Chapter 1 God's On My Side

Steph's P.O.V.

I woke up to the horrible sound of my alarm clock and promptly chucked it across the room. I groaned and rolled over, trying to get back to sleep but to no avail. It was about 90°F outside and 95° in my apartment and it's only 6:00 in the morning. I hate summer in Trenton; I mean sure I can get a nice tan and all…but the heat is killer! I sighed, giving up on any hope of more sleep and rolled onto my back. I rubbed my stomach while lamenting about how horrible my life was.

I was working for Rangeman and Vinnie, which did keep me from going broke, but I was still hurting for money. I love my job there but for the past two months it has been doing nothing but make me more and more depressed. My boss, Ranger, has made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing more from me other than a job well done, entertainment, and some good sex now and then. (Although we've only slept with each other twice, and I've been doing my best not to go back down that road again, it only gets me sent back to Morelli.) I wanted more than that, and let's be frank, what girl wouldn't.

Anyway, enough about Ranger…for now…onto Morelli, the bastard of a cop who had been cheating on me with stupid Terry Gilman. I broke up with him two and a half months ago after I caught the two of them together (a.k.a. one on top of the other, on Joe's couch) when I had come "home" from work early as a surprise. I was now permanently done with Joe, not that him and my mother haven't tried to get us back together, but I wasn't having any of it. Especially not now (but I'll get to the reason for that in a little bit). I had yet to tell Ranger about this, although knowing him, he already knew anyway. I'm sure he thought that we would get together again soon though and that this was just another one of our little spats. (See he just keeps popping up, I can't think about anything without it coming back to him.) I doubted that anyone but Terry, Morelli, and I knew the real truth. Morelli had done a marvelous job covering it all up, making sure to make me look like the bad guy; and I just didn't care enough to set the record straight. I doubt anyone would believe me anyways.

I sighed again at the disaster I call my life, and pulled up my shirt, revealing the very small but slowly growing lump that resided underneath. When I first realized what had happened I was terrified and disgusted with it, but as it started growing I fell in love, so now I was terrified and in love with it. Ok, so yes, I am three months pregnant and yes, I'm positive it's his. And no, he does not know, but think of it this way, if a guy who is adamant that he "doesn't do relationships", and states that he "doesn't want kids" got you pregnant, would you go running off to tell him? No? Yeah, I didn't think so. I knew that I would have to tell him at some point, but I was terrified at what would happen and have been putting it off for as long physically possible (pun intended). And since I didn't want Ranger to know no one knew.

At that moment, the phone decided to ring. I glanced at the clock. Wow, 7:30 already! And, with, much coaxing forced myself out of bed and trudged over to my cell which I had left on the kitchen table.

"Hello?" I answered, fully expecting it to be Ranger saying I was needed for some sort of job which would totally ruin my Friday (of course I have been turning down all distraction jobs for obvious reasons, but still).

"Good Morning, this is Mrs. Tracey Smith calling to speak to a Ms. Stephanie Plum," said a voice that seemed way too chipper for this time of day.

"This is she." I told her, trying to guess what the hell this could be about.

"Wonderful. I am calling about your grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Plum's, will. I am, or rather was, their lawyer." I was shocked; my parents had all but disowned my grandparents on my dad's side. I haven't heard from them in at least ten years. I didn't even know they had died!

"Yes, what about it?" I got straight to the point, trying to hide my shock.

"Well they left you a…few things." Now I was curious, what could they have possibly have left me? "Including their houses in Maine and Massachusetts which are fully owned by them so there's no more mortgages on them, and $2,000,000; you are also fully entitled to everything on both properties and the speed boat that is currently in storage."

"What!? Wow! You can't be serious! That's amazing!" I was ecstatic and yet still completely miffed at why they would leave it all to me. Wait, no I'm not, Dad was an only child and since him and mom disowned them and Valerie hated them their only other living relative that still loved them was me. I had always felt horrible about what my parents did and had done my best to stay in touch with them. My grandparents had always been very well off as far as money goes though, so they didn't really need any help from me. (Not that I could've offered it anyway.)

"All you have to do is stop by my office, located in Boston to sign some papers and it'll be official." She told me.

"I can be there Monday, does that work for you?"

"Yes it does, I have an opening at 10:30. I work for Smith and Smith Law Firm and I look forward to seeing you. Have a good day."

"You too," I said before hanging up, glad to finally be talking to someone with phone manners. I stood in my kitchen for a second, trying to take everything in. I couldn't believe what had just happened and I was psyched, I could finally get out of Trenton and I no longer had to worry about money.

My mood stayed high through my morning routine and almost all the way to the Bond Agency. But just as I was pulling into the parking lot with the dozen donuts that have become routine, it finally hit me that my grandparents were gone. And just like that I broke down sobbing uncontrollably.

I sat in the car for almost ten minutes before I was able to regain some semblance of control, and even then there were still some tears sliding down my cheeks. (Thank God for waterproof Mascara, which I've been wearing ever since I figured out I was pregnant. Hormones are not fun.)

Walking into the bonds office I set the donuts down on Connie's desk and grabbed a Boston Crème before sitting down, taking a second to wonder if they taste better in Boston. Guess I'll just have to wait to find out.

"Hey Steph, thank God you brought donuts!" Lula exclaimed helping herself to two.

"Are you ok? What's wrong?" Connie asked, staring intently at my tearstained face.

"What happened? Was it Batman? 'Cause I'll beat him up for you." Lula said, turning to look at me for the first time.

"No….I just found out that my Grandparents on my dad's side died. And I mean I haven't seen them in ten years, but they're still my Grandparents." I was able to hold it together this time, but just barely.

"Oh Steph I'm so sorry!" They exclaimed together.

"Thanks," I gave them a slight smile, and I was suddenly ready to leave, I didn't want to talk about this. "Now I have to go meet with their lawyer and get everything settled. So I'm going to be gone for a while."

At that point Vinnie came storming out of his office, "If you even thinking about taking a vacation you're FIRED!" He was yelling and I was seriously tempted to cover my ears.

"Come on Vinnie. Give her a break, her Grandparents just died!" Connie tried to reason with him, and I saw Lula reaching into her purse, probably for her gun.

I made up my mind right then and there about a few things:

I really didn't feel like dealing with this right now.

I didn't give a crap about my BEA job anymore.

I was not going to be coming back to Trenton in the remotely near future.

I wasn't going to tell them about my new found riches.

"No Connie, its fine, in fact…I QUIT!" And with that I stormed out of the bonds office, for quite possibly the last time, and sped over to Rangeman.

A/N: Please leave a review to tell me what you think!