I promise my other stories will be updated as soon as I get a chance to edit, but this one has been sitting around waiting to be posted for a while now…

DISCLAIMER: The characters in this story are the property of Janet Evanovich. Believe me, if Ranger were mine, I'd have no problem telling him what I want from him ;)

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It was March in Trenton, NJ and it was still snowing- not soft flurries but full on, winter blizzard with a foot of accumulation snowing. And Ranger Manoso was stuck on the seventh floor of his Haywood office, painfully aware of the fact that he was alone. Not that this feeling was completely foreign to him, but lately, he'd been experiencing this heightened sense of EVERYTHING- though especially his emotions.

RangeMan was booming and his family was just as hectic and meddling as ever, so it wasn't any of those things. It wasn't Julie, because she was happily settled into high school in Miami, having the time of her life being fifteen. So that only left his personal life, or in other words- Stephanie. He'd been thinking about her a lot lately; where they'd been, where they were now, and most importantly, where they were headed. And every time he thought about any of those things, he swore he could feel his chest tighten, almost as if his heart was physically protesting the distance.

At times, if he was lucky, he could almost talk himself into believing they were just good friends with a persistent sexually charged cloud hovering above them. But that wasn't the whole truth now, was it? They both knew it went way beyond that- they were soul mates. The problem was she was too afraid to leave that good for nothing Morelli and take the leap with him. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that was his fault, because he gave her mixed signals. He tempered his declarations of love with foolish clauses like "in my own way" and referenced needing condoms instead of a ring.

But then again, his actions always said what his mouth could not. He jumped up and ran after her at the drop of a hat, fearing she was hurt. He stole kisses where and when he could. And he told her there was NO price for what they gave each other, ever. So why wasn't that enough for her to see his heart's intentions?

His life had been so simple before she'd walked into that diner and asked for his help. He'd had no desire to clean his life up and settle down, but his Babe changed all of that. When he had dropped in on her unexpectedly last weekend, he'd found she already had company- her niece, Lisa. She had had Lisa bundled into an adorable footie pajama and cuddled her to her chest, quietly nursing on a bottle, and as she'd looked up with a startled gasp and instinctively shielded the baby, his heart had leaped. He'd suddenly found himself bombarded with images of the two of them in the 'Batcave', tending to a little baby with his mocha coloring and her vibrant baby blues, swaddled in blankets and surrounded by their love. And in that moment, there was nothing he desired more than having that reality. Even now, when he thought about that afternoon, he found himself filled with a sense of yearning that he had never experienced before, and as much as it pleased him, it also irritated him because though he had always thought himself a man of action, he had not really made any moves to bring his fantasies to fruition…

On the heels of that shocking revelation, his phone began to ring, with Tank's booming baritone on the other end, "Rangeman, Bombshell's on her way up".

Before he could even sputter out a response, the succinct SOB had already hung up and in the distance, he could hear the elevator dinging in rapid succession as it rose to the penthouse, filling him with a sense of unadulterated delight and a queasiness he hadn't experienced since his first crush at six.

Suddenly, his bell was ringing, and he realized he was out of time…