Disclaimer : Ranger and Steph are the creation of the wonderful Janet Evanovich. I'm only borrowing them for my own entertainment )

Hey everybody! It's been a longgg time, no see, right? (That is, if any of y'all are actually seeing this; I know if I were you I would've long ago lost interest).

Well, anyway, I was going through the story to re-cap on everything so I could write the final chapter when I was like.. "No!... What's the deal with that?"..

I never wrote rough drafts during this entire process, so a lot of this stuff is really rough. Sooo here's what I'm doing :

Now that I'm two years older, more mature (hopefully) in both my writing and my views, and... well, once again bored, I'm going to re-write this entire thing... starting with chapter Uno.

Sooo, without further ado...

Okay, so maybe I accidentally blow up every other car I touch. Maybe I get shot at, stalked, thrown in dumpsters, and placed into other various awkward and embarrassing positions on a daily basis. Maybe I AM famous for blowing up the funeral home and my nickname is Bombshell. None of that is my fault!

God just didn't seem to agree with me, however. Nope, nuh uh. Not in the slightest. Because, see, if God loved me, then he would not have me sitting here on the side of the road, my arms crossed. Why am I in such a position, you may ask? Well, with a cell phone with absolutely no signal at five past midnight, I had no way of contacting anybody to rescue me. What's my tragedy? A crazy maniac held a gun to my head and made me drive to the forest, where he is out digging my grave? No. My sister decided to give birth to her child on the shoulder of I-95? Not exactly. No, it couldn't be anything exciting or even remotely interesting. My problem? My car had to run out of gas.

My fricken' CAR! How many freaking people had that much fudging bad luck that they can't even fricken' drive to a flipping store to get a pint of Ben and FREAKING Jerry's without their friggen foreign peice-of-junk car running out of flippin' gasoline?

FUDGE.

I blamed God.

I pulled out my cell phone and attempted, once again, to call Ranger's cell phone.

Zilch.

Nada.

"Dammit."

I realized that I was going to have to get out and walk before I would be able to get a signal.

I looked out my window at my dark surroundings and checked to make sure my doors were still locked.

"Why is it always me?" I groaned, banging my head on the steering wheel. "If it's not psychos, it's bullets, and if it's not bullets, it's bombs.." I realized that I was talking to myself, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

I settled back into my seat, resigned. Someone HAD to drive by eventually. I mean, it's not like I was on some desolate county road, right? (Okay, so I was..)

About ten minutes later, I realized that I had to pee like a race horse.

"Aww, man." I tried sitting with my legs crossed, then switched positions. Maybe the radio will distract me, I thought, so I switched it on.

"Come to WaterWorks today!" announced a child's voice. The sounds of splashing filled my car.

"Shit!" I jumped forward and switched it off. So much for that.

I sat there for about five more minutes, then I couldn't hold it any longer. I slammed my car door shut, walked over behind a tree on the side of the road, and looked around at the deserted area. Nobody had driven past me ever since I decided to be sooo wise and take this "short cut", so I really didn't have anything to worry about, save for skunks... coyotes..

"Come on," I grunted, cursing my bladder. Squatting was NOT high on my list of favorites. Apparantly it wasn't on my bladder's, either, because it refused to cooperate. I strained more, until finally a trinkle...

..ran down my freaking leg.

"Ughhh, gross, dammit.." I looked up, seeing two bright headlights coming up the road behind my car. I knew I was hidden from sight, so I continued trying. A few minutes had gone by, and the beam of the headlights were still visible, the vehicle hidden by mine. Cursing, I stood up. There was no way I could reach my car before whoever was in the other vehicle reached me.

"Just my luck," I murmered. How was I going to get out of this one? I zipped my pants quickly, then turned..

and hit a wall of Rangerness.

"Shit, damn, ouch." I swore as he pulled me up, his lips twitching.

"Do I want to ask?" Ignoring my beet red cheeks, he took my arm and led me to the passenger side of his truck. I stared at the ground meekly as he opened my door, pulling myself into the passenger's seat and buckling my safety belt. He then circled around and got in on the driver's side.

"How did you-"

"GPS." He still looked amused.

"How much did you-"

Now he let out a burst of laughter.

"Babe."

My face burned. I knew that he had seen me.. doing my.. well, taking care of my bladder problem. Thing. God.

"WHY DO YOU HATE ME?" I yelled, throwing my hands into the air. I glared through the roof of his truck.

"Babe?"

"God," I explained as we took off. "I went to Mass for eighteen years straight. I say my prayers at Thanksgiving." We turned the bend and my apartment came into view. "Yet for some reason, He still HATES me. I'm surprised He even lets me enjoy my-" A thought dawned on me. The whole reason I had been out at night to begin with -- the cause of my troubles -- had been left behind.

"Oh my God, Ranger, turn around. Now."

"No."

"My Ben and Jerry's, Ranger! I went through all this to get it, dammit, I want my ice cream!" I felt tears come to my eyes and shook my head in wonder. My period was two weeks ago, why am I being PMSy now? Yes, I knew I was acting like a cheerleader being denied sex, but this was a crucial matter at hand. Life or death, or something like that.

Ranger shot me a sideways glance, probably either determining how mentally stable I was or whether or not I was going to start crying. Seeing this, I pulled out my biggest weapon. If this didn't work, nothing would. I let a tear fall down my cheek, fighting a smile as it glistened in the moonlight. Ranger let out what would almost be a growl as he slowed and made a quick U-Turn.

I have found out over the years that when yelling, cursing, and throwing things don't work, tears do. Men will do ANYTHING so they don't have to see the dreaded tears. I guess I found one of Ranger's weaknesses, after all...

I let out a sigh of relief as we approached my car. As soon as Ranger came to a complete stop, I jumped out and unlocked my car door. I found my Ben and Jerry's un-melted and still cold and couldn't help but to let out a whoop. I dug around in the plastic shopping bag until I found a plastic spoon, then jumped back into Ranger's truck. I began to eat away in bliss.

"Your place or mine?" He asked me. I did not reply. I was too busy licking off the spoon.

Now looking back on it, I know that wasn't a good idea... but at the time, I really was NOT thinking Ranger-thoughts, or of anything at all except for the creamy taste of the ice cream.

"Hmm."

I felt his eyes on me. I looked over in time to see them darken. I was in mid-lick. I carefully put the spoon down and smiled tenatively. Oops.

"Mine," he said, his voice low, rough, and downright sexy. But then, when wasn't he sexy?

"That's probably not a good ide.."

He looked over at me again, and I knew as soon as I looked into his eyes I was a goner. "Oh, fine." See, Morelli and I were still in the middle of that on-again, off-again thing.. and I'd had an encounter with Ranger once... I wasn't sure if I would survive through another.

We drove in silence until we got to the garage, where Ranger killed the engine. I moved to get out when I felt hands pulling me over to him. Before I knew it, his tongue was in my mouth, and I was enjoying every second of it. As his hands roamed, I tried hard to remember if Morelli and I were off or on, but the thought of him soon evaporated from my mind as I gasped softly.

"Shit, Babe."

He pulled away, but before I knew it, he had the passenger door open, practically dragging me to the elevator. His mouth attacked mine again while we were going up, and he didn't even pause when we got to the seventh floor.

Before I knew it, I was on his bed, and he was on me. He was steadily removing our articles of clothing, when I gasped.

"Shit!"

"Babe?"

"My ice cream!"

He glared at me. "I can make you forget all about your ice cream."

And let's just say, Ranger is always a man of his word.

How'd you like it? Yes, no, stop, go? Gimme some input, por favor?

vvvvvvvvvvv