Janet Evanovich owns most of these wonderful characters and I appreciate that she lets us fantasize and play with them. I got the seeds for this story reading two excellent authors fan fiction.

I was frustrated because Ranger and Steph are not evolving and then there are so many other interesting characters to explore like the Merry Men. Also, I thought Steph has a lot of close calls and "what if " the characters really had to deal with a tragedy. How would they handle it?

So this is a post Steph and Ranger finally "get real" story. A Love story for bad boy Lester Santos involving a new character that comes to work at Rangeman. It is mature and dark yet full of the angst we love. I introduced a couple new kooky characters and there is a new hottie that is trouble and maybe a little misunderstood…Cartel story is a true event. This is my first story and I hope you like it. I got better as the book evolved and I hope you enjoy the ending…Stay to the end it's the best!

Note-This was my first story and it was rough. A wonderful beta and friend alix33 just went over it and fixed it for me and you readers! Thanks Girl!

Warning-There is some scattered smut and a violent episode.

Fade to Blackness

Chapter 1

Amanda POV

I am a born and bred Kentucky girl who ended up in Levittown, PA by way of ex-husband. He had come to Kentucky to do a job for a few months, we met through friends, I thought I was in love, I was almost 30 years old and wasn't getting any younger.

He belonged to a huge catholic family and wanted to have kids and I wanted to have none. I was from a small dysfunctional family and felt I didn't need to add to the bad gene pool. All my friends had been having babies and I was traveling and seeing the world. In the beginning, I was a little jealous but then after a few years, those cute babies turned into nasty little monsters and the hot hubbies and ex-football players got pot-bellies and thinning hair, my friends were begging me to change places. No can do I said, Nuh uh….

Family and husband pressure got frustrating until finally I was given the "or else". I took the or else because this is the 21st century and I don't have to stay married to somebody for the use of my womb.

I was now alone and needed a job. I had been a travel manager and worked for a tour company for about ten years. I had a degree in Business and Tourism and had started straight out of college. My dream job with the tour company had just ended with them suddenly just going belly up and leaving me stranded about 600 miles from home. The thing was, I didn't really want to go back to Kentucky. My Dad had passed away from a blood clot in his lung shortly after I married and moved. I was kind of burned out as a travel agent and the internet was slowly but surely ending that particular profession anyway. Then the good tour company jobs were hard to find with fierce competition.

I wanted a change, was ready to be a "new woman" (corny I know), I loved adventure and had always taken the adventure route when I traveled, like scuba diving and sky diving. I wanted a new career. I just happened to be looking at Craig's List online and spotted an interesting want ad for a job for a female with a security and fugitive recovery company in Trenton NJ called Rangeman. I Passed it, then went back to it…I was curious about it. Maybe I could just check it out for grins and giggles.

Trenton wasn't too far away to drive, just on the other side of the river. What the heck…I called the number listed in the ad and was transferred to a man named Tank..Tank? He told me I had the last interview of the next morning at 11:00AM or 1100 hours? Bring my resume and a photo. Okey Dokey then. Sounded more like the military than a security company.

I didn't know exactly what the job was, probably a secretary job for a bunch of jar heads, I was qualified for more, could learn to do something like security. I was currently in pretty good physical shape. I had to work out to keep my weight down cuz' I could take a whiff of a cookie and see it on my thigh the next day. I did Tai Chi regularly and just happened to be trained in martial arts as a teenager by accident.

Shockingly, one of my best girlfriends, Karen in junior high had earned a black belt in karate while in grade school. Her Dad had been a black belt in taekwondo and an instructor. Karen was kind of shy and had kept it a secret till it was time to whip some testosterone riddled teenage butts for roamin' hands. After three times with a football player hand up my skirt from both sides during a dark audio visual class time, I asked Karen to show me how to make it stop. She just giggled and said she would love to have me in her class because it was lacking of taekwondo chicks. So, I took the karate classes and eventually became a black belt.

In later years my "dojo"(Place where you go to take lessons) was sold to a new owner who seemed to be only interested in the local white populations skirts, namely mine. The Saboom (Korean) or Sensei in Japanese, did everything short of dragging me to the back room for a feel and did in fact cause me to get a nasty groin pull after doling out some unnecessary punishment on the mats during work outs. After he began calling me at home and talking dirty to me in Korean, I quit. A girl I met had been taking Judo and suggested I come try that and I liked it and happily learned a new martial arts discipline along with Tai Chi (relaxation and focusing type exercise with slow flowing movements). This was all unusual for a kind of country gal from Kentucky but I had really never used it much before except for karate choppin' those football players hands in school and then for exercise to keep in shape.

I went ahead and added the knowledge to my resume, got a good nights sleep and headed for Trenton the next day. Rangeman was in a non remarkable seven story building in a pretty convenient area in Trenton. I parked on the street and walked through the front entrance and gave my name.

In a couple minutes, a really handsome beefcake dressed all in black with a toothpaste commercial smile walked up to me and said…"Ms. Smith, where have you been all my life?" The guy at the desk just rolled his eyes, "Santos just take the lady to the conference room, she has an appointment." On the way up the elevator, the guy known as Santos just leaned against the back wall, looked me up and down and said.. "well?" With a two eyebrow eye waggle…."Well what?".."You from around here?"…Jeez this guy needed to work on his lines…"No, across the river…Ohio river…Kentucky"… "Damn, a filly and gorgeous at that"...The elevator door opened on the 4th floor and we stepped out , me red faced.

A fantastically built and extraordinarily handsome Latino man with hands on hips and a frustrated look on his face and a pretty woman looked up. He shook his head and said, "Who is the nincompoop who sent Santos to get the next FEMALE applicant?" Santos just bowed, grinned the toothpaste commercial grin again and pushed the elevator button.

The woman rolled her eyes, gave me a warm smile and said,…"I'm Stephanie Plum and your Ms. Amanda Smith right?".. I nodded and she offered her hand. "We are ready for you so you can come on in the conference room." Inside the conference room an argument seemed to be going on. "Jeez, Tank where the hell are you getting these people from, Craig's List?" "Well, um, yeah."" We are talking about a distraction job here, not a stark street corner."" Don't you ask for resumes and pictures first?" "We've had every kind of applicant in here from a one legged stripper to a female sumo wrestler!"

The built and darkly handsome man with the dark eyes cleared his throat and clearly annoyed. Stephanie said, "that's Ranger the owner of the company, and this is Tank and Bobby." I did a little Forrest Gump wave and Stephanie told me to take a seat and have a refreshment if I wanted. I thanked her and shook my head that I was fine. I don't know what everyone was expectin', but the guys grinned? I guess it was because I didn't look like a sumo wrestler.

I was about 5'8, 140 pounds (big boned) you know, 34C-24-perfect 34 on a good day and had to work at it hard. My boobs were real, I had long brown hair that I kept perfectly highlighted when I had the money to look like a natural dirty blonde, long nails, my own (was once approached to be a hand model) big hazel eyes, average nose, dimples and I had been told nice pouty bedroom lips. The only thing I hated was my little chubby chipmunk cheeks that all through my life everybody wanted to squeeze. However, I had always been told that this is what gave me an innocent look and again the bedroom appeal, I snorted thinking about it. What those cheeks really did was just hang out there threatening to sag in my near future.

I had remembered setting up the interview with Tank and handed him a folder with my resume and photo. He looked down and grinned even wider. You have traveled to the far east and have a black belt in 2 different disciplines. I nodded, "Yes Sir."

That got jaw dropping looks from everyone around the room. Tank said, "Ms. Smith, do you have any other talents, have you ever had any weapons training, computer, security or intelligence training?"

I said, "computer but, none of the other." "I am an expert scuba diver, I have done sky diving a lot and I have done climbing and repelling and that sort of thing when I traveled. I meditate and exercise using Tai Chi almost daily." That got me the "high beams" from Tank and grins from everyone else in the room, even the tall dark Ranger guy.

Tank said, "you might just have a variety of talents we can use here at Rangeman but first let me tell you about the position we need to fill right now. The job is called distraction. We do security work but we also do government work, bail enforcement and fugitive recovery. Unfortunately, a lot of them are dangerous and we have to come up with safer, creative ways to catch them." …"Like? I asked"…"We might put you in a costume as say a waitress in a bar and ask you to get friendly with the target to get him outside the premises." I rolled my eyes, well this wasn't what I was expectin'. Serves me right. I was thinking about that bedroom comparison stuff a few minutes ago.

Stephanie giggled, and gave a look like she knew exactly what I was thinking. She said,…"Amanda actually distraction is an important job, it is usually pretty safe and you would be wired and well protected by the team. Your goal is to get the target from the premises and out the door so that the Rangemen can quickly and quietly make the apprehension and take them back to jail. This job helps keep these men safe so that they don't have to apprehend in the open in a dangerous situation like a firefight. The operation is professional and well thought out to the very end detail. You would be actually taking my place because I now have other duties that take up more of my time.

Tank asked me if I thought that this was something that I could do. I asked, "there is some danger involved?"... and every person nodded yes. Ranger said, "I won't lie to you. We are a tight knit team and we take care of our own. In any case where you might become injured or compromised, we will take care of you, bring you home and pay all expenses to get you safe and well."

I looked at his eyes and believed him, then I sighed…and said, "well I was looking for more adventure." At that Tank grinned and said…"Young lady, at Rangeman you WILL get that ." We will be in touch. He thanked me and I left the room to go home hoping I got that call. Behind me, I heard the room erupt with voices. Well, how the hell did we get that lucky? Damn, we should put her on the mats to take up the slack. Ranger is gettin' old and wearin' himself out trying to keep these grunts in shape. Who you calling old grandpa? Tai Chi classes would be cool too to get the guys focused…a giggle..Lester could use some discipline too..she needs to be fearless and adventurous to work with you guys. Who, me?...Get back to work!

TBC-