Everyone and anything familiar belongs to Janet. The mistakes are mine alone.

I really did it this time. Not that I'm sorry, but I wish I could claim that I'd been purposely severing a decades-long cycle of dysfunction - and what some would call abuse - not just living in the moment and for once enjoying being who I am. I suppose the whys and hows don't matter so much as what I now have because of it.

"What are you thinking, Babe?"

I rolled my head his way along the Cayenne's headrest. "That you're an incredible kisser."

"I'm being serious, Steph."

"So am I."

I'd had another one of those 'I hate my life' moments after I completed the capture of a sleazeball whose body had needed as big of a cleanup as his mouth did. Instead of going home to Rex and rehashing the disgusting details as I tried to block out the image of the hairy ass that had been repeatedly flashed at me, I pulled away from the curb where I'd been parked in front of Vinnie's, and just kept driving until I hit Point Pleasant. My inhumanly-handsome human tracking device - Ranger - found me on the beach an hour later.

He looked so good and so hot standing there in his all black uniform, but different because he was barefoot with his boots in his hand. I thought I'd cool him off by pulling him into the ocean as far as my shorts allowed me go, but he actually turned up the heat when he kissed me as the waves crashed into and pulled away from our legs. My lips are still tingly and if I lick them to try to capture the sensation, I can still taste him on me.

Though we weren't in The Burg, or even in Trenton, I was involved ... so something had to happen. This time, it was Chrissy Ann Lipvisky who spotted me in arms belonging to a man who is as far from Morelli as it's possible to be. I knew she'd alerted the Burg grapevine before I'd even let Ranger's lips go.

"You aren't upset that Morelli's going to be at your door, or that your mother's going to be calling you nostop?" He asked.

"Well ... I'd be upset about a Morelli visit since we officially called it quits eons ago, so he has absolutely no business sticking his nose into mine. And my cell's turned off ... which you already know because you felt you had to follow your 'Where's Stephanie? gizmo' and come all the way out here after me."

"I'll always come after you."

"I know ... and this time I was actually ready for you." I reached over and squeezed his forearm. "I don't care what anyone thinks or feels except you ... and maybe me, because what I'm feeling is that lip-lock wasn't a one time, while I'm already here kiss."

"It wasn't."

I smiled at him. "Good. Because I don't want it to be."

He glanced at me as he let a light turn red. "Where do you see us going from here?"

"I'm taking the literal route with the answer to that question. We can get into the long-range answer later. Since you believe Joe will make an appearance at my place, I think we should either get a bite to eat and stay in Point Pleasant tonight. Or if you can't take more time off work because of me, we can go straight to the Rangeman building. I really don't want to be alone now that I know I don't have to be without you. I get why you have a secure gate blocking your parking lot. It's handy for when you don't want to deal with unwanted visitors."

"Is our current destination solely about Morelli's location?"

"No, not at all. I'd just tase him from the safety of my car if he showed up yelling at me. He has ceased to matter to me long before we broke up, but I don't want you hurt or insulted by what he'd say if he was camped out in my lot and we stopped there to get Rex."

He kept one hand on the wheel and hit a button on his dash. "He's already there," Ranger informed me, gesturing to the blips on a screen that I hadn't paid much attention to in the past ... but is hard to look away from now that it's all lit up with info about me.

I guess instead of a typical 'panic button' or OnStar service, his vehicles are linked to the Information Mothership ... or the more common name for it ... the Rangeman control room.

"You have Morelli and my apartment under surveillance?" I asked him, not really surprised.

"For your safety."

"And your sanity?" I guessed.

"That, too."

"What would you like to do?" I asked him, wanting him to have a say in everything we do from here on in. "Punch Joe in the nose? Go back to your building and do that bedroom-barricade-thing you mentioned after I had showed you that skimpy dress I'd managed to buy during stalking number two of Ramirez? Or we could allow ourselves a mini shore-vacation, get some dinner, and then maybe make out on the beach some more ... followed by doing a lot more than just kissing inside a hotel room when it gets too cold to stay in the water?"

He flipped on his directional and I wasn't shocked to see that the turn-off would lead to one of the best restaurants on the Jersey Shore.

"We're staying here?" I asked.

"Yes. Why waste the time we have together driving to places we'll just get interrupted in, when we can hammer out relationship-logistics in private before we have to contend with the unwanted input at home?"

"Good point."

"You can get back to kissing me on the beach after you've been fed."

"I'm definitely not dressed for a five-star dining room, and your cargo pants are still wet where they're covering your boots. We can just hit a McDonald's drive-thru. I'm not picky. I don't know for sure, but they could have salad or something fruity there that you'd be able to tolerate"

"From other impromptu trips I've taken with you, I'm aware that you enjoy a Happy Meal, but you deserve a lot more than a pile of cheap saturated fat crammed into a wrapper. If you know the right people, you can get curbside takeout with only a five-minute wait even when it comes to restaurants that have monthslong reservation lists."

"You know ... I've complained a lot about all the contacts you have that I never will, but sometimes I really love just how connected you are."

"And you love me ... period."

"Yep, there's no question there. My brain tends to go bye-bye when you're kissing me, so I'm putting this out there while I still have the ability to think straight. Doing more than kissing in or around sand could be painful for all involved, so you may want to go easy on my hormones so I don't get us hurt."

"I promise you, Babe, pain is the last thing you'll be experiencing."

I should know never to doubt him. We had a waterside, picnic-style dinner of pan-seared diver scallops with some type of complicated white wine/butter sauce on them, along with tomato and zucchini risotto, homemade bread that I'm going to have inappropriate dreams about tonight, and a bottle of wine that was so expensive there was no amusing picture on the bottle. When all the food was eaten - mostly by me - and some wine was consumed - me again - Ranger proved that food isn't the only thing that can be satisfying and enjoyed outdoors.

The oceanfront beach house with its own private beach that he rented on the spot, and him using his body as an extremely warm and very hard barrier between me and anything more abrasive than his mouth and calloused hands, had me finally understanding what he meant all of the times he's told me that fresh air, water, and exercise, are good for me.