Page 34 of Allegiance

Gene raised his coffee mug in salute. While Sarah had been his stepdaughter, even he’d voiced his concern to Preston before he’d died.

As an ex-Fed, who chased killers, and a homicide captain, he saw the signs. Only, sometimes, people looked the other way when they loved someone and didn’t want it to be true.

“We can’t be dicks,” Rogue warned. “We boned him good with the bracelet, and we owe him for that one. Someone meddled.”

They all stared at Zayn and Boone.

In fact, Boone’s wife, Merry, was giving him the look of all looks.

“And if I ever even see you wearing beads again, Boone, and I smell a pregnancy spell, you’re getting fixed with a rusty spoon, three women holding you down, and an angry wife lopping at your junk.”

He cringed.

Yeah, he knew why you didn’t mess with a woman scorned.

Merry was not amused by his Voodoo antics.

“I know! I was trying to give him the ‘get on the right path’ beads. Zayn distracted me.”

Then, like a good friend, and Hunter, he threw the man under the bus.

Exactly like Zayn would have done.

“He wanted the beads to keep having babies. Poor Stella all those pregnancies back-to-back...”

Zayn gasped.

Then, he pointed at him.

“Did you just try to make my Sweet Stella angry with me?” he asked.

She reassured him by patting him lovingly on the arm to ease his worries.

“I’m already pregnant, my love. You’re good. I’ll keep populating your flower garden for you. I like me some Native babies.”

He grinned.

How did he get so lucky and find this woman?

He wasn’t sure.

What he did know was that they were not having success with baby names. They were having another girl, and he was trying out names.

“Rose?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“Ehhh, kinda common.”

He tended to agree.

Only, before he could continue, Jagger got his attention by clearing his throat.

“Focus,” Jagger said. “We have to handle this because when we find Chevy, Dakota is leaving. The ‘keep him here’ clock is ticking. We all know what he said. He’s bailing, and we need to ensure that doesn’t happen. Dakota, while cranky, is still damn good at tracking people. We just need him to bounce back from the Bunny debacle, Sarah’s death, and now Eve walking away because he was a dumbass.”

Yeah, well, IF they could get him to focus.

That was the difficult part.

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