A/N: This is a holiday story, posted out of season. Once again, I'm grateful to Dog in the Manger for her beta work and her friendship. All mistakes are mine. Stephanie and her RangeMen belong to JE.

She was threading the emerald and platinum posts into her ears when his arms snaked around her from behind. She swatted them away and shook her head. "No," she told him, hands on her hips. "No wire tonight."

"Aw, Beautiful, be reasonable. You know that's not protocol."

"I don't care. You're going to have at least one guy on the inside, and you'll be in the parking lot. I don't need one." She chewed on her bottom lip as she studied her reflection in the full-length mirror hanging on the back of her bedroom door. Not bad, she told herself. "Besides, it wouldn't really work with the dress."

"Right," he said, smiling at her reflection and positioning his hands at her waist. "And maybe you're underestimating my skills at placing a wire."

Without a doubt, it was an amazing dress: a strapless, fitted sheath of cranberry red silk with a sweetheart neckline that showed off the swell of her breasts without being too revealing. But if the dress was a work of art, the woman inside it was a masterpiece: creamy white skin, eyes that sparkled like sapphires, and soft brown curls streaked with golden highlights that had been corralled and twisted into a messy updo.

He'd never seen her look lovelier, but before he could tell her so, she brushed an imaginary piece of lint off the skirt and twisted just enough to give him a quick peck on the cheek.

"You sure this is going to work, Les?"

"How could it not? I know I'd follow you anywhere tonight. Hell, I think, Santa Claus himself would ditch his sleigh and follow you home if he saw you in this dress."

"I think, I'd rather go after Santa," she muttered more to herself than her companion. "Him, I could ply with milk and cookies."

"Yeah, I don't think sweet is going to work with this one. You might want to think spicy," Les laughed. But his amusement faded no sooner than he caught her worried expression in the mirror. "Something's bothering you. What is it? Tell me."

"I'm wondering about our authority here. We don't usually pick them up before they skip—"

"Morally right-" he reminded her.

"Legally gray," she finished for him. "But maybe he's not planning to skip, you know? This could be entirely unnecessary."

"I don't think so." Lester hesitated and continued on more confidently. "My sources are reliable, and they say he'll skip, same as last year and the year before that."

"Habitual offender, huh?" A nervous laugh escaped before she could stifle it.

Lester spun her around, his concern for her deepening. "You having second thoughts, Stephanie? Because if you are-"

"Nooooo." She sighed and chewed on her bottom lip again. "No, I've got this."

Les released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He didn't have a backup plan, but it hadn't occurred to him that he'd need one. Stephanie's loyalty to RangeMan was unwavering, even if it meant doing a nearly impossible distraction on Christmas Eve.

He helped her into her coat and locked her apartment door behind them. On the twenty-five minute drive, they were both uncharacteristically silent, lost in their own thoughts. They'd been over the details at least three times, and there was nothing left to say except…

"Go get 'em, Tiger," he half-whispered as she angled out of the car. It wasn't quite the same, coming from Lester, but she appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.

She stood outside the half-opened door for just a moment, listening. The space was nearly empty, so it wasn't hard to spot her target. He was sitting at the end of the bar, the sharp angles of his face illuminated by the glow of the widescreen TV, mounted above three rows of liquor bottles.

At first glance, it might seem he was alone, but appearances could be deceiving. As she approached the bar, two well-muscled men at a nearby table looked up. Even on Christmas Eve, he had someone watching his back.

She slid into the seat next to him, placing her coat on the empty stool to her left. Holding her breath, she waited for a glimmer of recognition, at least an acknowledgement. Nothing.

"You come here often?" she asked after licking her suddenly dry lips.

He glanced sideways at her, letting an almost imperceptible shake of his head be his answer.

"My first time here," she confided, shifting on her barstool so that her knees were almost touching the side of his leg. "I'm not really much of a beer drinker, and I'm guessing, this isn't exactly a white wine kind of place."

When he didn't answer, her hand snaked out and closed around the glass in front of him. "Do you think I'd like what you're having?" She took a tiny sip, feeling the mellow burn of aged bourbon tickle her throat.

"Wow," she managed to rasp out, before the coughing took her breath away. "That's a drink that could keep a girl warm on a cold winter night.

The bartender, who had been discreetly polishing glassware at the opposite end of the counter, approached them, holding a bottle of Woodford Reserve and a second glass. He added a shot to both, placing the fresh one in front of her.

"¡Salud!" she purred, raising her glass. Her companion did the same, but before he could drink, she reached out and grabbed his wrist.

"Christ. I'm sorry. That's not exactly your color."

There, on the rim, of his glass was a lip print. A perfect red lip print.

"It's actually a new shade for me," she said, swabbing his glass with her napkin. "It's called Temptress." She took another tentative sip from her glass. "Do you think it suits me?

Instead of answering, he drained his own drink and motioned to the bartender for another.

"Dance?" she asked, tracing lazy circles on the back of his hand.

He glanced at the TV screen over the bar. "To the droning of ESPN?" Those were the first words he uttered since she had entered the bar.

"Cute." She countered his smirk with one of her own. She had two quarters between her thumb and her index finger. Putting them on the bar, she slid them toward the bartender. "Something slow… and sexy," she told him, slipping off her barstool, jerking her head at the jukebox in the corner.

Her would-be dance partner downed his shot and stood up.

The bar didn't have a dance floor as much as a darkened corner of the room that had been cleared of tables. She wrapped her arms around his neck, laying her head on his shoulder.

When she heard the familiar guitar riff, she had to roll her eyes at the guy behind the bar. Bon Jovi's Always wasn't exactly what she had in mind. The bartender just shrugged and smiled. It's Jersey, he mouthed to her. What did you expect?

As she swayed in the arms of her target through that song and then another by Nelly Furtado, she let her fingers wander across his broad shoulders, and up and down the muscles of his neck. Too tense, she thought. This isn't working.

Without warning, one of the bodyguards stood up abruptly and spoke to the bartender. The soccer match between Portugal and South Africa disappeared from the screen, replaced by a music video. She smiled when Romeo Santos and Usher appeared and she sang softly with them, letting her lips brush against her dance partner's ear.

I try to keep my balance but I still fall

But how'd I fall so hard right into your arms, I swear

Wrapped inside you baby it's so warm

The song was one of Lester's favorites, and - she'd borrowed his iPod often enough - she knew the words, but her target knew the moves, gliding her around the tiny, makeshift dance floor in a sexy bachata.

As the song ended, she placed her hand on his left wrist, noting the swiftness of his pulse. Gotcha, she thought as she twisted slightly to get a better view of the Breitling watch he wore. "Look at time," she murmured. "My mother used to tell me that Santa wouldn't stop at our house until I was in bed and asleep."

"You expecting Santa tonight?"

She shook her head, "Nah. My mom also told me Santa only brought presents to good girls." She shrugged a little, meeting his gaze. "What can I say? I've been bad." She paused, tracing her bottom lip with her tongue. "You want to get out of here and go someplace quiet?"

For a moment, she thought he was going to say no. Finally, he acquiesced. "We could do that. You have a place in mind?"

"I do."

He tossed some bills onto the bar to cover their tab while she shrugged into her coat and they walked to the door, his hand at the small of her back.

When they stepped out into the parking lot, light snow was falling.

"I think I should drive if you don't mind." She pushed the button on the key fob that she had pulled from her bag and the headlights of a black Porsche Turbo blinked twice at them.

She waited for his grunt of surprise and she wasn't disappointed.

"Yeah," she agreed. "I confess, it's not mine. I borrowed it from a friend."

"Nice car."

She nodded. "Nice friend."

She slid behind the wheel and buckled her seatbelt. As she pushed in the clutch and started the engine, her skirt slid up, revealing the lacy tops of her thigh highs and a glimpse of skin. Uncharacteristically, she didn't bother to tug it back down. Instead, she glanced over at her companion to see if he had noticed.

She was surprised that his eyes were closed and, for the first time that evening, he looked relaxed. It was as if climbing into the Turbo had caused at least some of his tension to melt away. Usually, this car had that effect on her, but not tonight.

She drove slowly through the unfamiliar streets, thankful that Tank had forced her to memorize the directions. The only sound in the car was the soft thump of the windshield wipers, steady as a heartbeat. She turned down Broad Street, took a quick right into a parking lot and killed the engine. Then she waited.

"Babe. St. Michael's? Really?"

"Did you have something else in mind?" She shot him a wide-eyed innocent look.

"Explain."

"It's Christmas Eve, Ranger," she said, "and it's going to be very quiet in there, at least until your niece and nephew and the rest of the children's choir start to sing."

When he didn't answer, she pressed. "Lots of people come to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. In fact, I understand you always-"

"Not anymore. I haven't been here in years."

"You haven't been here in the last three years, not since..." she let her voice trail off, having noticed the haunted look in his eyes.

"Tank told you?"

"Not the classified parts," she reassured him. "Really, just what was published in the newspapers at the time."

"Three of us were on our way home from a messy job in Bahrain. We'd had a debriefing at NATO offices in Rome that didn't finish until Christmas Eve. Since we couldn't get a flight out until the next day, we decided to go out for drink to celebrate the holiday."

She tilted her head in acknowledgement. This part of the story she knew.

"We were in the car when Danny remembered that he'd left his SEAL hat on the table. Since he was behind the wheel, I offered to retrieve it." He paused, pressing his palms to his temples as if pushing back a killer headache or thoughts too painful to remember.

"The thing was, I was always drove when the three of us were together. Always. But we'd rented a BMW and Danny had never driven one. We arm wrestled for the keys and I let him win, just because he was so hyped to drive the damn car."

Tears stung her eyes. Tank had already told her the rest of the story.

"Car bomb detonated about 30 seconds after I'd gone back into the bar."

He'd been staring straight ahead, as if watching the softly falling snow hit the windshield, but now he turned to her.

"Why, Steph? Why wasn't I in that car with them… Instead of them? Javier was an only child. His dad has a heart condition, and his mother is in a wheelchair because of multiple sclerosis. They depended on him."

She noticed that Ranger's hands were fisted in his lap now, his knuckles white. "And Danny? Danny has twin boys whom he never had a chance to meet. His wife was five months pregnant when he was killed. He'd loved her since high school, but only married her less than a year before."

"What about your parents? Your daughter?" The woman you love? She wondered silently. "You'd rather they were grieving tonight?"

He laughed mirthlessly. "Would they grieve, Steph? I haven't seen my parents for nearly eight months. I've broken their hearts too many times to count. My daughter lives twelve hundred miles away and calls another man daddy. He's the one putting presents under the Christmas tree for her.." He turned to look at her.

"As for the woman I love, last I heard, she was sleeping in another man's bed…"

She shifted in her seat and pressed her right index finger to his lips. "It seems that one of us has been misinformed," she said gently.

"Your parents are waiting for you in that church. They've saved a spot in their pew for you and a place at their dinner table, just as they've done every year for the last three years." She paused and took a deep breath. "They're grieving, Ranger. That terrorist in Rome didn't manage to kill you, but he took you from them all the same. They're so desperate they conspired with Lester to get you here tonight."

She wished that she'd had the foresight to drive the Cayenne so that she could crawl into his lap and wrap her arms around him – an act that was a near impossibility in the Turbo – so instead she reached out and cradled his cheek in her hand.

"Why is it so hard for you to accept that people love you? That I love you?"

He opened his eyes and looked at her, seeing the truth in her words.

"You love me?" he repeated slowly. "I can't remember that you've ever said that before."

"Haven't I?" She shrugged. "Maybe I did, and you forgot. Or maybe I didn't think I had to, given that renowned Mañoso gift for ESP."

"That's not something I'd be likely to forget, Stephanie."

"Or maybe I didn't think you were ready to hear it… that you could hear it," she added gently.

"But you love me?" he repeated, placing his hand over hers and bringing her fingertips to his lips.

"I do," she replied, marveling at how easily those two words rolled off her tongue and the warm, fluttery feeling in her belly when they did.

For his part, he was surprised at how badly he suddenly wanted – no, needed – to get her to say those two words again.

Before he could speak, the doors to the church were flung wide, and a golden halo of light puddled on the steps. There was a blast of trumpets just before a small boy appeared, dressed as an angel.

"Behold," he proclaimed in as sweet, clear voice that carried across the parking lot to the Turbo. "I bring you tidings of great joy."

"Come on," she said, tearing her eyes away from the child and the contrast between his caramel-colored skin and his white robe. "Mass is getting ready to start. You need to get inside."

"We need to go inside," he corrected. "You orchestrated this, and so we'll do it together, but I need a minute."

Before she could answer, he reached out and punched a button on the CD player and for the second time that night, Romeo Santos and Usher were singing together, the Latin beat filling the car.

I'll give you my heart girl, but you've gotta promise

Promise you'll hold me

Touch me

Love me, way past forever

He arched an eyebrow at her, silently. He said not a word, but she heard the question anyway. Way past forever is a long time, Babe. You in?

She couldn't remember a promise she'd been more eager to keep.