This is just a quick story I wrote while trying to work on a few others. All familiar characters and events belong to Janet. The mistakes are mine alone.
"What did you just say?"
"You heard me," I told Ranger. "I'm sure about this. You're not going to scare me here, so stop with the staring/Jedi mind trick/psychic reading-thing you're doing."
"Humor me and repeat it," I was ordered.
"Will you marry me?" I asked, refusing to be terrified just like I said I wouldn't be.
He still didn't take his eyes off the 'engagement ring' I had given him. I had taken my apartment key, and with Hector's help, bent it into what could be called a creative ring. My heart stopped when without a word, Ranger flattened my key-ring between his thumb and index finger.
"What ...?" I started to ask him, but he was busy pulling me into his body.
"Don't worry. You won't be needing that key anymore," he told me.
"Because I'm going to die of embarrassment any second now ... so I won't need a place to live?"
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about, Babe. I'm honored that you asked, and I love you even more for doing so."
"But ...?"
"No buts. First off ... you don't need the key since you'll be lucky if I let you leave this office, let alone my building. Your apartment is no longer your home, Rangeman is."
"Okay, that explains the ring-squish, but you didn't answer the question."
"I am going to marry you."
"But?" I asked again, knowing this time there is one.
"You deserve to be asked ..."
"So do you," I interrupted to say. He kissed me for that, but I wasn't letting him off the hook. "What's the problem?"
He let me go to stand up from the corner of his desk where he'd been half-leaning/half-sitting. He walked around the acre of hardwood to unlock a drawer.
"I put this together for you a few months back," he informed me. "I was waiting for the right time to give it to you when I felt sure you wouldn't try to give any part of it back to me."
"What is it?" I asked, looking at the gift box that's bigger than one containing a ring, even the clunker Hector and I had made.
"You could call it a 'Stephanie, I care' package."
My curiosity is beyond piqued now. I took the cover off the black and silver box and can honestly say what's inside isn't what I expected. What first caught my eye is the Wonder Woman logo keychain that I would've considered buying for my nieces. I'm a really cheap date, so I would've been happy with just something containing my superhero idol, but Ranger's prone to excess.
Threaded on Wonder Woman's ring were three of a definite wedding nature ... a blinding multiple carat, square-cut solitaire on a platinum-colored band, and two wedding rings in his size and also mine. If that isn't enough to require a defibrillator, there is also five keys, two with fobs like the one that was on the keychain for the truck I borrowed before hijacking his apartment when he was out of town and couldn't help me solve my Slayer issue.
"Soooo, the engagement/wedding stuff is self-explanatory. But the rest?" I asked.
"As you've probably guessed, the two keys with fobs are to get into the Miami and Boston Rangeman buildings, so if you ever need assistance in either city, or just want to surprise me when I'm there, you can gain access to the property and also me. The keys beside them are for the penthouse in each building. The car key is to a brand new Cayenne so the letters P, O, S, will never again be applied to something you're driving."
"Ranger ... "
"Before you try to turn anything down, Steph, consider this a gift to me. You don't know how many hours I've spent worrying about you, and the number of nights I've stayed awake wondering if you're safe ... which forced me to head down to the control room or over to your apartment just to check on you. Knowing you have these at your disposal will give me time to spend on something besides worrying."
He made a great case for himself ... and us. Once again, he was a hundred steps ahead of me ... demolishing any hurdles between us while he was at it.
I fingered the rings meant for me. "Do you have anything special in mind that you want extra time to enjoy?" I asked him.
In one move, he was back in front of me, holding me tightly in his arms. "Yes," he said with an intensity that turned my playful mood around. "You."
He is dead serious about me and our future, and I'm even more so than when I walked into his office ten minutes ago and bravely, I thought, proposed to him ... fully prepared to hear a rejection considering how many times I've laughed off just the thought of ever getting married again.
"Be careful what you wish for," I advised, "because you just got her."
He took my logo key ring back and freed the diamond one from it. "Stephanie Frances Plum, will you promise to marry me and never change your mind about doing it?"
"Yes ... even though you used my middle name to ask me."
I've always viewed 'Frances' as too embarrassing a name to even think, never mind say out loud. Logically, I know it's not a totally horrible name, but it never fails to humiliate me since it serves as a constant reminder that my life started as a huge screw-up. I was only given 'Frances' because my parents were desperate for a boy to name Frank after my father, but they got stuck with me instead ... and had to settle for a 'girled-up' version of a Frank-ish name. My always disappointing them started months before I was even born. And I swear my parents have never forgiven me for not arriving in the world with a penis in hand.
Ranger, on the other hand, has always loved me exactly the way I am, and he remains thankful that I'm his woman and am equipped with parts far more fascinating than just a standard 'ol penis … those his isn't 'standard' by any stretch of any imagination.
He put my ring where he wanted it and my mind was already working overtime. I only hit pause on my thoughts when he kissed me. I didn't want to miss a second of what his lips and tongue do to me. When he drew back, I was tingling in places besides my neck. I took a deep breath to calm my rapidly-heating body down, which didn't help since I got a lungful of Bulgari shower gel mixed with an unhealthy dose of Ranger-emitted pheromones.
I put an inch of space between us so I could think and then I spoke a beat later. "How about to seal this deal," I began, "we take the last two rings and head to Miami this weekend and exchange them with Julie there to witness it? And for a honeymoon, we pocket the Miami and Boston fobs and keys and pay a visit to each building so you can introduce me to the guys in both cities and order them not to shoot me if I drop by unexpectedly."
The hundred-watt smile combined with a wolf grin that he gave me seemed to suggest he's totally on board with the idea.
"And your new Cayenne?" He asked.
"That's an easy one. We can take it for a spin right now to get Rex and all his hamster-gear, and drive him back to our new home."
A/N: I should've originally made this an author's note instead of explaining it in my review replies, but I did contact the Evanovich site twice (once when I started writing fanfics, and again before I posted this one just to be sure) and I received the same response both times … that "Steph's middle name is so embarrassing she never revealed it in any of the books." The 'Michelle' that's used in most fanfics is neither embarrassing nor Steph's canon middle name.