
“Officially, yes,” Moore said, before scratching his ear and giving away his discomfort. I had always found him to be an easy read.
“This is off the record, and a bitch of a favor to ask, but if you do it, we’ll turn that unpaid leave into a paid vacation.”
I was intrigued. “Go on.”
Moore cleared his throat. “Dunn called me up for a favor. Which means I need to ask you for a favor.”
“Shit. You know I can’t say no to that.”
Richard Dunn had been with the US Marshals Service for more than two decades, and he’d always had my back. When I got shipped out in disgrace, he’d been the one to hook me up with Moore, a former marshal himself, and a job at his security company. No way I could turn down a favor for Dunn. I owed the man five years’ worth of work, not to mention all the times he’d saved my ass on the job.
Moore nodded in agreement.
“They’ve got a leak.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, it’s bad. One marshal dead, one injured, and a witness who got a hell of a scare. Not that violence is anything new to him. He’s not exactly innocent.”
“So, he’s a flip?”
Moore lifted his hand, wavering it side to side. “Yes and no. He’s a dumb kid. He and his brothers lived in a nice middle-class neighborhood in the ’burbs. They should have been working cushy office jobs and starting families. Instead, these bored fuckers started peddling drugs in Dragon Boyz territory in LA. Got themselves fucked.”
“Jesus.”
“Witness is a hot mess. Sees his brothers get shot. Barely gets out of there himself. Wouldn’t have if they hadn’t underestimated the youngest brother. Now he’s got an entire gang gunning for him.”
“And the leak?”
Moore shrugged. “Dunn wouldn’t tell me much. He wants this witness off the grid, but on paper, he’ll be with Dunn. They’ll set a trap and see who walks into it. But usually in these situations, it’s a corrupt official who’s taking some sort of payoff from the gang, or someone who got in too deep with drugs or loans. Not your problem to worry about.”
His tone told me I wouldn’t be learning anything else. I didn’t much care. I’d had all I could take of the inner politics of the US Marshals Service while I was there. I didn’t figure it was any worse than any other government agency, but I wasn’t cut out for it. I knew that now.
I was a bit reluctant to be drawn back into their machinations, but I decided to hear out Moore. I owed Dunn that much.
“So, I’d take him to a safe house? Or is this a relo?” I asked.
I had already made plans to go to Fields, Kansas, to deal with the house. For the life of me, I still wasn’t sure why I’d been gifted the property. I barely knew my great-uncle. But perhaps the old coot hadn’t had anyone else to put in the will. My mother always said her uncle became a hermit after his son died.
“This is where it goes off the script,” Moore said. “They can’t trust any of their usual destinations. They don’t know where the leak sprung. Dunn wants him off the grid, so to speak, but you know how this shit drags out. Could be weeks, and that’s optimistic. Now, you can lock him up in a house and guard him night and day, but I give you a week or two before you murder the punk. You can treat it like a relo, but you won’t have any resources because this is outside the Marshals Service. Hell, this is outside Moore Security, if you get my drift.”
I rubbed at my chin, thinking. “I know a guy who can hook me up with ID and background.”
Moore nodded. “Good. It’s better if even I don’t know the details on this. You take him with you, and you don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”
I sat back, stunned. This wasn’t just off script, it was off the rails. If I agreed, if I took this criminal to Fields, Kansas, without anyone in the office knowing my destination. …
“You know what this would mean?” Moore asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “No back-up.”
“That’s right. So, will you do it?”
It was a hell of a risk for an outside chance at keeping my job, which I wasn’t 100 percent sure I wanted to keep. I was burned out, a washed-up failure of a federal marshal who couldn’t even keep tabs on a bratty teen celebrity. The jury was out on whether a teen drug pusher would be easier to handle.
But I owed Dunn, and at least this way I could leave on a more positive note. Pride was my sin, maybe, but there it was.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
Chapter 2
Camden
“You’ve reached Camden Lewis.”
As with every call, my heart skipped a beat. I told myself it was the prospect of new business, not the anticipation of Reid Bishop’s voice in my ear. That deep, smooth baritone raised goosebumps on my skin every time.
“Cam, I’m calling about that monstrosity you’re listing,” Miguel Castillo sai
d.
I recognized his voice immediately. No goosebumps, but it never failed to bring a smile to my face. We’d been best friends for ages.
Awkwardly cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder, I kept my hands on the steering wheel. I barely had the money to pay for a crappy one-bedroom apartment. Bluetooth was out of the question.
“Sounds like you’re jealous,” I joked. “You wish you had my listing skills.”
Miguel laughed in my ear. “Yeah, right. No, listen. That place is vacant, right?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Well, one of the neighbors left a message on the office phone. Said he saw a couple of guys behind the property when he was on his back porch. He yelled at them and they took off, but you might want to go by the house and make sure everything looks okay.”
“Damn. So, he didn’t call the police or anything?”
“Don’t think so. His message made it sound like he thought it was a couple of kids looking for a spot to hang out or party, but you never know.”
“Guess I’ll drive by and check it out. Thanks.”
The last thing I needed was trouble with the property. I could hardly believe I’d convinced Reid Bishop to sign paperwork agreeing to list with me. I was inexperienced as all get-out, and this place needed some TLC. Luckily, Mr. Bishop hadn’t pressed me too hard about my qualifications. No one wanted to be your first listing, but someone had to do it.
“You sell any houses today?” I asked Miguel as I hit the blinker and swung the car back toward Ivy Lane.
“Nah,” he said. “I had to deal with crazy-ass Sherrilyn, though.”
I vaguely remembered her name, mainly because Miguel bitched about her every time he had to work a deal with her. She could be a handful.
“She was digging through my files when I got back from lunch. Can you believe that shit?”
I only halfway paid attention as my car crawled down Ivy Lane. “Really?”
There was no sign of life at the property. No lights, no cars.
“Yeah, I reported her ass to Jody. Maybe she’ll talk some sense into Sherrilyn’s broker.”
