Eight Balled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prologue

 

“Yes. Well about that business…” Ranger was pulling his shoes off and I was trying to think of ways to get out of this. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to sleep with Ranger, I did. I really did. But it was just to soon after everything. With Joe and the break up, with DeChooch and the craziness that ensued with his capture, with Ranger and this new honest way of communicating and with my sister and her moving back home.

 

After this last few weeks events, things seemed to be a little much, I mean, tonight I hadn’t been able to get to sleep because I kept seeing Sophia DeStefano’s crazy eyes floating in front of me. And now Ranger was stripping beside my bed. Now normally that would have been a most welcome sight. Hell, 6 hours ago it would have been a welcome sight. Right now though, all I wanted was to sleep and forget the past few weeks, if only for a few hours.

 

And now Ranger was busy with his shoes. He had let himself in to my apartment, knocked softly on my bedroom door and asked if I had nightlight so he could see me. He had retrieved the said light from the bathroom, plugged it in, announced that everything with DeChooch was fine and that we had unfinished business. Now he was planning on finishing that business.

 

I wasn’t sure if I wanted this business finished. I had talked this through in my head before. What if he doesn’t live up to my fantasies? What if I don’t? What the hell then? But more than that, if we did this, what happens after? Do things carry on as per usual? Does this become a regular thing? Do I become super slut and stalk him? I didn’t want that, because after all was said and done, he was one of my better friends. Not best friends, cause they weren’t always good for you. Ranger was good for me. I wanted him to stay my friend and no matter what males think, sex will always screw up a friendship.

 

“Ranger…”

 

Ranger stoped what he was doing and turned to me. “Yeah?”

 

“I don’t think now is the time to do this.”

 

Ranger didn’t say anything, never did. But this time the silence was suffocating. I wanted to say, ‘ok lets do it’ just to make noise. But if I had caved, I wouldn’t have been able to stop it later when I had come back to my senses. Ranger scrubbed his hands through his hair. “We had a deal Babe.”

 

“Well, yeah but if you want to get technical, you didn’t actually make the capture. The deal doesn’t stand.” No sound from Ranger again. “Besides Ranger, do you really want to do this because we made a deal? Or because we both want it?”

 

“You don’t want this?”

 

“I do, just not right now. I cant now. There’s too much that’s happened just in the last few weeks and particularly the past 24 hours. I have another dilemma.”

 

“The blonde hair?”

 

“That has something to do with it.”

 

Ranger exhaled hard and slumped. He stood up and stripped down to boxers. He pulled the cover down and climbed into bed with me. “Tell me about it.” it was a command, not a request. Ranger didn’t make requests. So I told him. About breaking up with Joe, about my job, about my family, about not being able to sleep and about wanting him so desperately it scared me. Ranger didn’t say anything, just used his thumb to make a soothing gesture where it was resting on my stomach. Talking exhausted me and I fell asleep feeling safe in Ranger’s arms.

 

Chapter 1

 

I woke up after that night cold and alone. Ranger had left sometime earlier. I can’t say as though I was surprised but after I fell asleep I didn’t wake until after lunch. I slowly got out of bed my answering machine was blinking madly. I ignored it in favour of coffee and a shower. That done, I blow dried for 10 mins and pulled on my SEALS cap. I was over the blonde thing all ready. I gave Rex a few grapes and got myself some cereal coated in sugar. I looked at my answering machine with dislike. I flipped it to play while I ate my breakfast. So what if it was lunch, I was really hungry so probably I’d eat a proper lunch too.

 

The first call was from my mother. As was the second, and the third. The fourth was from my Grandma Mazure. Mooner and Dougie were arguing about leaving a message on the fifth. Lula was the sixth saying Connie was ill and she had control of the office and I needed to come in and pick up my check for DeChooch. Hmm, guess Ranger didn’t want it. Also there was a skip for me to pick up. Then there were a few calls from people soliciting different products and services. Then surprising there was a call from Joe.

 

“Hey Cupcake. Call me when you get this we need to talk.” Hmm, I don’t think so. There were a few other calls that I could ignore and then the tape ran out. I decided to call my mother. She was someone I couldn’t ignore for any period of time.

 

“Hey Mum, I can’t chat but I’ll come by for dinner ok?”

 

“Ok sweetie, we’re having pineapple upside down cake.” She knew now that I wouldn’t be changing my mind, she could hang up and be satisfied for the rest of the day. Until I actually got there anyway.

 

The first problem that day came when I couldn’t start the Harley. No gas. Guess this beast needed just as much as the Buick. I couldn’t ring Lula, and I didn’t want to ring either Joe or Ranger. No I was going to avoid that for as long as possible. I went back upstairs and called home. I connected with Val and asked her to pick me up. She was perky again today, annoyingly perky. I was in a shitty mood still and I didn’t need this shit. I got out of the Buick and figured that Val would just go back home. She followed me into Fiorello’s deli next to the office. I picked up lunch and headed inside.

 

“Hey girlfriend! And girlfriends sister!”

 

“Val.” I filled my mouth with canolli.

 

“That’s it. Here, Vinnie signed the check for you. He objected and Ranger raised an eyebrow. He stopped objecting.” Lula was grinning like the Cheshire cat. Content in her place. Val was listening and looking around with interest.

 

“Who’s Ranger?” Lula and I looked at each other.

 

Lula answered, “He’s not someone you need to know.”

 

“Well, I was thinking about bounty hunting again, it couldn’t hurt to know someone who knows what they’re doing.” What was I? Chopped liver? Well ok, so she had a point, but what happened to family togetherness and crap? Still, she could keep her perfectly manicured hands off. Mine.

 

“You don’t want to be a bounty hunter. You don’t even like to get dirty hands doing the dishes. What will you do when some old drunk throws trash at you?”

 

“Trash? You’ve actually had trash thrown at you?”

 

“Among other things.” Val was screwing her nose up at the thought of it when Vinnie’s door crashed open.

 

“Why aren’t you out chasing down Lionel Murphy already? You don’t have time to sit around all day! Go do some work!” Then almost as an after thought, “Hey Val, heard you were back, heard your husband left you for your babysitter.” And the door slammed shut again.

 

I saw Val’s face screw up to swallow the sudden pain of remembering her dirty, deceitful scum-sucking husband. Vinnie was scum. Men were scum. I sighed, can’t just get rid of her like this. I glanced through the file for Lionel Murphy. He’d been charged with DUI, driving without a licence and resisting arrest. The guy was 82 with cataracts and a bowel problem. Wonderful. “You want to come along and see what a day in the life of a bounty hunter is really like Val?”

 

She went from perky to full on excitement. I did a mental eye roll. She’d learn by the time the day was out. We said goodbye to Lula and climbed in the Buick. I got to drive because Val had already broke one nail today on the steering wheel and she didn’t want to risk another.

 

Chapter 2

 

Ten minutes we were parked a few houses down from Lionel Murphy’s house. Val was looking at me eagerly. I sighed and picked up the file. “Ok, heres the deal. We can’t buzz him cause he has a bowel problem. We cant gas him cause he’s 82, we’d look like idiots. We’re gonna have to bookend and cuff him.”

 

Assuming he didn’t come nicely of course. Usually I got the skips that were either too inebriated to know or simply forgot to go to court. And though I've had some reluctant skips, they were more the exception than the rule. Usually I had Lula tagging along. First we tried to bookend and cuff em, and if things weren’t going to plan, Lula buzzed em. I don’t like buzzing people. Now Ranger knew what to do. Ranger always knew what to do.

 

I read Murphy’s physical specifications. I had learned to do that after Randy Briggs had been such a shock. I read it all. It all seemed fine aside from the fact that Murphy was over 300 pounds. Closer to 400 pounds really. I sighed. I really couldn’t use my pepper spray or buzz him. A guy that size couldn’t be healthy, no wonder he had bowel problems. It was a wonder he wasn’t dead.

 

Val and I got out of the car and walked up to the door. I knocked hard and listened for footsteps. I could hear the TV blaring and the windows were open. I knocked again and looked through the window just to the right side of the door. I could smell something bad, like doodie bad. Val was leaning against the railing of the porch. I peered through the window on the left of the door. Lionel Murphy was lying flat on his face and from all appearance he was dead.

 

I opened the door and let my self in. I walked over to where Lionel Murphy was lying and there was the source of the doodie smell. I called out to Val, “Call 911.”

 

I checked for a pulse and heard a vomiting sound. I turned looking for Val, she was on the front lawn throwing up lunch and probably breakfast. I pulled out my cell phone and made the call. I sat on the porch waiting. There was nothing I could do, the body had been cold when I checked the pulse and on a day like today it was going to start smelling soon.

 

“Does it always smell so bad?” I looked at Val. She was still pale and had a faint sheen of sweat across her top lip and forehead.

 

“Nope, usually its worse. He didn’t smell so bad cause I’m guessing he only died this morning. Probably he’s only been lying there for a few hours. The only thing you smelt just now was doodie.” I looked back at the open door and turned back to Val. She was looking sicker than before, I decided to be nice and change the subject. “So I think I’ll get rid of the blonde. Go back to brown, or maybe I’ll do something totally different.”

 

Val looked at my hair. “What do you mean by different?”

 

“I’m thinking blue, green?”

 

“You could pull it off.” She looked pouty. “Do you think if I had done something like that that Steve wouldn’t have left me?”

 

I tried to look thoughtful. “I don’t know. Probably this isn’t something he’s gone into in a hurry. By the sounds of it he had this planned, knew what was happening. He had time to organise himself, take all the money.”

 

Val sighed. “You’re right. Bastard.”

 

We sat silently waiting for the police and ambulance to come. Ranger’s $98,000 black BMW 850 Ci rolled to a halt in front of the house. I stood up, “Be right back.”

 

Val shrugged her shoulder and looked with interest at Ranger’s BMW. I opened the passenger side door and was just about to climb in when I saw a banged up blue and white come around the corner. I shut the door and turned to Ranger, watching the cop car out of the corner of my eye. “Hey.”

 

“Heard you pulled this skip, thought you might want some help getting him into the car.”

 

“Why?” He grinned.

 

“He’s a fat old bastard, a drunk, but nice enough. He’d have come peacefully enough. Just you’d have a problem helping him move.” He rubbed my upper arm. “Sure, you look good but you don’t have much muscle.”

 

I flexed my arm under his hand and ran my hand up his arm. “I have muscle, just not as much as you. Or as nice.”

 

Ranger flexed his arms, grinning. He pulled me to him and said, “I don’t know. I like your muscles just fine.” And he kissed me. I moaned and leaned into him.

 

I pulled back with a jerk as someone rapped on the passenger window. I turned back to Ranger and saw he had his gun in his hand. I mentally rolled my eyes. “You can put that away. Its only Carl.”

 

Ranger scowled at me. “You’re too distracting. I never even noticed him coming at us.”

 

I restrained a laugh, my lips curling slightly. Like this was my fault. “You kissed me. I’ve gotta go. Talk to you later.”

 

I pulled away and was roughly pulled back. Ranger kissed me again, hard and fast, I was left gasping. “What happened to me being to distracting?”

 

“That hasn’t changed, I just figured that a cop was a good guard.” He grinned and started the car. I rolled my eyes and climbed out. I watched until he turned the corner and then turned my attention to Carl. He had a huge grin on his face.

 

“I heard the call come in over the radio. And you know what I thought? I though ‘I bet Stephanie Plum’s involved in this’.” He grinned. “Me and Big Dog we came down here right away. We’re kind of disappointed though. Only one dead guy, natural causes, no crashed cars, no nothing. Aside from your hot sister over their and you making out with Ranger.”

 

“I was not making out with Ranger! And my sister is not hot!” I was mad at him. I don’t cause things to happen, usually I’m just there. Carl held his hands up in supplication. Big Dog was laughing standing over near the ambulance that had arrived just a minute earlier while I was arguing with Costanza.

 

“Ok, ok. So just what were you doing with Ranger?” His grin was like the cat that ate the cream. He had the latest and hottest news. It was news that I didn’t want spread.

 

“Nothing Carl, he came to help me get Murphy into the car. I called before I found him.” Carl looked doubtful. “It’s true.”

 

He still didn’t look like he believed me. “So, you think my sisters hot?”

 

He flushed, “No.”

 

I grinned. “Well, you keep your mouth shut about what you think happened, I’ll keep my mouth closed about what you think about my sister. Deal?”

 

He sighed, “You’ve ruined my day. Deal.”

 

We parted ways and I left with Val who was sitting quietly next to me on the other side of the Buick half a mile away. “So Val, you still think you want to be a bounty hunter?”

 

“It wasn’t so bad now that I think of it. At least no one threw trash at me.” Hmm, it was true. I headed back to the office hoping to pick up a new skip. It would be a few days until the coroner’s office sent the body slip through to the police station and I needed to pay my rent. I already had a shopping trip planed for the money I got for bringing in DeChooch. Val and I swung through the door and she stopped dead in front of me. I ran right into her nearly knocking her to the floor while I stumbled to avoid falling over her. Hands quickly caught her and me, steadying her. Holding me. Ranger’s hands were hot against my waist, slipping under my shirt as if by accident. Hunh, fancy Ranger catching a cheap feel. A thrill skittered through my stomach.

 

Val was staring at Ranger, her mouth agape. I rolled my eyes and used my pointer finger to close her mouth. It dropped open again. I gave her a shove and she sat down on the couch still staring up at Ranger. Ranger looked at me, grinning. I stuck my tongue out at him and turned to Lula leaving Val to fend for herself.

 

“Anything come in this afternoon?”

 

“Sure I was gonna give this to Ranger, but you’ll do.” Ranger’s head snapped up.

 

“Who is it?”

 

“Norville Thompson.” Lula grinned. “Thought you might want to take Val along for the ride.”

 

Ranger relaxed. I hadn’t even noticed he had been tense. He raised an eyebrow at me. “You want me to ride along?”

 

I looked over at Val, somehow I didn’t think that she’d be concentrating on dodging foodstuffs. It seemed like a plan to me. I gave Ranger a huge smile with lots of teeth. “Sure, lets go now. You’re coming right Val? Val?”

 

Her gaze snapped to me and drifted back to Ranger. “Sure.”

 

Lula grinned as I signed the forms and collected the file. We three walked outside and my gaze shifted from the Buick to the BMW. I looked at Ranger in question as to whether we took the BMW or the Buick.

 

“We go in the Buick. I can’t exactly replace the Beemer if you get it dirty.” I smiled and looked back to Val who was looking at Rangers shoulders. I scowled at her. Mine. Ranger grinned and raised an eyebrow at me and I flushed and climbed behind the wheel. Ranger nudged me over into the passenger side and climbed behind the wheel. Val climbed in the back behind Ranger. I held the keys between my thumb and forefinger.

 

“You think you can handle this much power?” Ranger hadn’t stopped grinning since I had scowled at Val.

 

“Babe, I think I can handle anything you can.”

 

“Uh huh, that’s why you’re to scared to sit at the table and eat dinner with my family.”

 

“Not your family, just your grandma.”

 

I smiled. “I take after my Grandma you know? I’m going to be just like her when I grow up. If I grow up.”

 

Ranger smiled and started the Buick. We rolled away from the curb with a loud thunder of engine.

 

Chapter 3

 

Ranger jerked to a halt outside the apartment that Norville lived in. I knocked on the door to the super’s apartment and got a key from him with no fuss. We climbed out and started up the stairs. I turned to Val. “Again we can’t use pepper spray or buzz him.”

 

Val wasn’t listening, she was to busy trying to watch Rangers ass as he walked up the stairs ahead of us. I admit, it was a great ass, not as good as Joe’s but still drool worthy. I took another look at Val and gave up trying to tell her anything.

 

“Just remember to duck.” And more quietly I added, “And if he pulls his dick out jump out of the way, real fast.” I stayed between her and Ranger all the way up. I knocked on the door and we heard a ‘get fucked’ in response. I tried the door and it opened, so much for getting the key. I stepped in behind Ranger and Val came in and stood between us.

 

“Mr Norville Thompson? We represent your bondsman Vincent Plum. You’ve missed your court date, we’re here to take you down and get you rescheduled.”

 

Before I had finished Thompson had started to throw remains of what looked like a weeklong binge on beer and junk food. I narrowly dodged an empty can of beer and a soggy piece of old fish. Eww. Next to me, Val was standing shell shocked not moving as beer cans, fish and chips, lemon wedges, slices of pizza and similar objects hit her.

 

“Mr Thompson!” I yelled trying to keep his attention focused over this side of the room as Ranger snuck up behind him.

 

“Devils whore!”

 

I ignored it, last time had been embarrassing enough after Ranger told me he called everyone that. I was dodging a pizza box when I noticed he had ran out of ammunition on the table in front of him. He noticed it at the same time and went for his pants. He had it out as I yelled to Ranger. “NOW!”

 

Norville had his dick out peeing as he turned. A big wet line striped across Rangers pants. I launched myself at Thompson’s back. He fell flat on his face, his forehead bounced once. And he lay groaning. I pulled his hands behind his back and cuffed him. Ranger was swearing trying to wipe off the pee with a grotty old towel. I didn’t know what would be worse, actually touching that towel or having pee on me. The pee definitely. I heard a wail and turned to see Val staring in horror at her shoes that were covered in what I thought was fish. Old smelly fish.

 

Ranger was swearing, Val was wailing in horror and I was straddled on Norville Thompson’s bum, clean as I had been when I walked through the door. I had an awful urge to laugh but managed to suppress it. Not before Ranger saw my smile though. I straightened my mouth and looked very serious. For about 2 seconds. “Guess you forgot to get out of the way.”

 

My mouth quirked as Ranger frowned at me. That frown would have been intimidating if the situation hadn’t been so funny. I stood up and hooked an arm under one of Norville's shoulders. Ranger got the other. We pulled him up to standing and his pants fell down. I pulled them up and very, very carefully zipped him up. The care was for my sake, I didn’t want to touch him, Eww!

 

Val was swiping at her entire body at once. She was covered in food. I tried to cheer her up. “At least you didn’t get peed on. And at least you don't have to cut egg out of your hair.”

 

Her hands flew to her head, which had been fine until she had ran her dirty hands through it. Val looked like she was about to pass out. I gave her a gentle shove out the door and we all trudged down the stairs, Val whimpering in front, then Ranger and I guiding Norville between us. I dropped of the key to the super who was grinning at the sight of Val. We went outside and loaded Norville in the back. Ranger climbed in the other side behind him. Val got in the front, she was quiet and I think she had slipped in to shock. I was sure that this would have cured her of all thoughts of bounty hunting. If not, she was mad. If that had happened to me on my first day I would have quit on the spot.

 

I pulled into the police lot ten minutes later and Ranger and I unloaded Norville Thompson into the loving arms of the law. There were one or two jokes about dead people and me but nothing about Ranger and me so it was good. I didn’t run into Joe, but I hadn’t expected to. He worked in the other building. Now I just had to get out of the lot without seeing him. Ranger had moved the Buick from the non-parking zone while I was collecting my body receipt. I ran over and jumped in the back seat of the Buick since Ranger was still in the drivers seat. He started the car and we rolled out of the lot.

 

I sat back and relaxed my shoulders. I glanced in the rear vision mirror and noticed Ranger looking at me. “Where are we going?” We glanced at Val.

 

For some reason I didn’t think she was in a state to drive. I glanced at my watch, it was half past five. We’d just make dinner with enough time for Val to shower. “Take us the office. We’ve got to get to dinner at my parents.”

 

He raised an eyebrow at me. I asked, “What? Do you want to come with?”

 

Ranger shuddered and pulled to a stop in the small parking lot out the back of the office. He left the car running and we both got out at the same time. Ranger was looking around peering into shadows. The gun in his hand made me jumpy, I moved closer to him and he pulled me behind him putting me between the Buick and him. “I thought I heard something.”

 

Something moved in the corner of my vision. 4 things happened simultaneously. I put my hands in the waistband of Ranger’s pants and pulled him closer. Joe stepped out of the shadows, gun in hand. Ranger cocked his gun and arm up at Joe. They both swung their guns at the door that slammed open from the office.

 

Lula charged out and came to a dead stop, freezing. I reached around Ranger rubbing against him as I pulled his arm with the gun down. Joe put his gun down and stepped over to lean against the Buick. I stepped away from Ranger and Joe and went over to see Lula who was standing bouncing on the balls of her feet.

 

I pulled her out of earshot “What’s up?”

 

She turned to look at Ranger and Joe leaning against the Buick looking at us. Well, looking at me. “What’s going on here?”

 

“I dunno, we just pulled up to drop Ranger off after taking Thompson in. Joe came out of the shadows.”

 

“What about the guns?”

 

“They were out before Joe came out of the shadow. Ranger’s spider sense was tingling I guess.”

 

Lula straightened up. “Hunh, well I came out to warn you that Joe was here. Didn’t think you’d take to kindly to his being here.”

 

She was right. I didn’t take to kindly to him being here. Me interrupting him at work was one thing, him doing it to me was another. “So what are you doing tonight? Want to do something with me?”

 

Lula looked at me. “I was going to do my hair. I was thinking red. Fire engine red.”

 

“That would be perfect. Meet me at the mall at say 7.30ish. You can do my hair too.”

 

“Fuckin A.” Lula left after having another good look at Joe and Ranger leaning against the Buick. Guns away now. I sighed at the visual assault that was Joe and Ranger standing side by side. So nice. So not wanted at the moment. I strode purposefully over to the other side of the car and climbed in to the driver seat from the back. Ranger and Joe had stood back watching. Joe with a scowl, Ranger with no expression except his eyes were smiling. I wound down the window.

 

“I’ll see you both later.” I started the Buick and Joe stuck his head in the window.

 

“Not yet cupcake. We have to talk.”

 

“Look at Val, I have to take her home, we’re expected for dinner.”

 

“After dinner then.”

 

“I’ve got plans with Lula.”

 

“After that?”

 

I sighed. I wouldn’t be getting away easy here. May as well get something worthwhile out of it. “Lunch tomorrow then. Pinos at 12.”

 

He nodded and pulled his head out of the window. Ranger nodded and went through the office, presumably to his BMW. I left as fast as the Buick would allow. I pulled up in front of my parent’s house. Grandma and our mother were standing on the porch waiting for us. I undid Valerie’s seatbelt and came around to the other side to open the door. She climbed out and barrelled inside and I presumed to the shower. I walked in behind my mother and Grandma. Dad was sitting on his chair in front of the TV. Grandma followed Val I suspected she wanted to get the low-down on the day’s events first hand. I followed mum back to the kitchen where she was putting the finishing touches on the vegetables.

 

“I have an announcement.” I announced. Mum turned with her hand over her heart.

 

“You found a lump! Oh dear god, why? Why me?” My other would try the patience of a saint sometimes.

 

“No mum, I don’t have any lumps, I’m not sick, I’m not pregnant nor am I engaged to get married.” We’ve been though this before, she should know by now just to wait until I’m done before she jumps to conclusions. “It’s about Valerie.”

 

“Valerie has a lump! Oh dear god! What have I done to deserve this? Why me?”

 

“No mum, Val doesn’t have a lump.” As far as I knew anyway. “She had been thinking of being a bounty hunter…”

 

My mother interrupted. “No way, absolutely not! Isn’t one of you enough? Isn’t it bad enough that she goes to California and comes back a lesbian? Oh god what have I done? Why do you hate me so much?”

 

“Mum! Let me finish! As I was saying, she had been thinking about it, but I took her with me today and I’m sure that she’s changed her mind.” Having rotten old fish mess up shoes like that would make me change my mind. “I’m sure she’d never going to entertain such thoughts again.”

 

My mother smiled at me like I was Christ just raised, like I was the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and whispered. “Just for that you get extra left overs. You can have extra cake for this.”

 

I sat down to eat happy. My mum sure knows how to butter me up. As we ate diner I listened to Grandma prattle on and Val talking to her kids about table manners. I thought the day had turned out ok, it hadn’t started great with the Bike not starting. I made a mental note to pick up some gas on the way home. We finished dinner and Val’s kids washed up. I took the Buick to meet Lula at the mall. We met at the main doorway and after picking up some hair dye we were on the way back to my apartment to play.

 

Chapter 4

 

Lula had just finished wrapping my coloured bits of hair in plastic wrap. Her head was already wrapped up. We sat down with bowls of ice cream and the movie ‘Pitch Black’ in the VCR. I’d seen this movie and Lula owned it. We turned the sound down and talked as we watched Vin Diesel show that beautiful body of his off. Lula turned to me.

 

“So why blue?”

 

I shrugged my shoulders. “I dunno. I figured do it now while I was blonde already. Probably I’ll go back to brown again soon.”

 

“Uh huh.” She ate a few mouth fulls of ice cream and we watched a bit more of Vin Diesel. “God that man is hot. Reminds me of another hottie.”

 

I knew she meant Ranger and didn’t pretend other wise. “I’ve gotta meet Joe tomorrow. You wanna come with?”

 

I figured if I had Lula along for moral support I wouldn’t get talked into doing anything I didn’t want to do. She looked at me like I had warts on my face.

 

“No? I didn’t think so, but it never hurts to ask.”

 

“So what going on with you and Ranger?” It was a serious question when she didn’t call him Batman.

 

“He made me a deal. He helped me take in DeChooch if I spend the night with him.”

 

“He’s making you pay him with sex!” Lula sounded outraged.

 

“No, I could have taken DeChooch in if I wanted to. I didn’t have to call him.” I smiled. “There were alternatives.”

 

Lula was grinning with me. “Uh huh, none as nice as that one though.”

 

“I’m having dilemmas though.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Well say it’s so good that I can never be satisfied again with another man? Or what if I’m not good enough, or worse he’s not good enough? What would I fantasise about then?”

 

Lula looked at me. “You once told me that you had an orgasm on the Harley, so that whole never being satisfied you don’t have to worry about. And it’s just not possible for a man to think a woman ain't measuring up. He’s a man, he’ll come and it will be good. Every time. So you don’t have to worry about measuring up. And let me tell you, there’s no way in hell that he’s not gonna measure up. And hell, fantasies are a dime a dozen. I can give you some of mine if you want.”

 

Lula had been a ‘ho in a former life. I didn’t want to know any of her fantasies, Lula had seen way to many things to have nice fantasies. “I’ll be right. Probably I’ll get over it soon enough.” As soon as I get my orgasm and it all goes to hell.

 

We turned back to the video, Vin was running though the canyon. We sighed. So nice. The video ended and we picked up our bowls and took them into the kitchen. We were rinsing them when I heard the lock of my door click open. I pulled my gun out of the cookie jar. Lula looked at me as if to say ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ The gun wasn’t loaded, but hey, just looking at someone holding a gun to you is scary. I stepped out of the kitchen to see Morelli standing in the doorway looking around. He smiled when he saw the gun, he smiled even wider when he saw my hair wrapped in plastic. The smile disappeared when Lula walked around me and sat back on the chair, looking eagerly at us from one to the other.

 

“What do you want Morelli?”

 

“I wanted to see you.”

 

“I told you I’d see you tomorrow.”

 

“Yeah well, I wanted to see you tonight.”

 

I went over to the door and opened it. “Tomorrow Joe. Goodbye.”

 

He stood looking at me I opened the door wider and made an, ‘out’ gesture. He walked to me and stoped. He placed his hand on my face and rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip and whispered in my ear, “Tomorrow Cupcake.”

 

And he left. Lula released a breath. “Wow girl. You’re lucky I’m here. Probably if I wasn’t you’d be in bed by now.”

 

I could feel that my nipples were tight. She was right. I was pissed off at Morelli, but not pissed off enough to say no to a Morelli induced orgasm. Damn, I was hoping that calling off the engagement would have put a stop to this. I shrugged and Lula headed into the bathroom. She came back out, hair wet, but it was enough for me to realise her hair was going to be as bright as a fire engine. “So what do you think? Should I go afro with this?”

 

I thought about it. “No, I’ve done the Ronald McDonald thing. You don’t want to go there.”

 

“Hmm, you’re right. What about cornrows? Or braids?”

 

“Braids.” I shuddered at the thought of Lula’s hair plastered to her head in cornrows. “Can you do them yourself?”

 

“Sure most of them anyways. If you can just help me section the hair I’ll be fine.”

 

“Ok.” We sectioned Lula’s hair and I went to rinse the dye out of my hair. I looked in the mirror. It was fantastic. A brilliant blue framed my face, the rest of it was blonde. I blow-dried it into big curls, and artfully styled it to look messy. I went back out to find Lula braiding her hair using a mirror from my bedroom. My smile was huge, hers enlarged as she watched me. 5 minutes after stepping out of the bathroom we were giggling. Another 2 minutes we were laughing. Slowly we settled down. I helped Lula braid the rest of her hair. She left at about 1030ish. I sat back on the lounge staring at the phone. I was longing to call Ranger, but I was determined not to.

 

I stripped off and crawled into bed. At precisely 11:19 pm I caved and picked up the phone. “Yo?”

 

Rangers voice was low and husky. I realised that I had woken him up. I didn’t think he ever slept being a superhero and all. I imagined him lying in a huge bed, naked with the sheets wrapped around his legs. Black silk. I imagined him sitting up and smiling at me. Holding a hand out to me to pull me into bed.

 

“Hello?” His voice wasn’t so husky now.

 

“Hey.” Unfortunately mine was. I could hear him smiling.

 

“Hey Babe, you just interrupted a really good dream. What can I do for you?”

 

“What was the dream about?”

 

He chuckled. “Don’t think you want to know Babe, you want to sleep tonight don’t you?”

 

“Hmm, well not to sure. I don’t mind staying awake as long as I have something to think about.” I’m willing to stay awake to think of you. And besides I want to be tired out so I wouldn’t have the energy to put up with Morelli’s shit tomorrow.

 

“What can I do for you?”

 

“You running in the morning?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“Can I come? I need some exercise.”

 

“You want me to come over now and give you a work out? Just so you’re tired enough to go to sleep?”

 

I actually thought about it so very tempted to say yes. My hormones were screaming yes, my mind was screaming yes, but my heart was thinking about seeing Joe tomorrow and though Ranger and I would happen eventually, I didn’t want to have to see Morelli a few hours later. So what if he was a prick and I was mad at him, I didn’t want to hurt him.

 

“Babe?”  Ranger was sounding very awake. I sighed.

 

“Not this time. What time are you running?”

 

“6. That alright?”

 

“Sure.” I said and hung up.

 

I stopped and thought about it. Last time I had hung up on him he had turned up in my apartment. A big grin spread its way across my face. I wasn’t particularly tired and I couldn’t sleep anyway so I got back up out of bed and wondered into the kitchen. I had pulled on a pair of boxers and a tight tank top with spaghetti straps. I turned on my oven and pulled some cookie dough out of the fridge. I greased up a cookie tray and cut up some cookies. I placed them on the tray and shoved them into the oven. I looked around to see what I could do next while waiting for the cookies to cook. I checked the time and then realised I didn’t know how long it takes for them to cook. Usually I just ate the dough. I cleaned out Rex’s cage and gave him some fresh pine shavings.

 

I let Rex climb over me for a while and eventually put him back in his home. “There you go my man.” And I dumped a grape and a bit of carrot into his feed dish. I thought about Bob and decided that as much as I missed him he was better of with Joe who had a yard. I went into the kitchen and checked my cookies. Not ready yet. I picked up some cleaning gear and went into the bathroom and tackled the mess left by Lula and me. That done I went back to the kitchen to check my cookies. I guessed five minutes more and turned to sit down to wait.

 

I ran smack into Ranger. “Fuck! What are you doing here?”

 

“You weren’t expecting me?”

 

“No.” Yes.

 

Ranger smiled. “So I told you before. Don’t ever hang up on me. Why don’t you ever listen?”

 

“I do listen. But if you get to hang up on me why shouldn’t I get to hang up on you?”

 

“I only hang up when the conversation has finished.”

 

I snorted. Right. I turned back to the oven, wanting the cookies now. If I could eat the dough I could eat the cookies not fully cooked. I used a tea towel to hold the pan and I sat it on the stovetop. I used an egg flip and put the cookies onto a plate. I sat the plate on the table and got a glass of milk. “You want some?”

 

“No, I’ll have some coffee.” I fixed the percolator and let Ranger fix it himself. I ate a cookie and I decided I was a good cook. I ate another and another waiting for Ranger to sit at the table. He sat and snagged cookie. He took a bite and raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t think you knew how to cook.”

 

I narrowed my eyes. “I can cook.”

 

Ranger finished his cookie. “Apparently, does this have cinnamon?”

 

“I don’t know, it came from a tube.” Ranger laughed

 

“What?” He was shaking his head.

 

“Never mind.” He stood up and rinsed his cup in the sink. I stood up and wrapped the cookie plate in plastic wrap that had dye all over it and suddenly I realised that Ranger hadn’t said a thing about my hair. What kind of a man could see a woman and know they’ve changed their hair and not say a word? I turned and glared at Ranger. He turned and a small grin pulled at his mouth, his eyes were dark and his breathing deep. The kitchen was feeling small and I thought back to a time when we were talking about pure minds and bodies. Since then when I thought of Ranger my mind was never pure.

 

Our eyes met and held. Damn I wanted him. He reached for me and I stepped to him. His hands circled my waist and held me hard against him. My hands ran up his arms and circled his shoulders. I realised this was the first time I had had my arms around him and it felt good. Great even. I pulled his head to mine and I initiated the kiss. Another first. The kiss was hard and demanding. Ranger pulled his lips away and ran them across my jaw and down my neck. He bit at the side of my neck and I angled my head to give him better access. He pulled away just long enough to whisper into my ear, “I like the hair babe.”

 

I dug my fingers into his shoulders and shivered. He pulled me tighter and came back to my lips for another drugging kiss. He pushed me against the bench, pushing his body into mine. I used my arms to lever myself up onto the bench and then wrapped my legs around his hips pulling him closer. He ground himself into me and I groaned. Ranger pulled his head away. “So you weren’t expecting me?”

 

I grinned and took to his neck, he arched his head. I pulled away, “Lula and I talked about stuff tonight. I figured some stuff out. I wasn’t going to call you, but I caved.” I grinned up at him.

 

“I’m a hard man to resist. And you haven’t even seen me in my leathers.” He picked me up. “So you’ve decided to hit the ball back?”

 

I curled into his neck, “Yep.”

 

He was standing there just holding me, I knew he was strong but this was surprising. “What do you want? Now?”

 

I pulled back and looked into his eyes. “You in my bed. Now.”

 

He carried me into my bedroom and we fell onto the bed. “So tomorrow you want me to wake you to run?”

 

“Well that depends.”

 

“On what?”

 

“On how long you keep me awake tonight.”

 

He shoved his head between my breasts and then grinned up at me. “I might just keep you up all night.”

 

I grinned back. “That’s fine, but I want to be able to walk tomorrow.”

 

Ranger laughed. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try my best.”

 

Chapter 5

 

I woke to the sound of the phone ringing. I felt across the bed, no Ranger. I checked the clock, 11:43. Considering that when I had gotten to sleep the sun had been up, I didn’t think it was too late to be in bed still. I let the machine get the call. It was Connie.

 

“Steph, you wanna come in today? We got a couple of skips for you. Nuthin to bad. An armed robber, a few drunks.” There was some rustling of paper and a muttered word, Lula yelling something in the background. “By the way, Lula says she wants a full report on lunch. And pick up some chicken on your way to the office.”

 

She hung up and there was a beep from the machine telling me that the tape was about to run out. Lunch with Morelli wasn’t something I was looking forward to. I stretched and winced, walking for the first half of the day was going to be uncomfortable. I glanced at the clock again. 11:45. I sighed, wanting to go back to sleep but nature was screaming. I threw the covers off and suddenly the time registered. Shit! I had 15 minutes to get dressed and to Pino’s.

 

I flicked the answering machine on running around, drinking coffee, doing the bathroom things, and pulling on a pair of jeans and shirt. I mostly ignored the machine until I registered Joe’s voice.

 

“… so I cant meet you for lunch. I’ll call you when I get back.” There was a pause. “I’ll miss you.” And the machine ran on. I slumped in a chair staring at the wall. I had a feeling he had only said that to make me feel guilty. Not that I had a reason to. Maybe he would miss me, I doubted it, when he was on a job it was all job no play. For Morelli, I was play. I wondered what he had done with Bob. I missed Bob.

 

Well damn. I thought briefly about going back to bed and immediately forgot about it. I’d go pick up the files for these skips, do a bit of reconnaissance and then go to Macy’s. I smiled I was actually using the right lingo, reconnaissance. Maybe I was more of a professional than I had though. Nope. That was more than likely just Ranger’s influence. I grinned as I headed out the door. I liked Ranger’s influence, especially when his influences on me felt so damn good. I walked over to the Harley and turned the ignition. Damn! I had forgotten to get some gas for the Harley.

 

I shrugged and took it in stride. Nothing was going to dim this glow I had going today. Great sex with Ranger last night, no Morelli to see today. I settled my bag on my shoulder and started to walk to the office. Maybe walking would help loosen up my muscles. It wasn’t to far to walk and I figured that Lula could drive me for gas and drop me off. I was strolling along Hamilton, when I heard the sound of sirens approaching. I smiled, happy knowing that this time I had nothing to do with it. I stepped of the curb and checked to see if there were any oncoming cars. Nope. I took a few steps and suddenly there was a red Trans-Am barrelling right for me.

 

My mouth dropped. What the fuck? I dove for the footpath, feeling the cement taking skin off me all over the place. I heard a bang and the crumpling sound metal makes when it hits something at high speed. I turned to see the Trans-Am wrapped around a telegraph pole. I watched as Carl Costanza and Big Dog pulled the driver from the car. They threw him over the hood and cuffed him. Brian Simon came over and picked me up. The officers were gathered round a car to the edge of the accident. We joined them and suddenly there was a loud bang and a flash of heat. I turned to see the trans-am on fire.

 

Everyone, arrested driver included turned to look at me. “Fuck you!”

 

My good mood was shot. I was bleeding, dirty, I had ripped my jeans, and I was tired and achy. I glared at each and every officer there. I pointed at Simon. “You can drop me off at my office.”

 

He grimaced and nodded. We climbed into his blue and white. Immediately he started to annoy the shit out of me. “Why’d you have to go and break up with Morelli? He came round in the middle of the night and dumped Bob back on me!”

 

“You’ve got Bob?”

 

“Yes. You want him back?”

 

I thought about it seriously. Much as I loved Bob, I couldn’t keep him in my apartment. “No.”

 

We pulled up to the office. “You wait here.”

 

He sighed but turned the engine off. I stepped in the door and immediately wished I had gone home. Ranger was leaning over the desk, presumably signing a form for a skip. I sighed, how much worse could this day get?

 

Ranger turned, Lula looked up from staring at Ranger’s ass and Connie looked up from the computer screen.

 

“Damn girl! Did you hurt the Harley?” Lula.

 

“No.” I was temped to stomp my foot.

 

“Who’s car did ya blow up then? Joe’s?” Connie.

 

“No!” I mentally threw myself to the floor, arms waving and feet kicking.

 

Ranger just smiled. “Why did you even bother getting up?”

 

I growled and he held up his hands, trying hard to make the smirk disappear. “Connie can I have those files?”

 

“Sure, and the check for Murphy’s here to.”

 

I signed the proper forms and slammed the door behind me, before Lula could ask me about my non-existent lunch with Morelli. I looked to see Simon’s blue and white turn the corner. This time I did stamp my foot. I heard Ranger chuckle low in his throat. I shivered remembering just how it felt to be lying on his chest when he did that. My eye twitched. Whoa, that was a new one, guess I was a little stressed.

 

“You need a ride babe?”

 

I sighed. “Sure, can we stop at a garage? I need some gas for the Harley.”

 

He nodded and slipped a pair of shades over his eyes. Hiding them, unfortunately his mouth was still quirking at the corners. I climbed into the passenger seat of Rangers bronco. He turned and started to head down Hamilton towards where the accident had happened. “Umm, you might want to detour around…”

 

He raised an eyebrow and his mouth went back to twitching, but he turned the corner. He pulled into my lot not long after we left. I was really starting to hurt and all I wanted was a shower. Ranger dropped me at the door. “You alright?”

 

If he wasn’t smiling I might have burst into tears. I nodded and headed up to my apartment, Ranger was gone before I was in the elevator. Mrs Bessler was playing attendant.

 

“What floor?”

 

“Second.”

 

“Second floor, ladies garments, animal and motor accessories.”

 

I stepped off a minute later and said goodbye. I unlocked the door and saw Bob sitting in front of the TV, watching ESPN, chewing on a rawhide thing that you can get for dogs. I dumped my bag, gas can and files and I thought about sitting down next to Bob for a hug but decided that if I did it wasn’t likely that I would get up again. Instead I leant down and gave him a scratch between the ears. His back leg started to twitch and he kicked me. I found a note on the table with Bob’s food and pooper-scooper. Apparently that shit Simon had called Joe Juniak to pick up Bob and drop him off. Damn, cops breaking and entering… I really needed to get an alarm and a few more locks. I stood up and went to shower. I washed, conditioned and didn’t get out until the hot water run out.

 

I stepped out and wrapped a towel around my head and around my body. It was a small towel and threads were falling off it. I decided to do a domestic shop and buy some new towels and sheets later. Oh yeah, and a new lock and alarm, something spiffy. I stepped out and found Ranger on the couch, a Pino’s pizza on the coffee table Bob lying at his feet. Both had their eyes on the TV watching CNBC. Ugh boring. Ranger turned and frowned.

 

“I was going to ask if you felt better now, but you’re really quite colourful.” He was right. I was covered in scratches, scrapes and bruises. All I could think of was the pizza. I would be fine if I could just get some of it in me. I moved into my bedroom and dropped the towel to pull on some clothes. I froze when I felt Ranger behind me. When I didn’t unfreeze after he touched me in a few spots he stopped. “Well babe?”

 

“Truthfully, I think the only thing I could handle right now is that pizza.” I turned and gave him a quick kiss, paused and went back for a longer one. “Maybe later.” Or tomorrow.

 

His eyes were dark and shining. “I’ll hold you to that.” And he turned and left the room. I pulled on shorts and a tank top and went back out to eat pizza. Since Ranger was still here I grabbed some milk instead of a beer. It wouldn’t do to have him know I drink in the middle of the day. Not that it happened often. I thought about it and decided that with my day so far, probably it wouldn’t seem so bad. Probably it would be a good idea to fortify myself. I didn’t think Ranger was going to leave without a little nookie. In fact I think I’d be disappointed if he did. “What do you want to drink?”

 

“I grabbed some juice. It’s in the fridge.” I opened the door. Hunh, so it was. I grabbed it, a beer and some napkins. I sat next to Ranger and opened the lid of the pizza box. I wasn’t too disappointed. It was what I normally ordered, but there was no extra cheese. What kind of person can eat pizza without extra cheese? I looked at Ranger. That kind of person, and those with calcium deficiency I added. And those who’re allergic to cultures.

 

I stopped there before I got depressed for all the suffering people out there. I grabbed a slice and the remote from the arm of the couch on the other side of Ranger by leaning across his back when he leant forward to grab a slice of pizza. I flicked though the channels. Ranger watched, I'm sure, waiting for me to ask him about eating the pizza. I didn’t but I nearly drooled when he took his first bite. I settled on Scooby Doo. Ranger rolled his eyes.

 

I narrowed me eyes. “What?”

 

“Don’t you think you’re a bit old for cartoons?”

 

I shook my head, waiting until I finished the bite I had just taken. “Nope, you’re never too old to watch cartoons.”

 

He shook his head, “That’s what Lester says.”

 

I nodded. “Lester’s a smart guy.”

 

“Lester’s a smart ass.”

 

I nodded again. It was true, the few times I had met Lester, and he had shown smart-ass tendencies. Scooby Doo finished, we were done with the pizza, I had finished my beer and Ranger had finished his juice. I flicked to find the Simpson’s on another channel. Ranger shook his head and went to grab the remote. I pulled it to the othersider of me and we ended up on the floor. Somehow, between the couch and the floor I had gotten the remote tucked into my shorts. I was on my back, Ranger on top of me and by some freaky coincidence the channels were flicking on the TV.

 

Ranger watched the TV as it flicked through channels. He grinned and lifted me a little. The flicking stoped. He let me down and it flicked a few times. He repeated it a few times until the channels stopped on a black and white movie. He smiled and held me still. “This will do fine.”

 

He held me still and watched the TV. Now this wasn’t right. Here I was lying under him, panting, chest heaving, in skin-tight clothes… wasn’t he supposed to be ripping my clothes off by now? I was tipsy, its true, but I didn’t think I was so drunk as to be delusional as to what state I was in, what state he was in. I could feel his erection pressing against me. I watched as his mouth curled at the ends. So this was his game. I turned to watch the TV with him. He looked at me as I watched the TV, watching him out of the corner of my eye. I faked a yawn, deciding it was time to get this show on the road.

 

He stood up and picked me up. He put me over his shoulder, bum in the air. Normally this would have really gotten to me, but I wanted an orgasm and I was half drunk. I wasn’t going to let him out of my apartment until I got my orgasm.

 

Chapter 6

 

I woke up to Bob lying on my chest licking my face. He had really bad breath. I pushed his head away and struggled out of bed. Naked again, sore again, no Ranger again. I moved slowly, what I needed was a spa, or a massage or both. Yeah, both sounded good. The clock said 3.57. I could still make Macys with plenty of time to do a good shop. I thought about calling Mary Lou or Lula. I decided not to. Mary Lou would be needed for dinner and Lula had been here last night. I quickly showered wetting down the shocking mess of dried hair that I hadn’t brushed and fixed it when I dried off. I dropped Bob, treats and equipment off with Dillan.

 

30 minutes later I had gassed up the Harley, put away the gas tank, locked up my apartment and was heading to Macys. I pulled up close to the doors, in a small space reserved for bikes. I loved these little places where nothing would fit aside from a bike. I walked in like I owned the place. Probably I had spent enough there that I could own shares. I looked carefully at what was available… I grabbed 4 new towels, in various colours, some new linen in various colours. I payed and left Macy’s, making tracks to Radio Shack. I talked for a while to the attendant guy and ended up getting something perfect for me.

 

It could be either turned off by remote or by code. The good thing was you could change the code as often as you liked. It was simple to install and cheap. I brought it and headed home. I stopped off and picked up some grapes for Rex and 2 six packs, one for me and one for the super super Dillan. I stopped by Dillan's and he said he’d be up in a little bit, bringing Bob with him. I hauled all of my stuff to the elevator and waited for it. I got on and got off on my floor. I dumped everything on the floor to search my pockets for my keys. I unlocked the door and kicked everything though it. I was just closing the door when it was held open. I was pushed against a wall and kissed. I struggled for a minute and when it sunk in that it was Ranger I melted against him and kissed him back. There was a knock on the door. I didn’t know whether to sigh in relief or resignation. I decided to run it down the middle and just ignore it all.

 

Ranger opened the door after peeking though the spy hole. Dillan stood waiting, watching me, seemingly not giving a damn about the look that Ranger was giving him. If he had looked like that at me I’d have been shaking. “Hey Steph, you want me to do this now?”

 

“Sure.” I pulled Bob’s head out of the bags and searched for the alarm. “You want a beer while you work?”

 

“Sure.” I gave him a beer and the package. Ranger sat on the couch, watching Dillan and me at the same time. I fed Bob and Rex. Making smoochy noises at Rex while Bob was engrossed in his food. I know I wasn’t meant to play favourites with my kids, but well, Rex was my eldest. All parents feel different about the eldest, at least in my family they did. I puttered around avoiding Ranger while Dillan was still here.

 

Dillan finished up and we had a quick lesson on the alarm. Seemed simple, if not Dillan always lived downstairs. I clipped the remote lock to my keys. Now I just had to remember to arm it. I handed Dillan the unopened 6pack. And he left after giving Ranger a look. Whoa, I quickly closed the door and leaned back against it looking at Ranger. He stood up and came over and leaned me into the door. “You want to go out to dinner?”

 

I thought about it. Was this a date or was this just us, eating out like we had a few times before. I must have taken too long for an answer because Ranger pulled away. “You don’t want to go out?”

 

“Well, it’s just…” I didn’t want to say it but Ranger just waited and I caved. Again. “Is this just us, you know, like normal? Or is this, like a date?”

 

“Both.”

 

What? That makes no sense at all. Ranger was such a guy, didn’t he know that these things had to be clearly delineated. “What?”

 

“Makes no difference. It us.” I watched him for a bit and gave up. Whatever, I was hungry.

 

“Lets go then.” I had on jeans and a decent top. I didn’t have the energy to get dressed up. If it had been a date I’d have made an effort. We left, I locked up hitting the alarm and waited for the little light on the remote to flash it did and I smiled. I liked my new toy. We both went down the stairs, Ranger dragging me behind him by the hand. He let go half way down. I dropped Bob off with Dillan and we climbed into the bronco and left.

 

We got back home maybe an hour later. Ranger parked, I got Bob and we both went upstairs. I wasn’t sure if it was bugging me that he just assumed I would let him in, or if it was turning me on thinking about what he was possibly thinking. I hit the alarm and unlocked the door. We stepped in and Bob jumped on the couch. Ranger gave me the wolf grin. “Guess we’ll just have to go to bed.”

 

I did bathroom stuff and came out to find Ranger with a duffle. He shrugged his shoulders at my look and I grinned. He went in and did whatever it was that he did in a bathroom. I stripped off and climbed into bed. I was asleep before Ranger even came out of the bathroom.

 

Chapter 7

 

It was 3am when Rangers cell phone woke us. Ranger answered on the second ring.

 

“Yo.” His voice was husky, roughened by sleep. I shuddered, remembering my daydream when I had last heard him like this, knowing the reality was sooo much better. My back arched against his front. His hand found my breast and squeezed then slid lower. He pressed against that spot. I moved against his hand, trying mot to make a sound. “Ok.”

 

Ranger snapped the phone closed and pulled away. He got out of bed and pulled on his clothes. “I gotta run.” He said and gave me a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll call you.”

 

And he left and I slipped into shock. What the hell had happened here just now? One minute I’m on my way to an orgasm, next Ranger had gone! I could finish it for myself but I didn’t want to do that, I wanted Ranger to finish it! I kicked at the covers and tossed and turned for a while. An hour later I decided to get up. I grabbed my doona and set the alarm after him. I grabbed my files and curled up on the couch. I flicked on MTV and turned it up a little. Not like any of the neighbours were going to hear it.

 

I flicked though the files. James Smith, arrested for armed robbery. He was 19, tall and scrawny. He had shot a 7/11 clerk with an air riffle. Silly bastard. Then there was Max Smart, DUI, 30 and big. Big as in fat. Next was Sam Smart, DUI, 33 and big. Big as in Fat. I compared files, both had been arrested on the same day, approximately within an hour of each other. In the same car. As far as I could see, Max had been booked, then about an hour later Sam had been booked. The arresting officer had been Pickens. He had a reputation as being an absolute idiot. Even Morelli admitted he was an idiot.

 

Sam Spade was next. I had a little giggle over this guys name, I can just imagine the hell he had gone though as a kid. He had been arrested for arson. Oh no! Connie hadn’t said anything about this! Had I known I wouldn’t have taken the damn file. I thought back to the phone call… nope she had definitely not said anything about it. Then I remembered the mumbled word, I had thought she had been talking to Lula, but no. This way she could claim she had told me and could blame my hearing. Sneaky little shit.

 

I started to read the rest of the file. Height and weight. He was 6’10” and 150pounds. Sounded ok. Age. 16. What! I reread it just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. He was 16! I guess he wouldn’t have caught hell about his name cause kids his age knew nothing about classic cinema. It was very rare that a bounty hunter ever saw a skip this young. They were released into their parents care, and usually the parents were pretty pedantic about getting their babies to court on time.

 

I threw the files on the coffee table and sunk into the couch. I pulled my doona over me and tuned into the TV. I fell asleep feeling bitchy about Jennifer Lopez. She was gorgeous. She could dance, sing and act. I hated her.

 

I woke to the sound of my alarm. I sat up and looked briefly at the safety chain being worked off. I jumped up and dashed into the kitchen and got my gun. I stood in the doorway and pointed it at the door. Joe walked in and frowned at me. Then he frowned at the alarm. I used the remote to turn the beeping alarm off.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

“What’s with the alarm?” What’s with the Ranger like evasion of my question?

 

“You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

 

“It’ll be a good idea when you tell me the code.” Right, I’d tell him and then change it.

 

“Why should I?”

 

“Do you have a reason not to?”

 

“To many to list.” Ranger was at the top of that list. Not that he needed to know it. I really didn’t want Joe walking in at an inopportune time.

 

“Does Ranger know the code?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So why tell him and not me?”

 

“He was here when Dillan programmed it in.” No need to let him know that I had told him that I planned on changing it regularly. “So what are you doing here? It’s…” I looked at the video clock. “5am.”

 

“I just finished up a surveillance shift, was driving by and saw the lights on. Thought you might be in trouble, thought I’d come to check.” How was I supposed to stay mad at him when he’s being so sweet?

 

“I’m fine as you can see. You can go now.” We were faced off across the space between the couch and the coffee table, me holding my gun, Joe with his hand on his hip holster. I turned and out my gun back in the cookie jar. Joe relaxed and slumped into a chair. “What are you doing? Go home already.”

 

“I’m tired cupcake. I shouldn’t drive when I’m this tired.” It was a crock of shit and we both knew it.

 

I opened the door and Joe slowly stood up. He came over to me. I stood my ground knowing that if I stepped back it would be an unvoiced admittance of guilt or worse, defeat. Joe leaned in. “Have I told you yet that I’m sorry?”

 

“No.”

 

“Well I am.” He whispered against my lips. And slowly, so very slowly, he kissed me. He grabbed my head so I couldn’t pull away and pushed his tongue into my mouth. I jerked away, not getting anywhere. He gentled the kiss and as soon as I got into it he pulled away. “Later Steph.”

 

And he left. I slammed the door and slumped against it. Damn him. He had got me. I set the alarm and dragged my doona and me back to bed. I fell asleep and the next time I woke up it was around 1030am.

 

Chapter 8

 

I was lying in bed thinking about getting up. I had my pyjamas, the doona and sheets a mess tangled around me. I kicked everything off, stripped off and pulled the doona back up over me. I was thinking about getting up and chasing some skips. I was also thinking about Joe. And Ranger. I didn’t like the fact that I was carrying on with 2 men. It could have been worse I thought. I only had one in my bed at the moment. If things went how they looked to be going they would both be in there. I don’t know how Ranger would feel about that situation, but I knew how I would feel about it and I had a good idea as to how Joe would feel. Joe had a jealous streak. I had a guilty streak and as it was, I was thinking Ranger didn’t have a moralistic bone in his body.

 

Ranger had been prepared to sleep with me when I was engaged to Morelli. Ranger had actively pursued me when I engaged to Morelli. Maybe it was because I had been engaged that he decided to increase pressure on me. And that’s what it had been in the beginning, pressure. He had a theory about applying pressure in the right places would break things down, you would start to get results. He was right. Now I was sleeping with him and I had absolutely no fucking idea as to anything more than that.

 

Now as far as I knew, Joe didn’t know about me sleeping with Ranger. I had a feeling that if he knew, I’d know he knew. Joe was vocal, it came with being an Italian man from the Burg. I didn’t think he’d be willing to share with Ranger. As it was now, Joe didn’t like me anywhere near Ranger.

 

Now me, I had the Catholic guilt thing happening. It had been bad enough when I was with Joe. It was starting to feel a little constrictive. The funny thing was though that it didn’t worry me in the least when I was with Ranger. All I could think of then was him and getting him naked. I sighed a big gusty sigh. While Ranger always looked good, a naked Ranger was better. A naked Ranger was close to heaven. The guilt kicked in and I groaned.

 

I rolled over and pushed my head into the pillow. I thought about getting up again. Go out and be productive, catch a few skips. Make some money. My door opened and the alarm went off and then silenced again. Ranger. I was getting wet just waiting for him. Dammit! This isn’t a healthy way to live. He climbed over the covers and lay over my back. I turned my head to the side and he kissed my face, neck and ear. Hmm, it might not be a healthy way to live but it sure was a nice way to start the day.

 

~~~~~~~~~

 

Ranger moved from my cheekbones down my lips, gently licking the corners. He moved across to my ear and bit down my neck. He moved slowly, lifting himself up and pulled the covers off me. He lay back over me and moved his mouth down my spine, rubbing his still clothed body against my naked one. His mouth worked down to my lower back area while his hands were running up and down my sides. His teeth grazed the top of my tailbone and he sunk his teeth into the left side of my butt.

 

I jumped, it didn’t hurt it was just a shock. Ranger bit at me over and over and I relaxed again. I’ve had thoughts of doing this to Morelli on occasion. I pushed that thought out of my mind. Now was not the time to think about Joe.

 

Ranger’s mouth left my bum and moved on down my left leg. He got to the back of my knee and lathed at it with his tongue. I tried to turn over but he held my hips to the bed. He used his teeth and I felt it all the way up to my stomach and every bit between. I moved against the bed, looking for away to relieve the pressure that was building inside me.

 

Ranger rolled me over and kissed his way up the front of my left thigh. Then his tongue touched that spot. Then his teeth touched that spot. Then waves of pleasure washed though my entire body. I lay prone for a few minutes, not feeling anything but what was happening inside. I became aware of Ranger kissing up my stomach and over my breasts. He worked his way up my neck and kissed me deeply. I could taste myself on his lips, not the greatest taste, but I wasn’t going to say anything that might make him stop kissing me there.

 

Ranger sat up on his knees looking down at me. “Morning Steph.”

 

I stretched, arms up toes pointed. “Mmmm, morning.”

 

Ranger was still completely dressed. Shoes and all. I frowned at him. “Either get naked or get out of my bed.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Well at least take off your shoes. You’re getting my sheet dirty.”

 

“Like you don’t need to wash it anyway.” He was right, but he took his shoes off anyway. He flopped down next to me and closed his eyes.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Laying here. Quietly.”

 

“Why?” He climbs into my bed and then lies there? I don’t think so.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because this is why not.” I released his erection from his pants and stroked the tip of my finger over the little slit at the top.

 

“I see… that’s a good reason.” When a man groans, you know you’re on the right track. I followed that track with my mouth. It was such a nice track. Big and pulsing, in my hand and against my tongue. He groaned again and thrust slightly into my mouth. I sucked and he thrust again. We worked up a rhythm and I pulled away, moving my mouth down and taking one of his balls into my mouth. He used a fistful of hair to pull my head back up. He used a lot so it didn’t hurt, but still, when this was over we’d have to talk about that.

 

The instant he was back in my mouth he thrust and scraped along my teeth. He came, shooting hot liquid down my throat. He tasted worse than what I did. Not enough sugar in his diet. I swallowed hard over the lump in my throat. Ugh, I have to remember not to do that again for a while. At least not until I got him to eat some sugar first.

 

Ranger stripped off and we pulled the covers back over us. I snuggled in for a bit and a little while later I moved away. Ranger turned on his back and fell asleep. I watched him. His chest rising and falling, the muscles in his jaw clenching and releasing again. I got up feeling freaked, like I was watching something I shouldn’t be and climbed in the shower.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

A while later I was in the shower washing the remains of a sweaty morning off. Mmmm I felt sooo good. I was relaxed and confident and for the first time I still had Ranger in my bed. He was sleeping. I had lay there watching him for a while but got uncomfortable, feeling like I was doing something dirty. I don’t know why, it just weirded me out.

 

I was in a great mood. I dried off, did my hair and went with only mascara. I got dressed in my bedroom and woke Ranger up slamming a drawer. He kind of freaked out. Grabbing his gun off the side table he aimed it at me and I stood there in bra and panties, hands up.

 

“Fuck!” He put the gun down and dragged himself up to lean against the headboard. I stood their arms up for about a minute, lost for words. It didn’t take long for me to get my powers of speech back.

 

“Fucking hell!!! What was that?” Ranger looked uncomfortable and inscrutable at the same time. He just watched me, not saying a word. “You pulled a gun on me and you’re just going to sit there? And not say a damn thing?”

 

I was understandably incredibly angry. At least I thought it was understandable.

 

“Sorry, I just… I don’t know. I had a moment there.”

 

“A moment?”

 

“Yes. A moment.”

 

“I was having a great day for a change. And you pulled a gun on me and shot it all to hell. Almost literally! And then, if that’s not bad enough, you don’t bother to explain you just call it a moment! Fuck.” I finished getting dressed, grabbed my files, bag, gun and left. Ranger was still upstairs. I hit the remote turning the alarm on. Just to start his day off as bad as mine was going now.

 

I started the Harley and took off towards the office. My mind was still reeling over what had happened. I entered and the room was quiet. Connie was on the phone rolling her eyes at who ever she was talking to. Lula was stretched out on the couch. Vinnie's door was closed and I assumed by the voices he had someone with him. I gave Lula a shove and she rolled up to sitting position.

 

“Hey can I borrow your car?”

 

“My Baby?”

 

“Well yeah, I need somewhere to stick the skips.”

 

“What’s up with you?”

 

Oh shit. “What?”

 

Lula studied me. He eyes narrowed. I decided I wanted to be out of there before Vinnie was done and Connie was off the phone. “Nothing. Can I borrow your car? You can have the bike.”

 

“Sure, but I can’t ride. So just make sure you have it back by closing time. If you don’t I’m gonna hunt you down and find out what the hell is wrong with you.”

 

I made myself a promise to have the car back on time. I didn’t need any shit from Lula about my love life or anything else today. Lula hauled herself off the couch and went to dig her keys out of her bag in the filing cabinet. I grabbed them and was just about out of the office when Tank came out of Vinnie’s office. Vinnie slammed the door behind him. Well hell, this was unexpected.

 

Tank started to smile and then stopped and looked at me hard and then he dragged me outside by the arm. Oh shit.

 

Chapter 9

 

Tank stopped and did the Ranger thing, leaning against the wall arms crossed over his chest. What was I supposed to make of this?

 

“Hey Tank, long time no see.”

 

“Sure. What’s up with you?”

 

Did everyone know about my private life? Christ. “Nothing. What are you doing here?”

 

“Had some business to take care of.”

 

Hmmm.

 

I looked at the window of the office. Connie and Lula were peering out at us. I wanted to get out of there. I had things to do today. I had to get Val out of my parent’s house, because until she moved out I was never going to eat there again. And that meant I wasn’t going to eat until then. And I couldn’t let that happen. Tank snapped his fingers in my face.

 

“What?”

 

“What happened? I was supposed to pick Ranger up from your place later. I figured you’d be there. With him, until then.”

 

“It’s none of your business. And you should go get him now. I don’t want him to stay there or be there when I get back.” I was still pissed off, but slowly I was starting to cool down. I realised that it was just Ranger and his way of life. The thing was I wasn’t sure if I could handle that side of Ranger’s life. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to handle that side of his life.

 

“So what are you going to do if you need help for a take down?”

 

He was lucky he had said if and not when. “I’ll call Lula.”

 

“Lula’s a bigger chicken than you.” He was right but that didn’t mean I had to let him know that.

 

“Are you calling me a chicken?”

 

He had the grace to look uncomfortable. “No. But what will you do?”

 

I didn’t know. I wasn’t willing to think that far ahead. If needed I could just wait for a few days until I was on speaking terms with Ranger again. “I’ll be fine.”

 

A black bronco came tearing around the corner and I stiffened. Here was not the place to see Ranger. It squealed to a halt and the window came down to show Lester and Bobby grinning out at us. I frowned at them. I wasn’t in the mood.

 

“Yo Steph! What are you doing out of bed?” There was some laughing from the back seat. Lester gave me a shit-eating grin. “We thought you’d be busy, you know, doing what ever it is you do. In bed.”

 

I thought about swearing at Lester. Then decided there wasn’t much point. I shrugged and climbed into Lula’s car. Tank knocked at the window and I rolled it down. He slipped me a piece of paper with a number scribbled on it. “Call me if you need help ok?”

 

I shrugged again. “Sure.”

 

I took off and headed to South Trenton. Sam Spade was first on my list. A 16 year old shouldn’t be too hard to get into cuffs right? Right. I pulled up to the curb in front of the park two houses away from Spade’s parents house. I had learned about parking out front of the skip’s actual house. I had also learned to park facing away from the skips house. If someone decided to pull a gun on me, I didn’t want to have to go back past that way. Similarly, I didn’t want to have to take the time to pull a u-turn.

 

There were a few shabby looking children playing in the park on derelict play equipment and some were kicking a ball around. I walked up the footpath to the Spade side of the attached house. It was as run down and derelict as the rest of the neighbourhood. I spent 5 minutes knocking on the door to no avail. I stepped over the small knee high bit of wire fencing that separated the two sides of the house and knocked on the neighbour’s door. I could hear a yappy little dog start to bark and someone swearing at it to shut it up. They weren’t successful. A scrawny man in his mid 40s opened the door. He had on a pair of pants and his skin sagged over his bones. He had a smoker’s raspy cough and yellowed eyes. He looked me up and down and then opened the screen door to spit a big chunk of coughed up phlegm.

 

I swallowed back bile as he wiped his mouth. Ugh. “Whaddya want?”

 

“When was the last time you saw your neighbours?”

 

“Hunh, well I saw Helen on I think it mighta been Thursday and Phil, the latest old man, I saw him probably Friday. Maybe.”

 

“What about Sam? The teenager?”

 

“I saw him get on the school bus this morning. Course that don’t mean much, usually he’s up and gone from school by lunch. Gets home probably at around 1ish.”

 

I glanced at my watch. It was 12.45. I decided to hang around. Have a look around the place and wait to see if Sam Spade came home early today. I said a barely gracious thanks to the neighbour and stepped back over the fence. After hocking up his left lung and spitting it out, he went inside and slammed the door behind him. Ugh what a disgusting man. I peeked though the window and jumped off the porch to head around to the back yard. Inside had been dark and silent. The back yard was a mess of old tires, chemical drums and a hodgepodge of car pieces. There was a new sheet iron shed in a corner, painted to look like flames. Gee, guess who’s that was.

 

I tested the door but it was pad locked on the outside so I knew at least he wasn’t inside. I scanned around to see if there were any hiding places to wait for him so I could nab him when he came home. There were probably hundreds but none that I was prepared to get into. My knees were sore enough from the duck and roll dive I had done yesterday to avoid the Trans-Am. I had a quick look through the window in the back door and saw nothing aside from a mountain of dirty dishes. I went and sat in Lula’s car to wait for Sam to get home. A few minutes later the kids in the park were pointing at the road behind me I looked in the rear vision mirror and I saw flames rushing along the road towards me. I jumped out of the car, grabbing my bag and ran as far and as fast as I could across the park grounds.

 

Next thing I know I heard a huge bang and a wave of heat enveloped me. I hurled myself to the ground and looked up to see bits of ash and little bits of burning stuff hitting the ground around me. Fuck! Lula is going to kill me!

 

I sat up taking stock of my working bits and the aching bits. I looked around and saw Sam Spade standing transfixed watching the inferno that was Lula’s car. I pulled out my cell. Shit, I needed to get Lula out here now before the cops got here, so she can claim the insurance. I was fairly sure it wasn’t going to be insured for me to drive it. I hit the button to call Ranger and hung up. Damn! I scrambled around looking for Tank’s number keeping an eye on Sam Spade. The car was still burning well and I had a little bit of time before he even thought about running away.

 

I connected with Tank on the second ring. “Talk to me”

 

“Tank, are you busy?”

 

“Steph?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Not that busy.”

 

“Ok, I need you to go pick up Lula and head over to the park on Mission Street in South Trenton. Can you hurry? The faster the better.”

 

“Give me 15 minutes.” And he disconnected. I thought about calling Lula but decided to grab and cuff Spade first. Pulling the cuffs out of my bag I carefully walked up behind him. Just as I was about to grab him he turned, looked right at me and took off.

 

“Stop you little fucker!!” I thought about telling him I was here to take him to prison. But decided to save my breath. I took off after him a step behind. He stumbled jumping a bit of burning car and I tackled him. After lots of rolling round and cursing I got a grip and used my knees to pin him to the ground. I yanked both arms behind him and snapped on the cuffs. Normally I’d be so proud of what I had just done, however, normally I didn’t have Lula’s car on fire behind me. That done I left him on his stomach, sat on my ass and just watched Lula’s car burn.

 

Chapter 10

 

I was sitting around a booth with a few of the guys laying bets on Ranger’s sex life and eating when the call came. I had been half expecting her not to call, half waiting for it. Dreading she would and dreading she wouldn’t. I checked the number and figured it to be Steph. “It’s her!”

 

The booth went silent and then the whispered bets were placed as I answered. “Talk to me!…Steph?…Not that busy…Give me 15 minutes.”

 

All bets stopped and they focused on me. “Gotta pick up Lula.”

 

“Damn!” Mike obviously was out of the bet. So was Tommy who smacked the bench top. We all threw some money down, Mike grumbling, he was down about fifty dollars today. Lester and I climbed into the first Bronco while the other 4 climbed into the other. We were all heavily armed having been on what was loosely termed a ‘hostile take over’ in the Stark Street neighbourhood earlier this morning. And for the first time in a damn long time Ranger had handed off the major elements and taken off. The strangest thing was he had taken off to be with a woman that had never happened before.

 

We took off and while I was driving Lester called the bond office to make sure Lula was in. We stopped and Lula came barrelling outside. Lester and I exchanged a look. Lula’s hair was fire truck red. Her spandex top was blue with some sparkly things. Her leather skirt was bleached white. I was wondering about the patriotic statement but I wasn’t going to mention it. Lula jumped into the back and the bronco rocked. We took off with the second bronco hot on our tail.

 

“So what’s going on? What’s this about?”

 

“Dunno, got a call from Steph. Said to swing by and grab you and head down to Mission Street.”

 

Lula’s eyes bugged and she started swearing. Eventually she started to talk in sentences. “She’s killed my car! Did she tell me that she was going after the arsonist? No! Knew I wouldn’t let her take my baby if she did. I figured she was gonna take Ranger with her for that one! Fuck!”

 

Lester turned, “Is she alright?”

 

I nodded, “She sounded fine.”

 

Lula snorted. “Course! She always is.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

Lula came barrelling out of the Bronco and slid to a halt next to me. She offered a hand and pulled me up to my feet.

 

“Girlfriend…”

 

I held up my hands, let’s put blame where blame lay. “I had nothing to do with it. I was just sitting there in the damn car when Mr Firebug over there sets it on fire. Luckily I saw it coming and had time to jump.”

 

Lula looked over to where Sam Spade was lying flat on his stomach. She looked around, her nostrils flared she stood between his legs and she gave him one good kick to the nuts.

 

Tank and Lester winced and the young Sam Spade threw up.

 

“Listen Lula. What’s the deal with your insurance? I got you here just in case.”

 

“Good thinking. It’s only insured for my ass to drive. Didn’t even think that when you asked.” Carl was on his way over, Carl probably wouldn’t believe us but he wouldn’t contradict us. “What do I gotta say?”

 

“Just say you were in the back yard waiting while I was in the car. Let’s just keep it simple. Sound ok?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Carl came over and after giving Lula a horrified glance picked up Spade and handed him of to Big Dog. He took a statement from both Lula and I giving us a look and I gave him my best puppy eyes. We waited around for a bit for any last minute things that might have been forgotten. Tank stood aside talking on his phone while Lula watched him and Lester poked fun at me. A group of guys had piled out of a second Bronco. I recognised Bobby and gave him a little finger wave. He gave me a huge grin and started to collect money from the other 3 men. They were all big men with lots of muscles and without a millimetre of fat amongst them. 2 of them were black, one with dreads the other with a short marine buzz cut. The other was golden blonde, his hair short and spiky. All were dressed in black cams and skin-tight shirts and they were all heavily armed.

 

“Lester, have they been betting on me?”

 

“Sure, you come a close second in the sweeps to Ranger’s sex life.” He poked me in the ribs. “You want to settle that bet for us? We’ve got bets on why you’re not with him now.”

 

I smacked him in the chest. “Some how I doubt you’d ever have bet on what happened.”

 

“Aww, what’s the matter Bombshell? Didn’t you get any this morning. I had a feeling that was Ranger’s main goal when he ditched this morning.” He poked me again.

 

“Fuck off Lester.” He poked me a few more times. This guy just didn’t know when to stop. Tank came over and gave Lester a look.

 

“You ready to roll?”

 

“Just a few more minutes Tank, Steph here is about to tell me what happened this morning.”

 

I saw Tank’s eyes flash a warning, obviously he had been talking with Ranger. Lester poked me again and I blurted it out, quiet loudly. “You want to know? I shut a drawer and Ranger pulled his fucking gun on me!”

 

I gave Lester a shove and he stumbled back. Now either that was a really hard shove or Lester was in shock. I wasn’t sure about either so I’d settle half and half. All the guys over by the second bronco turned and stared at me. Fuck! Just leave me alone! All these Ranger looking guys were reminding me of him. I looked at Tank.

 

Tank seemed to me to be Ranger’s right hand man. He had been in the thick of things during the Ramos mess. “Is Ranger still at my place?”

 

He nodded. Fuck. I wanted to go home have a shower, curl up on my couch with some chocolate and watch a video. I wouldn’t be able to do that if Ranger was there. “Can you get him out of there?”

 

He shook his head. Fuck. I looked at Lula, she was standing hand on hips giving me a look that said ‘just get it over with’. Thing was I agreed with her but I didn’t want to face up to it yet. Sometimes my procrastinating nature was a great thing. Other times like now, it wasn’t so great.

 

Fine. I walked over to Carl. “You need me for anything else?”

 

“Nope. You wanna follow me to the station? I notice you’ve got the majority of Manoso’s payroll with you.”

 

“Sure, you going now?” I ignored the whole bit about Ranger’s team. I didn’t want to face the reality of them just yet.

 

“Big Dog! We ready to roll?” He yelled right in my ear, same old Carl.

 

“Yep!”

 

“Ok, we’ll meet you there?” I turned and took a step. “Steph?”

 

“What Carl?”

 

“You ok?” He was looking at all the luscious men standing over by the Broncos.

 

“Fine.” He nodded and we parted. I climbed into the backseat of the first Bronco next to Lula with Lester in the passenger side and Tank at the wheel. “Follow Carl back to the station, I have to get my body slip for Spade.”

 

“Sure.” Tank took off sedately and as soon as we were around the corner he floored it. I had a feeling that cops paying attention to this car wouldn’t be a good thing. Probably had something to do with the assault rifles in the trunk. Not to mention the tear gas and other various equipment that makes life easy for the modern mercenary. We pulled in behind Carl and I took my paper work into be processed. I came back out five minutes later after having Joe Juniak tell me a joke that made no sense and took longer to tell than I wanted to listen. I came out and didn’t see the second Bronco anywhere. I climbed into the back next to Lula again.

 

Tank raised an eyebrow in the rear vision mirror. “Where to?”

 

“The office.” That way I could pick up my bike and escape while they dropped Lula off home. I didn’t have a second helmet for her. Tank nodded and we headed off to the office. We parted ways there. Lula going into give Connie the gossip, she’d get a lift off her later, me to just go and Tank and Lester had a meeting.

 

I got on the Harley and headed north on Hamilton heading towards home. Hopefully if Tank and Lester had a meeting so did Ranger, if not, I had to see him sometime, may as well be now. I parked next to the dumpster and took the stairs up to the second floor. I unlocked the door and hit the remote to my alarm when it beeped. I closed the door and locked it behind me. I turned to see Ranger leaning against the door jam of my bedroom door. Damn.

 

Chapter 11

 

“Steph…” I held up my hand in a stop gesture. I went to my phone noticing that the machine was blinking. I hit play and received a thousand messages from my mother asking me about me blowing up the car and whose car was it? I decided to ignore all her messages. I picked up my directory and flipped through to find Randy Briggs’ phone number.

 

I connected with his machine and asked for a call back. I hung up and took a breath, turning to face Ranger. He was still leaning against the doorjamb looking as hot as ever. I really didn’t want to deal with him at the moment and I was saved the hassle by the phone ringing. I grabbed it to my ear and it was Randy.

 

“Hello… Hey. Yeah, I need some help and you seemed the obvious answer… uh huh… no… yes, an hour?… wont take that long… all right I’m on my way… oh, all right. You want me to pick it up?… sure, catch you soon.” I hung up and turned to Ranger. “You want a lift anywhere?”

 

“I want to talk to you.”

 

“I’m leaving.”

 

“I’ll wait.”

 

I shrugged. “Suit yourself.” I grabbed up my bag and helmet. I pulled the door closed behind me. I arrived at Randy’s place half an hour later, having stopped to pick up a take away order Randy had phoned in to Pino’s. I made my way up the stairs and Randy answered my knock. We sat on his lounge and got down to business over pizza.

 

“I want my sister out of my parent’s house.”

 

“What’s she doing there?”

 

“Her husband left her. Took everything and skipped off overseas. She was left with a repossessed house and two kids and no money.”

 

“What do you want me to do?” Randy was looking interested.

 

“I figure you could hack, or you know someone who can hack the bank, get her money back.”

 

“Shit Steph, do you have any idea what that would mean?”

 

“Nope. Can you do it? Will you do it?”

 

“Where did he go to?”

 

“My sister thinks he might be in the Caymans.”

 

“How trite. She know for sure?”

 

“I don’t think so. He had been shipping the money there. Seems logical him and the baby sitter are there too.”

 

“The baby sitter?”

 

“Yeah, she was my niece’s baby sitter.”

 

“Interesting.”

 

“Can you help?”

 

“If he’s in the Caymans, I can get your sisters money to her in a week or less. If he’s not there, it will take longer if you want me to track him down. It’s also going to cost you money. This will take some time and it will be cutting into my work. Can you afford to pay me?”

 

“How much?” I figured if it were a reasonable amount then Val wouldn’t mind if I let him deduct it from what he got back from her scum-sucking husband.

 

“Let’s make it an hourly rate, as I do with my other work. $100 an hour.”

 

“$100 an hour?” Randy might just be the biggest rip off in the world.

 

“Hey! I can get arrested doing this shit. This is serious shit. I’m doing you a favour, it’s a discount rate you know. I’m going to have to hack interstate here and that’s a federal offence. Then I’m going to have to hack over international waters. Do you have any idea what kind of trouble I’ll be in if I get busted?”

 

I hadn’t thought of any of that. “Ok, sorry. $100 an hour. Let’s also say a $500 bonus if you get it done with in the week.”

 

Randy nodded. “You’re on. I’ll keep a paper log and once you’ve seen it I want it destroyed, fucking Feds would love some shit like that.”

 

We ate pizza and talk turned to what had been happening in my life lately. “I got Lula’s car blown up today.”

 

“Shit you’re lucky to be alive.”

 

“I saw it coming. I had time to jump out of the car.”

 

“I’m talking about Lula letting you live.” He was right. Lula loved her car more than she loved me. I left about an hour later. I headed home I really needed to get this thing with Ranger out of the way. I was tired, I wanted to sleep and I doubt I could with him there. I pulled into the parking lot and noticed one of Ranger’s broncos parked by the dumpster. Hmm, either one of the guys was here or they had dropped it off. I went up the stairs knowing if I waited for the elevator I’d chicken out and leave. I let myself into my apartment and found Ranger sitting on my couch watching the TV with Bob. His head lifted and he glanced at me before going back to the news.

 

I flopped next to him watching, waiting for him to start it. Ranger flicked off the TV and turned to me. The phone rang as he opened his mouth. This was a dilemma… that was most likely my mother. Would I rather face my mother or Ranger? I choose to answer the phone, there was a possibility that it wasn’t my mother. Hunh, who was I trying to kid?

 

“Hello?… Yep… right, when?… where?… nope…I’ll meet you there…yes why?… no! Get your own… listen, I’ll meet you there… yes well it’s not my fault… thanks… Fuck you!… sure… later.” Christ, my cousin the degenerate.

 

“You going again Babe?” Ranger was sitting on the arm of the couch, his legs crossed at the ankles. Oh yum.

 

“Yeah, Vinnie got a lead on my skip Smith.”

 

“James Smith?”

 

“Yeah, you know him?”

 

“Of him.” If Ranger had heard of him could mean one of many things. The least likely being they shared a locker at a health club.

 

“You wanna ride with?”

 

He shrugged into his leather jacket, clipping on his gun belt and pulling his glock from his waistband and putting it into the mesh pocket. “We’ll take the bronco. It has the proper restraints.”

 

“He shot a guy with an air rifle. He’s not that bad.”

 

“That’s what the police have been able to get him on. Then there’s the rest that they haven’t been able to pin on him for lack of evidence. Aside from that, he was prepared to pull the trigger, are you?” His eyes were dark and assessing. I glanced at my cookie jar. I hadn’t even considered bringing my gun. Ranger pulled my little .38 out and checked it was loaded before handing it to me. I shoved it into the side compartment of my bag. Ranger pulled it out and tucked it into the front of the waistband of my jeans. “Keep it where you can reach it at all times. I’ll give you a belt when we get to the bronco.”

 

Just what I needed, lessons on guns from the guy who pulled one on me just this morning. I pulled the door closed behind us and reset the alarm. I trudged down the stairs behind Ranger. What happens after this? We get Smith, hand him over and go our separate ways? I could hope.

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“O’Donohoe’s on Bent St. It’s on a corner.”

 

“It’s on the corner of Bent and Stark. You were going to go alone?” Fuckin Vinnie. Had I known it was on Stark I’d have told him it could wait until daylight at least.

 

“Vinnie is meeting me there.”

 

“You think it makes a difference? Vinnie’s a man, you’re a woman. And when you get down to it Vinnie looks after Vinnie”

 

“What a horribly sexist thing to say.”

 

“It’s the way it is on Stark Street.” I shut up and we drove the rest of the way in silence. What could I say? He was right. As we pulled up behind Vinnie’s town car a figure came barrelling out of the double doors. We climbed out and Vinnie came barrelling out behind the figure.

 

“It’s Smith!” Vinnie yelled and chased him into the ally. I looked around and rolled my eyes. I followed Ranger into the ally. Ranger was stepping silently ahead of me we met up with a panting swearing Vinnie where the alley came to a T section.

 

“Vinnie head up that way.” Ranger pointed off to the left. “I’ll go this way. Steph you stay here watch for any movement in case we miss him.”

 

I nodded. They walked off and I peered up and down the three ally ways. There were dumpsters and trash and stairwells providing plenty of hiding spaces. Vinnie was noisily kicking his way down the alley, while Ranger was moving silently down his end of the alley. I saw movement between Ranger and myself. I called out and had my gun pointed at Smith who had emerged from behind a dumpster. “Ranger! Behind you!”

 

Ranger spun and ducked coming up with his gun in his hand. I could hear Vinnie running up behind me and saw a knife glinting in Smith’s hand. I called it out to Ranger and he nodded once to let me know he understood. I walked slowly and carefully towards Smith, Vinnie was standing at the T section watching our backs, at least that’s what I hoped he was doing. Ranger and I were both approximately 6 feet away from Smith when he threw himself, knife first at Ranger. I pulled the trigger automatically, my finger tensing with the rest of me. The shot rang off the dumpster and Smith threw himself to the ground. I shoved my gun into my gun belt and pulled the cuffs out. I jumped him, yanking his arms behind him cuffing him face down.

 

I looked up to see Ranger leaning against the dumpster, his weight on one leg, eyes closed. I looked down his body to see his left leg bleeding at the calf. I had shot Ranger. Fuck.

 

Chapter 12

 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I could see spots. I was hyperventilating, and I was in the middle of a full blown panic attack. But really, who wouldn’t be. I had just shot Ranger! I could feel my legs going to jelly. I shook my head, the spots disappeared, and I started to breathe again.

 

“Vinnie!!” Vinnie came running and slid to a stop next to me. His eyes were flicking everywhere. “Take Smith and get him processed.”

 

Vinnie nodded and opened his mouth about to say something about Ranger’s leg. I gave him a shove and he left with Smith. I took a step towards Ranger and stopped. “Ranger?”

 

He opened his eyes and stood. “Give me a hand.”

 

I knelt down to check out his leg, it wasn’t to bad but I needed to stop the bleeding. The clothes I had on were filthy. My jeans were ripped and dirty from being blown up and tackling Sam Spade earlier. The flannel I had one over my t-shirt was just as bad. It was going to have to be the t-shirt. I pulled off the flannel putting it into Ranger’s hand. I pulled off the t-shirt and used it to tie around his calf. I gave it one quick hard yank, tightening it. Ranger grunted and I winced. I stood up and took my flannel back. Ranger was looking appreciatively at my little lacy bra. I rolled my eyes and pulled the flannel back on. Ranger looked a little disappointed. I had just shot him and he was eyeing me off. I snorted, men.

 

I wrapped myself under his shoulder and he leaned heavily on me. We slowly made our way to the bronco. I helped him up into the passenger side and ran around to the driver’s seat. “Hospital?”

 

“Yes.” He pulled out his mobile and made a call. “Tank. We’re headed to Trenton Memorial... She’s fine… I caught some ricochet… Yes… No…” He barked some laughter and looked at me. “Not likely… I might do that… Right, order the job… Sure.”

 

He hung up and leaned his head back into the headrest. I was hoping that the job he just ordered wasn’t a hit on me. Ranger started to pull various assault weapons off his body, putting them in a compartment in the passenger door. I thought about giving him my gun and decided to keep it, better one of us armed than neither. I pulled into the emergency drive and I went inside to get a wheelchair. A nurse followed and held the chair while I helped Ranger into it. She started to move behind him to push him when he grabbed her arm. “Stephanie can push the chair.”

 

“But sir, its policy.”

 

“Its Stephanie or no one.”

 

“Sir, we need to…” Ranger started to stand up and I pushed him back down and pushed the nurse out of the way.

 

“Lead the way.” The nurse was wringing her hands in a nervous gesture. We got inside and she was still talking about policy. Another nurse joined us, I recognised her as Angie Conti. She had gone to school with my sister Val.

 

The first nurse started to explain when Angie took control. “Stephanie, how are you?”

 

“I’d be better if my friend here could get some medical attention.”

 

“Right, follow me.” Angie walked off and we followed through a few doors into a private room. “Can you get up on the bed or do you need help Mr Manoso?”

 

“I’ll be fine.”

 

Angie nodded. “Right, I’ll send the nearest doctor straight in.” She walked out, pulling the door closed behind her. Ranger started to stand and I went around the wheel chair to give him a hand should he need it. Ranger got settled and I stood next to the bed feeling helpless and hopeless. I needed him to talk, or I needed to talk.

 

“Angie knows your name?”

 

“I’ve been here a few times.” Right. “How does she know you?”

 

“She went to school with Val. Used to make fun of me as a kid.”

 

Ranger gave a tired in pain grin, it faded to a grimace. I started to panic again. I sat with a thud in the chair next to the bed and put my head in my hands. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

Ranger grabbed one of my hands. “Not your fault Babe.”

 

“I fucking shot you! How could it not be my fault?”

 

“It was ricochet Babe. Not like you actually shot at me.”

 

We looked at each other for a while and I looked away when it hit me that I knew exactly what had happened this morning when Ranger had pulled his gun on me. Fuck, I was screwing up this relationship before it even had a chance to start. The door opened and I had my hand on my gun before I even thought about it. The doctor came through and I relaxed. Ranger grinned at me, knowing exactly what was going through my mind. It wasn’t a smug grin, just a ‘now you understand’ grin. I didn’t like that I understood, I wanted to be wrapped up in cotton and protected from this side of his life. At least right now I did. The doctor was nearly finished with his examination and was ordering stitches and medication when 2 police officers came through the doors. I tensed and Ranger put his hand to the small of my back. I relaxed slightly.

 

“It’s law Babe. Any gun shot wound is reported.” Didn’t make me any less nervous or concerned. I was carrying concealed after shooting someone. There were some questions and answers as the doctor sewed Ranger’s leg up. I didn’t know the officers but I had seen them around.

 

“Gazara is going to be happy.”

 

“Why?” If Eddie had been betting on me shooting Ranger I was going to hurt him.

 

“He won the sweep on the next time you shot someone. No one was expecting it to be Ranger though.” Hunh, guess they had more faith in the man. Unlike me.

 

The doctors and the officers left, leaving Ranger and me alone. I sat back in the chair, resting back against Ranger’s hand that was at my neck. Angie came in and gave a brief explanation to Ranger about medication as I signed some forms left by the police. Angie held the door open and asked Ranger if he had someone available to keep him off his feet for at least the next few days.

 

“Steph can do it.”

 

“Excuse me? I have to work.”

 

“You shot me. You can look after me.” He gave me the wolf grin. He was playing dirty and he knew it. Angie raised an eyebrow and gave us a considering look. Damn, my mother would know about this before Angie’s shift was over.

 

“Shit.”

 

I wheeled Ranger out to the bronco. Ranger climbed up into the passenger side and after I tucked a pair of crutches in the back I went around to the driver’s side climbed up and started the car. “So your place?”

 

“Yours.”

 

“You don’t want to get some clean clothes or anything?”

 

“Tank will bring them.”

 

“You don’t want to water your plants? Check your mail or your answering machine?”

 

“Nope.” ‘Mr I don’t share’ was being as sharing as ever. We drove in silence and when I pulled to a halt Ranger jerked looking around. I was guessing the medication was taking affect and he had fallen asleep.

 

Hmmm.

 

“Come on. You can get some sleep inside.”

 

He gave me a dark look. “I wasn’t sleeping.”

 

Right he was just resting his eyes. I got out his crutches while he placed some of his weapons on his body. We were a few steps from the car when he shoved the crutches at me. “Can’t use those with the shoulder holster, the gun chafes.”

 

“So give me the gun. Take the damn crutches.” I added a please and puppy eyes for effect. Ranger pulled his gun out and grudgingly took the crutches. We went up the elevator and ten minutes later Ranger was stripped down naked asleep, his gun on the bedside table. I showered and crawled softly into bed next to him. Ranger didn’t move. It freaked me out, an unconscious Ranger was something I never thought I’d see. I checked his pulse and listened to be sure he was breathing. He was fine, just knocked out by the drugs. I fell into an uneasy sleep and woke at every sound. I usually slept badly, its true, but I didn’t wake at every sound. I had a feeling that since Ranger wasn’t able to wake I had to be wake for him. It was weird that I felt protective towards him. At 4am I woke to hear him moaning. I turned to watch him and stroked his forehead, his eyes opened and he looked at me.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“I’m ok.”

 

“You want a pill?”

 

“What time is it?”

 

“Just after 4.”

 

Ranger thought about it and then nodded once. I went into the kitchen and got him a glass of water and sat it on the bedside table next to his gun while I popped the pill from the packet. I handed them both to him and sat the glass back on the table on the other side of his gun when he had finished. I climbed back into the bed and lay down next to him, my hand on his chest. I finally fell into a deep sleep with him watching me.

 

Chapter 13

 

The next morning I woke to Ranger’s swearing in the kitchen. I wondered if I should stay in bed and pretend to sleep or go see what he had the shits with. It was a tough decision, I really wanted to stay in bed. More than likely Ranger had the shits with me, after all I had shot him last night. On the other hand he might need help.

 

I heard a loud crash and a great deal of swearing and decided better to see what was wrong with him before he totally destroyed my kitchen. I dragged on my Rangers jersey and ventured into the kitchen. Ranger was sitting on his ass between two of my kitchen chairs that were facing him. Curiouser and curiouser. I leaned against the doorjamb, mirroring Ranger’s position from yesterday.

 

“So. You’re on the floor why?” Ranger’s head snapped around. Guess he hadn’t heard me coming, probably he had been to busy swearing to have heard anything. I lifted my eyebrows at him in question. I couldn’t do the one eyebrow thing, but I figured two would work just as well.

 

“Exercise.”

 

Uh huh. That explained it.

 

“The floor was to slippery though, the chairs kept sliding away from me.”

 

“Jesus. I just shot you yesterday. You have stitches for Christ sakes! Why in hell would you want to exercise?” Even when I didn’t have stitches I didn’t want to exercise.

 

“Exercise is something that should be done everyday.” Ranger grunted and pulled himself up to sit in one of the pesky chairs that kept sliding away from him. “You loose rhythm and you have to work harder at it when you start again.”

 

I snorted and plunked myself down in the chair opposite him. “Ranger, a day or two away from exercise isn’t going to kill you. And besides, you loose rhythm and have to work harder it will be painful. You like pain when you exercise. ‘No pain, no gain’. Isn’t that what you told me?”

 

Ranger’s face went under a dramatic change. It went from martyred to wounded to martyred again. He held his right hand up over his heart. “Oh! My own words used against me!”

 

I stared at him for a while until a smug little grin creased his face. I snorted. “Fucking drama queen. Just for that you can get yourself back to bed.” I’d have never thought that Ranger was a drama queen. Maybe I’ll hold off giving him any more pills.

 

I walked out of the kitchen and stood in the living area, debating between a shower and climbing back into bed. Bed won out for two reasons. One was cause I hadn’t got much sleep last night two was because Ranger gave me a shove from behind in that direction.

 

I woke up again later that day. It was about 10am and the phone was ringing. I was guessing the shower was running because Ranger was in it and he had plugged the phone back in after I had jerked it out last night before coming to bed. I was half way to the phone when the answering machine picked it up. It was Tank. He sounded strange and unsure of himself.

 

“Um, Boss, Steph… Shit. Is anyone there? Umm… Ranger? You want this stuff dropped off still?”

 

Ranger came out of the shower with a towel draped low around his hips, his torso still wet. He limped lightly and I drooled messily. He grabbed up the phone and had a short conversation with Tank organising his things being dropped off and hung up. He turned and caught me subtly looking for drool on my chin. He gave me the wolf grin and came at me. I backed away and hit the wall behind me. He dropped the towel and I dropped my eyes. My mister wolf, what big proportions you have. I licked my lips and dragged my eyes up to meet his again. His eyes were dark and he was breathing deep.

 

“No.” As soon as I said it I wanted it back. Ranger didn’t stop moving towards me.

 

“Why not?” He stopped with barely room to move between us.

 

“I shot you yesterday is why not.” His hands sneaked up under my Rangers jersey and circled my waist.

 

“That’s why you’re going to be on top. That’s why I’m going to let you do all the work. That way when you tire out, I wont be tired, and we can start again.” His head snaked in and kissed my neck, he licked upwards and took the lobe of my ear in between his teeth, biting gently, drawing air in. “Babe?”

 

I couldn’t say no or yes either way. His hands had worked up and around and were now on my breasts, Rangers mouth was now working on eating my neck. I moaned and he took it for a yes, turning us around, walking me backwards into my bedroom.

 

Chapter 14

 

Two days later Ranger was gone back to the Bat Cave and I was living by myself once again. I hadn’t seen him or heard from him since he had left my apartment. While that’s not so unusual, he had wanted to talk to me and he hadn’t done so yet. So I was doing what I did best and was ignoring it. I had my Honda back all nice and shiny new. I had gotten my car back the day after I had blown Lula’s car up. I had used it to pick up both Sam and Max Smart and then I had taken Lula to pick up her new Firebird. Leasing was the way to go.

 

Right now though I was slowly cruising along Remington Drive looking for Bella Freeman, aged 21 in number 1132. Remington Drive was in the upper class area of Hamilton Township, about a 15-minute drive from my apartment. Freeman was guilty of being a rich kid and having too much time on her hands, she also cried harassment at the drop of a hat.

 

She had been arrested on various counts of public mischief and harassment. Freeman had thrown a cream pie at Trenton mayor during an election speech. She was a hero in some circles. She had skipped her 9am court appointment however and that was where I came into it. The thing about this skip was that I was working for Gold Star Bail Bonds. I had received a call from Tommy Anderson who ran the place saying Vinnie didn’t object to me working for him. Stiff shit if Vinnie had. There are a total of 2 female bounty hunters in Trenton and Mia Miranda was currently not taking any cases seeing as though she was 5 months pregnant. No one counted Joyce, no one that is except Vinnie. Mia usually worked freelance for the bail bonds community. It looked to me as though I was going to be getting calls from the other bonding companies for a few months.

 

So anyway I had signed the necessary forms this morning and was busting a move already. It was 11am and I was feeling good about myself. I parked one house down from the Freeman place. Normally I park two or three houses down, but the yards here were large enough that I didn’t want to walk that far. I trudged up to the security gate and found it open. I then trudged back and got my Honda, I drove up the long wide circular drive parking behind 5 or 6 cars that were cluttering the doorway. Though I probably shouldn’t say cluttering. Porches, Mercedes and BMWs don’t clutter. I rang the bell and Bella herself answered it. She was stoned off her head and smelt like she had been for days.

 

“Hi, I’m Stephanie Plum, I represent your bonding company, you missed your court date today and I’m here to take you down and get you rescheduled.” She stared at me blankly and I wondered if she even knew what month it was let alone the date. “You know, today’s the 15^th? Your court date for the pie in the face?”

 

She slowly shook her head. “Nu uh, today’s the 14^th.”

 

“Sorry to disappoint, but it’s the 15^th.” A glimmer of intelligence flickered across her blue eyes.

 

“Really?”

 

“Really.”

 

“Shit!! My parents will be home tonight! I have to get these guys out and clean the fuck up!” She spun around, the door bouncing open again behind her. I followed her in, what else did I have to do today?  Nada. The place was a pigsty. No way would I get her downtown today before she had cleaned this place up. I looked around at the bodies, trash and trashed furniture. Bella was standing in the middle of the room pulling at her hair.

 

“Hey!” I called out to her, “You got a phone book?”

 

“What for?”

 

“Call a cleaning company.” She looked at me like I was a queen, a god, a… ok, no need to get above yourself now Steph. She looked at me gratefully and I hoped that meant she wouldn’t be too troublesome when it came to the leaving part. She made the call and herded all her friends out the door into various cars. Five or six moving violations. An hour later the cleaning crew was getting to work, Bella was showered, dressed and made up and we were ready to head off down to the station. Just before we pulled out of the drive, 2 black SUV’s pulled into the opposite house. The windows were blacked out on the SUV’s and the house was well hidden by a large fence and trees. The SUV’s looked suspiciously like what Ranger drove on some of his takedowns.

 

“Who lives there?” I pointed it out and Bella shrugged her shoulders.

 

“Some guy, he’s into real estate or something. No one knows much about him, keeps odd hours and keeps to himself.”

 

Well, well, well. What have we here? I decided to ignore the pointers for now and make nice with my skip.

 

“So, what’s with the pie?”

 

“It was a way to get his attention. He’s such a screw up!” She started to ramble and I started to tune out. Suddenly something my Dad used to say to me as a kid came back to me. Nothing will change unless you change it. I interrupted her.

 

“If he’s doing such a screw up of the job, why don’t you fix it?”

 

“That’s what we’re doing!”

 

“No, what you’re doing is making a nuisance of yourselves. You wanna fix it, get yourself in the game and fix it from the inside.” Bella looked at me and turned to the window and stared out of it. I had had my say and wanted to think more about the potential that the house across from the Freeman home on Remington Drive was Ranger’s. That had a lot of promise.

 

Bella went through the process of getting bonded out again calmly and quietly. Until some guys from the narc squad came though with their dogs. The dogs went crazy, barking and jumping at her. Luckily the trainers had a good grip on the dogs and they didn’t actually jump on her. Seems as though a shower isn’t enough to wash away the stink of a weeklong binge. But it wasn’t my problem. I took my body slip and left the building.

 

I pulled up to the office and walked into find Lula and Connie arguing with Vinnie about giving Lula a skip to go after on her own.

 

“What about you then? You don’t want me to give her work that should be going to you do ya?” Vinnie asked me about 2 seconds after I picked up the gist of the conversation.

 

I thought about it for maybe 3 seconds. Vinnie was going to need another bounty hunter now that I was picking up Mia Miranda’s slack around the other bonds offices. “Give her a go Vinnie. She knows as much as I do about the business.”

 

Lula was looking at Vinnie like she would swat him if he didn’t.

 

“What about Joyce?”

 

We all looked at him flatly. “What about her?”

 

Vinnie rolled his neck and then gave one sharp nod. “Alright, give her Parker. If she cant bring him in then she cant have the damn job.” He looked at me, “You work with her on this. You want her to have the job you can do the training.”

 

What did he think we had been doing every time Lula had gone to get a skip with me? Shopping? Ok, so that happened a lot of the time, but not every time. Probably the only thing Lula needed was a walk through the cop station. Oh boy. This was gonna be fun.

 

~~~~~~~~

 

I signed off for a skip and Lula signed off on her skip. Lula and I left the office together, Lula was practically bouncing in her seat behind the wheel in her new Firebird.

 

“So what first? You know this is my first time for real right? I wanna do this the right way.”

 

“I know. We need to get you outfitted. You got your gun and Tazer. You got cuffs?” I wasn’t sure what the answer would be, after all Lula did used to be a ‘Ho in a former life.

 

“I got cuff’s. Had a boyfriend leave em one time. Thing is they don’t have keys.”

 

“Well I have a feeling that you need keys. Lets go to the place where Ranger took me.”

 

I gave her directions towards Sunny’s Gun shop as she asked questions. “Ranger did this for you?”

 

“Yeah, I’m not meant to tell anyone, but I guess its not gonna hurt none if you don’t go spreading it around.” I thought about how Lula and I occasionally made half-hearted attempts at tracking Ranger’s house down. I wondered what I’d do next time Lula suggested it. Would I say no about helping her and she would guess I already knew? Or would I say I’d help and then lead her away from where he lived? This was assuming that it was his house and not one of his men’s place. I doubted it was someone else’s though. How many real estate guys kept to themselves and kept odd hours?

 

I shook it off and got out of the car when Lula pulled up at Sunny’s. Half an hour later Lula was fitted out with cuffs, pepper spray and a utility belt. We were sitting in Lula’s car while she read the spec sheet. “So?”

 

“This don’t look so bad. Only GTA. Stole himself a Beemer.” She flipped a page. “Twenty years old, first time offender. But he has taste.”

 

“Ok, so you do the leg work. Home, work and play ground. Then you call me for the take down. When you get better at judging who you can handle and who you need assistance with we’ll let you do it that way. But for now I’d feel better if you’d call me. Besides I’ll have to walk you through the cop station end.”

 

“Alright.” Lula turned the ignition and powered up Nelly on her stereo. When we pulled up at the office she punched the stereo off and turned to me.

 

“Thanks for this. You know, showing a bit of faith in my abilities. Not many people in this place have.” Lula was looking kind of embarrassed. I know I was.

 

“Lula, you’re one of the strongest people I know. Look at what you’ve done with your life. You moved up and you’re still moving. You’re good people Lula.” We hugged awkwardly across the Firebird. “You know Lula, I don’t even know your last name.”

 

She smiled softly. “My real name is Lorelii Patrice Raymond. Lula is my hooking name. Had it so long now that it’s more my name than Lorelii.” She shrugged.

 

“You got any family?” I remembered her comment about the only book she’d have read when she was a kid would have been about a crack spoon.

 

“There was 6 of us. We all had different daddies but our mama. She did her best. We were always fed and clothed. But she had a habit the size of Texas. Missy was the oldest, she hooked and got on the wrong end of a john and died of AIDS a few years back. Tex OD’d and so did Sharon. Nicky and Mikey though, they made it out. Twins, Nicky got a full scholarship to some college in California. She used to split it with Mikey and they both worked part time in addition to study. Last I heard of them Mikey was working on films and Nicky was managing some kind of hotel.”

 

“You don’t see them then?”

 

“Nah. They cut ‘em selves of from us. Can’t really blame em though.”

 

“What about extended family?”

 

“Not no more. It wasn’t so bad when we was kids. We had some aunts and uncles around. But now I got Jackie and Connie and You and some friends.”

 

“Why don’t you try to get in contact with Mikey and Nicky?”

 

She shrugged and looked out the window. “I might. One day.”

 

I gave her hand a squeeze and climbed out of the Firebird closing the door. Lula powered the stereo back up and took off. I climbed into my Honda and travelled over to First Street to Gold Star Bail Bonds and picked up my cheque for Bella Freeman. I was getting 12% of the bond. Something to do with it being like casual rates. I didn’t listen, but I didn’t argue. 12% is better than 10%.

 

I thought about doing some legwork on my new skip but decided against it in favour of a nap. It was 1pm and I was tired out. I’d been a restless sleeper for a while now, since Ramirez. But after Munson had broken in and Sophia DeStefano’s eyes floating in my head I’d gone back to barely sleeping at night. I had big black bags under my eyes and my head was hammering from a combination of Lula’s stereo, the heat and lack of sleep.

 

I parked in the lot next to the dumpster and dragged myself across the lot. My head had gone from hammering to pounding. I let myself into my apartment, disarming the alarm and resetting it once I was inside.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

I awoke to the sound of the phone ringing. It was dark out, I’d slept through my alarm. I’d set it for 5pm so I could get up and go to my parents for free cooked food. The clock said 7.16 so I guess diner was out of the question. In truth I wasn’t really all that hungry anyways. I rolled out of bed and the grabbed the phone up. It was Ranger.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Yo, Babe. Got a job if you’re interested.” I thought about it.

 

“Is this for Rangeman?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“If I remember rightly, you fired me.”

 

“I want you back on the payroll.”

 

“Why? Surely there’s someone else you can use.”

 

“You’re loyal. Besides Mia said you were doing her stuff.” Ahh, now the truth comes out. I wondered how I could turn this to my advantage. Ranger spoke again. “You interested?”

 

“What’s the job?”

 

“Decoy. Got another man who needs to be shown the error of his way. Skipped bail a few weeks ago and making himself a pain in the rear by not showing up in public.”

 

“How do you know he will be there tonight then?”

 

“He manages his brothers band. He has to negotiate a contract for them and is showing up with the record company people tonight to catch the brothers set.”

 

“What did he get arrested for?”

 

“He was busted for speeding and a random search found half a pound of uncut heroin. He’s not a user, was just transporting it for one of the guys in the band.”

 

“I guess I could do it.” I spoke again before Ranger hung up. “It’s gonna cost you.”

 

“What will it cost?” I could hear the smile in Ranger’s voice. I was betting he thought I was going to say a night with him. He was in for a surprise, I could get that for free. “I want a 10% pay increase.”

 

There was a pause before Ranger spoke again. “You think you’re worth a 10% increase?”

 

“Supply and demand. What else can you do?”

 

“5%”

 

“10%”

 

Ranger laughed and a thrill skittered down my spine. “You’ve got me. Be ready by 9pm tonight.”

 

“Where am I going?”

 

“The Annandale.”

 

“I’ll be ready.” He disconnected and I thought about it. The Annandale was hot spot for university students and those into loud music. It was a big singles scene so guys went dressed up and girls went classy slutted up. I went into my bathroom and showered and shaved. I did my make up and went into my bedroom. I pulled my black dress out. I had only worn this dress once and though Ranger had seen it, he hadn’t seen me wearing it. I pulled on a pair of black strappy 4inch fuck me pumps and was waiting down in the lobby when Ranger pulled up at the door. I climbed into the seat next to him and gave him a sexy smile.

 

“That the dress you brought awhile ago, huh?” Ranger’s eyes were hot looking me up and down.

 

“Yes.”

 

“And you’re going out in public in it? Even after what I said?”

 

I remembered how he had made a comment about me barricading myself in my bedroom and smiled. “I might do that yet. But if I do, you’re gonna be in their with me.”

 

Ranger pulled his eyes away from mine and swallowed visibly. He shook his head and put the car in gear. “I’m going to hold you to that Babe.”