Changes
~1~
Steph looked at him and said, "Joe, I can't do this anymore. You've lied to me and I caught you cheating on me. I'm done with you and am leaving you. I will stop back sometime when you're at work to pick up my stuff. I can't believe I thought you could be trusted with my heart. You know how I am about trust since my divorce. I can't believe it, I thought you were better than him. I thought you loved me."
"I do love you Steph. I'm sorry but I really don't have a reason for doing it. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't seem to stay in a faithful relationship. I'll head out for a few hours away now so you can get your stuff now and not have to worry about coming back."
He walked over and went to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned away from him. He took the hint and grabbed his keys and walked out of the door. Steph heard the door shut and turned back around and had tears running down her face. She gave a big sigh and went into the bedroom to grab her clothes and bathroom items. She came back downstairs and grabbed Rex off the bathroom counter. She was headed out the door with everything when she realized she didn't have her car with her. Her fairly new (to her) car was in the shop getting repaired. She had gotten dropped off by Lula after they were done with work and now was locked out of the house, having left her key on the kitchen counter, with all of her belongings and Rex sitting on the front porch. She let out another big sigh and pulled her phone out of her purse. She tried her parent's house but they didn't answer. Her sister didn't answer. Lula didn't answer. She let out yet another big sigh and called the last person that she wanted to, but really had no choice unless she wanted to walk the two miles home with all of her stuff and Rex.
She hit the appropriate speed dial number and heard, "Babe, you okay?" "I've been better. I'm locked out of Joe's house and I need a ride home. Do you have any of the guys close by that they can pick me up?" "Did you try to call Morelli?" "Not an option anymore. Can you just send one of the guys?"
"I'll take care of it, Babe", and with that the call disconnected. She shoved the phone back in her purse and sat down next to Rex's cage and waited. She looked up when she heard a car door shutting and thinking it was Lester or Tank, said "Boy, am I glad to see you." She heard a chuckle and looked up to see Ranger standing against the side of his car.
"Babe."
"I didn't mean to pull you away from work. I thought you'd send one of the guys that were out on patrol in the area."
"I was available so I decided to come. I can leave if you don't want me here."
Steph looked at him and sighed and said, "No, its fine. Can you just drop me at my apartment?" He gave a funny look and then just nodded. He helped put her stuff in the car and in a few minutes they were pulling into her parking lot.
Steph got out and grabbed her stuff and started walking towards the apartment door. She got to the door and turned around to look at Ranger. He was just standing there, staring at her. "Thanks for the ride Ranger. I get my car back tomorrow, so I shouldn't need to bother you again."
"Babe, you're never a bother. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just tired. See you and thanks again." With that being said, she walked into the building and pulled the door shut behind her.
Ranger stood there for few minutes before he followed her into the building. He climbed the stairs to her floor and stood outside her closed apartment door. He could hear her talking to the rat in the cage and then he raised his hand to knock on the door when he heard her crying. He was torn on what to do. He knew that something was wrong with her, more than just the weekly breakup with Morelli. He stood for a few minutes and then when he heard her sobs quieting down, and then heard the beginning of a movie starting, he walked back down the stairs and got in his car and drove back to the office. He wanted to talk to the guys to see if they knew what was going on with Stephanie.
Ranger called the core team into his office once he was back and asked if they knew what was going on with Stephanie. The guys looked at each other, but no one said a word. "Someone tell me what's going on and why you won't answer my question."
They still looked at each other and then finally Lester let out a sigh and said, "It was announced last week while you were gone that Vinnie is closing his office next week and Steph's out of a job. He found someone to buy it and they are bringing in new staff so all of the girls are out of a job. We told her that she was welcome to work here full time, but she declined and said she didn't want to screw up your company."
Ranger started to speak, but Lester shook his head and interrupted him. "We know. We told her that wouldn't happen and that she did great work for us when she worked here in the past. We've all been working on her to get her to change her mind, but she won't budge. What happened that you had to go pick her up? I thought she had a pretty decent car right now and I didn't hear any reports of any explosions."
Ranger looked at him and quirked an eyebrow, asking permission to speak. Lester gestured to him to start talking.
"Thank you for letting me speak in my own office. I don't know what's going on, just that Steph called a lit bit ago and ask if I could send one of the guys to pick her up. I decided to get out of the office and went to get her myself. I looked up her tracker information and saw she was at Morelli's. I pulled up and she was sitting on the front porch with the rat in his cage and a basket of clothes and other female stuff." When he said that, all of the shuddered.
"She seemed surprised to see it was me but just said that she was locked out of the house and needed a ride home. I asked about calling Morelli and she said it wasn't an option so I helped her put her stuff and the rat in my car and I drove her home. When we got there, I tried to help her in, but she practically ran inside so I let her go. I waited a few minutes and then headed up to her apartment. I heard her talking to the rat and then she started crying. I was going to knock on the door but I heard the television go on and the crying seemed to stop so I decided to leave her alone for now."
Bobby spoke up and said, "I think she's depressed about losing her job and doesn't know what she's going to do. Her life is changing and she's not sure if it's for the better and she doesn't know how to handle the changes. I got the feeling after Lester and I talked to her the other day that she wanted to come back to work here, but felt that she wasn't qualified to and she kept saying how didn't want to hurt the company. I think if you talk to her and offer her training and a job after the training is over, really sweet talk her and maybe even bat your eyes at her, she might agree."
Ranger looked at him and said, "Bat my eyes? What am I? A twelve year old girl?"
Lester spoke up and said, "Bossman, she will only come here if you tell her how much you want her to and how much it would mean to you and to the company. Maybe offer to send her to classes for office stuff and we can take care of the training here when she's not in classes. Offer her an apartment and throw meals by Ella in and I think you'll have her. This place needs her, hell, we all need her, and it will only happen if you do the offering."
Ranger looked at all of them and they were all shaking their heads in agreement to what Lester said. "What about the rest of the guys? How do they feel about working with Steph? She doesn't have the greatest track record working with some of them and a few have had to go to the ER after working with her. "
Tank spoke finally at this point. "While you were gone last week, we all talked about it in the last staff meeting. They all want her here and with the proper classes and training, they feel that she will be a good addition to the RangeMan family. Hell, Hector even smiled at the meeting and said he'd teach her Spanish if you can get her here."
Ranger sat for a minute and then finally said, "Okay, I'll see what I can do, but I'm not batting my eyes at her. Let me put together an offer for her and we can call her in and present it to her in a formal meeting, with just the core team. Hopefully, she'll agree and we can get her moved in here before her money runs out and she has to move in with her parents." They all shuttered at that thought. "I'll go and talk to her in the morning."
~2~
Ranger pulled up to Steph's building the next morning and got out of his car carrying a folder with her work offer and a bag of donuts. He walked up the stairs to her door and knocked. No answer. He knocked again, still no answer. He picked the lock and walked in, now with his gun drawn. He found her in her bedroom, sound asleep. From the empty food wrappers and containers scattered about, he knew that she had had a long night. He set the folder and donuts on the kitchen counter and started a pot of coffee. The coffee was almost done when he heard her stirring in the bedroom.
"Well, most people who break in here don't make coffee. That's not how a break in usually works."
He looked at her and smiled. He handed her a cup of coffee and the bag of donuts. He gestured for her to sit down at the table and he joined her. She had already pulled out one of the donuts and was sipping her coffee when he sat down.
"So, you gonna tell me what's going on and why you felt the urge to break in and give me breakfast?"
Ranger sat and didn't say anything for a minute. He just stared at her while she ate her donut. He almost groaned when she licked her fingers. Finally he took a deep breath and started talking. "Babe, I heard about Vinnie selling his office. Do you have any idea what you're going to do after it's closed?"
"Nope." She said nothing further and pulled the second donut out of the bag. She offered it to him and then laughed when he shook his head no at her offer.
"The guys told me they offered you a job and you turned them down. Any reason for that?"
"I don't want to cause problems for your business Ranger. You worked hard to build up that company and I don't want to be the reason it goes under. Everything I touch turns to crap."
"Babe, first of all, nothing you touch has ever turned to crap. Secondly, each time you've work for me, you've helped bring a profit to the company. Every distraction you help with brings in a large capture fee and while you only will accept the amount of money that you needed at the time, you still earned more than you took. I've been putting the rest into an account for you and whenever you want it, I'll give it to you."
She sat and just stared at him, not saying a word. He continued, "Third, your spidey-senses have helped solve a number of jobs for us and once again, brought the company a profit. Fourth, your searching skills and knowledge of the people in Trenton, have helped the guys capture a large number of FTA's and once again, brought money into the company. Again, you wouldn't accept much for your part in those captures, so those remaining amounts are also in your account. Babe, you already are an employee of the company whether you admit or not, just not full time."
She still sat and stared, saying nothing. Her mouth was hanging open a bit so he reached over and gently pulled her chin up to close her mouth. That seemed to jolt her out of her stupor and she finally said, "What?"
Ranger laughed and reached for the folder he brought with him. "Babe, the core team and I met last night and we have decided to offer you a full time position. We would like you to take a few business classes and go through the training program that all employees follow. The offer includes an apartment in the building as well as full use of anything in the building, which includes Ella's cooking." With that said, he handed her the folder. "Take a few days and look over the offer and then get in touch. Any of us are available to answer any questions you have about it. Let me know when you've made a decision."
He stood up and dropped a kiss on top of her head and walked out the door.
Steph picked up the folder and opened it up. She never expected Ranger to do anything like this. She had hoped he would offer to let her run searches while she was looking for a new job, but this, this was too much to ever imagine. She looked at the first page and paled. "Holy crap." She picked up her phone and dialed. When it was answered all she said was, "I need you, get your ass over here" and then she hung up. She flipped through the pages of the offer and the more she read, the more she felt like fainting. Ranger must be out of his mind to offer all of this to her. Her, who can't keep a car from blowing up once a month. Her, who can't seem to catch anyone under the age of 80 without some sort of mishap. Her, who never had enough money, seemed to have a secret bank account and when she saw the amount listed in said account, dropped the folder and leaned over to put her head between her knees. There was no way she had that much money.
Her door opened and he walked into the kitchen and saw her bent over with her head between her knees. He dropped down at her feet and looked at her. "Beautiful, are you okay?"
~3~
She sat back up and picked up the folder and waved it in front of Lester. "Ranger…he…offered…money…too…" She couldn't complete a sentence and pushed the folder over to him. He picked it up and opened it. As he read, he made sounds of agreement and then when he closed it he looked over at her and smiled. "Looks like he put everything in that we'd talked about, even Ella's cooking. What do you think?"
"Les, did you see the amount he wants to pay me?"
"Well, it is a little bit less than what a few of the guys started at, but they had more training than you do, but I image you'd get a bump in the salary once you complete the training program we've put together for you."
"Les, it's too much. The salary is too much, the apartment, even Ella. Did you know about the bank account?"
"Steph, we all agreed to set up the bank account for you. You would constantly refuse money from Ranger for doing the distractions and for your cut of the capture money the company earned from what you found in your searches. There was no way to force you to take it so we set up the account and have invested part of it, so I'm sure the total amount is more than what's listed there."
"But, "
"Steph, please accept this offer. Ranger wouldn't have gone along with this if he didn't want you at the company. Classes start in about a week so that would give you time to get moved into the building and get settled. Please say yes, we all need you."
She looked at Lester and laughed. He was sitting at her table batting his eyes at her.
"What are you doing? You look like an idiot."
Lester laughed. "Bobby told Ranger to bat his eyes at you if he thought you needed more inspiration to take the job. I assume he didn't do it so I thought I'd give it a try. Did it work?"
"You look like you're having seizure so stop it. I don't know what to do. Give a few days and I'll think about it."
"Ok, if that's the best you can do, then I'll take it. Go get dressed and I'll take you out to breakfast."
"Ranger already brought me donuts, but I could stand a trip to the grocery store to stock up on thinking food. You can also drop me off to pick up my car, it's supposed to be ready today."
Once she left the room, he pulled out his phone and sent off a text to the core team. "Some progress, but nothing confirmed. Heading to store for "thinking food", whatever the hell that is."
She came out and they headed out to Lester's car. They got in and headed to the grocery store. She had filled up a cart with cookies, frozen pizza, chocolate cake, peanut butter, kool-aid, and when they got to the ice cream section, she stopped and sighed. "There's my two favorite guys." She opened the freezer door and Lester saw it was the Ben and Jerry section. He watched her put about ten different pints into the cart and when he looked at her, she just smiled and pushed the cart to the next part of the store. She stopped in the alcohol section and put in a few bottles of wine, some beer and was standing trying to decide between tequila and rum, when Lester grabbed a bottle of each and put them in the cart. He then pushed the cart over to what Steph called the "Ranger Aisles" and put in some healthier food for her to also eat. "I assume I'll be invited to the drinking part of the evening and I'll be hungry so I want to make sure I don't have to eat your crappy food."
She punched him in the arm and he smiled. He pushed the cart to the check out and insisted on paying for everything. He told her that it was a Rangeman related expense so she wasn't allowed to pay. They loaded up the bags and then he took her to get her car. When they got there, she was talking to one of the guys she knew that worked there and without her knowing, Lester talked to the guy who had worked on her car and paid him not only for the repairs, but also to have him tell Steph that her car wasn't ready yet because they had to order a part that was coming from far away and wouldn't be ready for another week. He was hoping that she would accept the job and then would be able to sell her latest piece of junk and drive her new Rangeman car.
She seemed dejected that her car wasn't ready but seemed to perk up once they got back to her apartment. Lester helped carry in the bags and put away the food. She told him he could leave and she'd call him if she had any questions. He kissed her cheek and walked back to his car and drove back to the office.
When he pulled in, the guys were all waiting in the garage for him. "I bought her groceries and told her it was a Rangeman expense just so she would still have some money left. She doesn't want to touch her "secret bank account" as she called it. I also paid for her car repairs and paid the guy to lie to her and tell her it was going to be another week before it's done. Hopefully she takes the job and doesn't have to drive that piece of crap again." The guys seemed satisfied with that and they all headed upstairs. He went into Ranger's office and told everything to him. Ranger asked for Lester's opinion as to if she'll take the job. "I think she will but give her a few days. I'll have Ella send over some cookies to her tomorrow and hopefully that will help her decide. She did get a bottle of tequila and a bottle of rum, along with about ten cartons of ice cream. I hope she paces herself with all the junk food she got today. I was getting sick just watching everything she was putting in the cart."