These are not my characters. They belong to the author Janet Evanovich and thank you for letting us borrow them and run with our fantasies.

This is the sequel to Big Surprises and is a kooky AU story in the Plum world with a Babe HEA. Not much Cupcake abuse. Bunches of Helen abuse.

Special thanks to you alix33, who is a professional copy writer and I'm grateful for all your help. As in Ranger's words, you never disappoint, Babe!

Happy holidays to all my readers around the globe no matter what your beliefs. I wish nothing but good will and thanks to you all! Merry Christmas Margaret! Here is your sequel.

A/N - I have been procrastinating in writing the ending to Beast. For the two good hours of writing a day that I do, I have been wanting to work on new stuff. I know you are waiting and I apologize. So, for you guys and my non-supernatural and sci-fi readers I thought I would start posting this one for your reading pleasure.

Warning - Do yourself a favor and do a potty break before reading and refrain from drinking hot beverages. Trust me.

More Big Surprises

Chapter 1

My car was bumping and making creaking noises and I was freezing my tuchus off. Wasn't like I couldn't stand to lose a couple of inches off of it, just not by frostbite. The mark left from that probably wouldn't be of the cute dimple variety. Not that dimples on a woman's butt of a certain age were ever considered cute. Another reason to hate how men age over women, they get grey hair and it's sexy, they get butt dimples and it's cute, they get a muffin top and it's a love handle. Gah!

I was still grumbling in my head trying to keep my mind off the shivering when I hit a big pothole and I heard a familiar sound. Cripes! Not another one. Carlos is going to kill me. I looked in my rearview mirror just in time to see the sparks flying from the torpedo like projectile that had just launched itself from the backside or what was left of my car. It skidded down the road a ways and got lodged underneath a garbage truck that picked it up behind me and even more sparks were flying now. If it had been night-time the effects would have looked really cool.

A car horn blew and a sleek car passed the garbage truck and moved in behind me. I heard another noise and looked in my rearview and there went my trunk lid. It flipped and there was the screech of tires and then that grey sports car had himself a new baby blue hood..uh trunk lid. Creak, whoosh and Bam! Ooh, spoke too soon. It was gone with the wind leaving a freshly cracked windshield in that nice shiny car. The car sped up and pulled in the lane beside me and an angry guy in a white shirt and tie that I could barely see through the tinted windows motioned for me to pull over. I waved at him and kept going.

The guy's horn blared and he was waving his arm and started trying to move into my lane. Wait a minute, was he threatening me? I pulled my little 9MM Beretta Nano Carlos had bought me for Christmas out of my purse and waved it back at the guy and he moved back over in his lane, sped up and was gone. Yeah, buh-bye. I'm just trying to get home, dude.

I finally made it to Haywood and before I used my key fob the gate swung open and I chugged in and there stood Carlos with half his Rangemen with their hands on their hips waiting for me. I waited for the black smoke to clear and watched them waving their hands and coughing and then opened the car door and got out. I walked up to Carlos and raised up on my toes and kissed him. "Hey…"

"Babe, you're missing half your car."

"I have a general idea of where the bumper and the trunk lid are if you want to go after them."

He raised an eyebrow. "What happened this time?"

"Well, I dropped Mary Lou off and then headed to Vinnie's to drop off Connie and Lula. We were just about a block away when Connie pointed to a guy walking into the sub shop at Hamilton and Division and said he was FTA and had a really high bond.

He sighed. "What did you do?"

"I um..told Connie and Lula to get out." The other eyebrow went up. "Let me finish. I told Connie to go to the office and pull his paperwork for me."

Carlos rolled his eyes and they got stuck up in his head for a few seconds and then his fingers massaged there and they came down again and his hands went back to his hips. He took a breath and said calmly, "I'm sure I know what you did next. Although I probably really won't want to, I need to hear this."

I said, "It's really not that bad." I looked at the other guys and they were grinning and a couple had their fists over their mouths. "Well, I parked little blue at the curb and put my gun at my back and my taser and cuffs in my pocket and I waited for him to come out."

Carlos said, "You didn't call for backup, again."

I said succinctly, "I think I mentioned to Connie to call Rangeman when they got back. It just happened so fast."

"Finish please, Babe."

"He came out in a few minutes and I followed him back about a half block down where he got into a car and he started it. I didn't want him to get away so I knocked on his window. When he rolled it down I stuck my hand in and stunned him."

I saw the muscles in his jaw set and he took another breath and asked, "How did your car get damaged?"

"I didn't know he had the car in gear already. I guess when I hit him with the stun gun his foot pressed hard on the gas pedal and he accelerated and slammed into the back of my car. Hard," I recounted.

He sighed and asked, "Was anyone hurt?"

"I think the guy might have whiplash. Wow, his car can go from like zero to forty in seconds. I mean could." The guys started snickering.

"What does the police report say?"

I smiled a little mischievously. "Uh..not my fault. Nobody knows except for Vinnie that I stunned him. So, it's all peachy." I gave him a thumbs up and there was lots of laughter from the guys now.

Sigh and then, "Babe…"

"Honey bear, I called Vinnie as soon as it happened and he drove down the block with the paperwork. Then we called an ambulance and Carl Costanza showed up. The guy got a ride to the hospital and Vinnie followed so he would be discharged to the TPD. Good paycheck, got my man. See, all's well that ends well." I raised up on my toes and gave him a peck on the cheek and smiled. I noticed a couple of the guys were turning red to keep from laughing and Zip lost the battle and bent over howling. Ranger's blank face fell and his eyes bugged a couple seconds and he turned and barked, "Zip mats, 0600!"

"Babe, it didn't end well for the Nova. You weren't supposed to be driving it. It's winter."

I sighed. Poor 'little blue'. It was my beautifully restored gift from Carlos, a 1974 Chevy Nova that I named 'little blue' after my uncle Sandor's big Buick 'big blue'. This was sadly the second time that I had wrecked it already.

"I'm sorry, the cover was off of it and I missed driving it," I keened.

"Babe, Woody was going to check and service it and came back and it was gone."

I looked at Woody sheepishly. "Oops, my bad. Sorry, Woody. Would it make you feel any better if I told you that The Wedding Sample Room in New York looks worse?"

He cracked a small grin at that. "Did you find something you liked?"

I sighed. "I did and then it got blood on it."

Ranger cracked a grin and he raised an eyebrow and the guys started chuckling. "It got blood on it?"

"Well, when I finally got my hands on the dress this stupid woman and her butt ugly daughter tried to take it from me and they almost had it so I had no choice. I had to punch the girl."

He asked, "That's how blood got on it?"

I made a balloon with my cheeks and blew out the air. "Nope. Her mother tried to slap me with one of her big man hands and totally refused to let go with the other meat hook, so I punched her too. I was aiming for her eye and got her nose by mistake." He guffawed at that and put his arm around my neck. The guys were cracking up now. Actually, howling.

"It was a pretty good dress. And, it was two sizes too small for Butt Hilde's ugly spawn," I grumbled.

Carlos said to Woody and Junior, "See what you can find of the car." He looked at all the other faces red with mirth and said to poor Zip, "Shit. You're off the hook for mat time."

I said, "Wait, I need to tell them where to go."

He said, "They already know, Babe. We got a call from Carl. His radio reported a flying blue trunk lid between Hamilton and here and he said your bumper and some other parts were still back where you had the accident. Little tigress, we need to work on your hand to hand skills."

I groaned and then he whispered, "In private…"

Then I perked up. "Oh goody…"

On the way to the elevator, he said, "Babe, please don't call me honey bear in front of my men and did you wave your gun at a driver on Hamilton?"

I looked at the concrete floor and made a couple little circles with the toe of my shoe. "Uh..nope, no way. Who would do a thing like that? Well, unless the jerk needed a little more encouragement than a middle finger to move along."

"Babe…"

So, we practiced some really good hand to hand and hand to other parts in the shower together and then Carlos called Ella to bring us dinner. We were on the sofa relaxing while we waited. He with his feet up on the coffee table watching the news and my head was laying on his lap while he ran his fingers through my still damp curls. I was purring like a contented female pussy cat.

We had been living together now for almost five months and things were going great. I'd had the absolute most fun this fall and the best Christmas in my life with my honey bear. Living at Rangeman was loads of fun. For Halloween, we'd participated in a 10k run in silly costumes for charity and ending with a big party at Rangeman. Actually, after 5k I'd pooped out and the guys took turns piggy backing me the other 5k. I knew I would and we made it fun. It was supposed to be a contest, but lately Lester had been annoying and his ego needed to be pounded down a notch so we set him up. He's a huge Star Wars fan and I told the guys that whoever carried me the farthest would get the companion costume to my Princess Leia. His eyes went dark and he said, "Please tell me it's the bikini costume in 'Return of the Jedi'? I'd make a damned handsome Han Solo, beautiful." I had just winked at him.

Well, as predicted he ran like a fool with his pants on fire and his fire hose aimed in the wrong direction. He piggy backed me for two miles and over the finish line huffing and grinning like an idiot. I told him to come to the Penthouse apartment later that night to change into his costume. His eyes lit up like Christmas when I answered the door in the Princess Leia slave costume with sexy high heel gladiator sandals and a long braid down my back and Lester's big saucer sized eyes had ogled me and he yelled out, "WOW!" I grazed his cheek with a soft kiss and grabbed his shirt and pulled him in the door and led him to the living room. I pointed to the sofa and said, "There's your costume, big boy. Put it on."

His face changed and his eyes narrowed and he slapped his hands on his hips and snapped, "You set me up!" About that time, Carlos walked out of the hallway dressed as a very sexy Han Solo and oh boy! did I lick my lips. About thirty minutes later, the three of us walked into the party. Lester and I were definitely a couple and he was holding the chain attached to my collar. He was just dressed as Jabba the Hutt. The guys had laughed their butts off and Lester had grumbled all night long about being duped into wearing a giant slug costume. The bad thing was that it had kind of kicked off a little war of the pranks between us and he was a worthy adversary. Carlos called him an idiot for running with a hundred and thirty-five pound load on his back for two miles when the end reward wasn't even close to getting a hummer. I had elbowed him and corrected the weight estimate by five pounds.

Thanksgiving had come around very soon after. Because we were both still miffed and my mother was still shunning the both of us after a hugely messy and drunken spectacle we referred to as 'Plum dinner Hell' from a night back in late summer, we decided we weren't ready for 'Plum Thanksgiving dinner Hell' and went to his parents' house. We had our own little Thanksgiving at Rangeman as well for the guys.

When Christmas rolled around, I was missing my family and Grandma Mazur. We made the decision to host a huge Christmas dinner at Rangeman for everyone with a serious gift exchange and a silly gift exchange for fun and invite both families on Christmas Eve and that would leave Christmas day for Carlos and I to have our own private one in front of the fireplace, on a fluffy rug, without clothes, exchanging orgasms, I mean gifts, all day long.

I had picked up the phone and called my Nagamom and she had shouted out about four months of angry sentiments she had obviously been harboring and fermenting and I swear my ear rang for two days afterwards. So, I guess that meant she didn't intend to RSVP for the party. I did call the 'Clip and Curl' where Grandma hangs out once a week and left her a message to call me and I invited her and told her to tell my Dad to come if he wanted. I then added Grandma's name to the pot for the gift exchanges. Carlos and Ella had been sad for me, but I just told them that I was happy that I had so many friends and so much to look forward to. I knew that this would still be one of my best Christmases ever!

TBC -