DISCLAIMER: So sadly, the characters don't belong to me. Steph and Ranger are the exclusive property of J.Evanovich, I'm not making a profit on this, yadda yadda.
It all started two weeks ago after Morelli and I had broken up again, permanently this time.
On a rainy Friday morning, I was sitting in the bonds office, chatting with the girls over a cup of coffee and a dozen powered doughnuts from the Tasty Pastry. Vinnie was out of town with his wife Lucille and hardly anyone was going FTA. Needless to say, there was time to kill.
We were sitting around sharing gossip we'd collected from various sources when the front door sprung open, revealing a floral delivery guy hidden by what was without a doubt, the most gorgeous bouquet I'd ever seen. A huge spray of roses in every shade from cream to peach to blood red, Peruvian lilies in fuschia, orange and yellow, and white dendrobium orchids interspersed between them all. But the real surprise was when the guy asked, "Is there a Stephanie Plum here?"
To the best of my knowledge, I hadn't picked up any new stalkers lately, and even when Joe and I were together, he'd never drop that much on flowers. Glancing up at Lula, I wondered aloud, "Who'd be sending me flowers?" With Lula and Connie both shrugging, I cleared a space on Connie's desk for the delivery guy struggling under the tremendous weight of the arrangement.
After sifting through the buds for a while, careful not to crush any of the blooms, I found the card. In a heavy cream envelope was a single placard, embossed simply with the letters RCM. And then I saw the message, and I thought my heart would stop: "Are you ready for someday Babe? I am."
As if from a far away distance, I heard the girls asking who it was from – was it from another nutcase I'd somehow managed to acquire, or a new boyfriend?
"Neither- from Ranger," I managed to squeeze out before the shrieking erupted. But none of that mattered. All that mattered what figuring out what this meant. So before the girls could start ripping into me with more questions, I found myself in my car with the flowers in the front seat and the car on autopilot, heading to RangeMan.
But Ranger wasn't there. According to Bobby and Lester, Ranger was meeting with a client and wouldn't be back until later that afternoon.
Realizing the guys would get suspicious if I just hung around not doing anything, I decided to head home. Maybe I'd be able to make sense of it all at home.
Little did I know though that my apartment would only hold more surprises.