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“Thanks,” he nodded. “I could really use your support at home.”
“Nice work,” Sinner grumbled. “You walked right into that one.”
“I was trying to go about it a different way,” he muttered.
“Look, the point is, we need a team to go down there, and whoever that is needs to be prepared for a rough time.”
I beamed, ready to pack my shit and get out of here before Brooke started another tirade about something I didn’t understand.
“However, at this time, I think it would be best to send Chance’s team down there.”
“What?” Chance asked at the same time as everyone else. “Cap, you gotta be kidding me. Why would you send me to the Amazon? Do you realize there’s a bunch of poisonous shit there? And animals that want to eat you? Why me?”
“Because you’re the only fucking team that hasn’t tried to get out of being here when Maggie goes into labor.”
“Hey, we didn’t say anything,” Tacos complained.
“Yeah, the last thing we need is for you and Storm to get into a thumb war in the middle of a rescue.”
“Cap, I really don’t think this is a good job,” Chance argued. “Maybe you’re right and you should take a few days to get away before all your freedom is stripped away.”
“No, we’ll do it this way for now,” he said, decision made. “Your team will leave tomorrow morning and report as soon as you find the gem. If you need backup, we’ll send down reinforcements. We don’t want a huge presence down there unless the situation calls for it. It could be a simple retrieval.”
“And that’s basically what happened,” I finished with a nod.
Cap looked at us, waiting for us to say it was all a prank. “Wait, so I wanted to get away from Maggie?”
“Well, she was really hounding you about getting the baby’s room set up,” Sinner winced. “I can’t believe you haven’t done that yet.”
“Yeah, that baby could come any day now,” I agreed. “Second pregnancies tend to go quicker than the first.”
“Yeah?” Cap asked. “And what about the…fifth?”
He looked around at all of us like we knew the answer.
“Yeah, that sounds about right. And this doesn’t get back to Maggie!”
“Which part?” I huffed.
“Any of it.” He sighed and rested his head back down. “Fuck, I hate to hear the rest of the story.”
“Oh, it’s a doozy,” I grinned.
21
CAP
“Fuck, my head is throbbing,” I said, pushing the sides of my head in as if that would stop the pain. “What the hell did you try to cure me with if it wasn’t weed?”
“Now, Cap,” Sinner said, holding out both arms. “In my defense, I was trying to save your life. Maggie called and she was bitching us out. And you know how she gets. I figured it was better to take the chance that we might kill you with whatever we were applying than to go back with you dead from not trying.”
I thought about it and had to agree. “It’s probably for the best. I’ll get more sympathy if I return home like this than if you had been able to heal me. Fuck, do you think she might have the baby while I’m gone?”
“Boss, we’ll get you home in time,” Rocco promised.
“No!” I said a little too quickly. “I mean…maybe this one time, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to not be there. You know, because of the snake bite and…additional remedies. Plus, it’s the jungle. Who knows what kind of diseases we might have picked up.”
“Right,” Sinner nodded. “I’m on his side. Best not to accidentally poison anyone back home. In fact, we might want to stay an extra day or two.”