Dancing Outside the Lines
A/N: This takes place after EE. Some spoilers. This is my first FF, so please be kind. I got off to a shaky start but I think I'm finally getting the hang of this. Don't own the characters, JE does, just taking them for a test drive. I guess I should rate this T as I have no idea yet about the actual words that are going to adhere themselves to this paper.
Extra special thanks to my Beta Reader Fredda (Rangergirl1234) who has great insight, kept me honest and also suggested the title for this story.
Chapter 1 The alley
I had just sashayed into the Bonds office and was standing in front of Connie's desk, looking at the latest batch of skip files, when I felt that familiar tingle down my spine. "Afternoon, ladies." Gesturing to Connie and Lula. "Babe," Ranger nodded to me, skimming my body with his as he passed and headed into Vinnie's inner sanctum.
"Humph," Lula said. "Looks like you're getting the bums rush today. No lingering fingers on your lily white neck- what'd you do to piss off Batman, white girl?"
"It's not like that, it's complicated."
"Complicated, my ass. You just don't want to own up. We know you and Batman have this thing for each other. When you guys gonna get off your asses and admit it? I see how he looks at you, and I see that look on your face when he's around and you think no one's paying attention."
Just as Lula was finishing up her tirade, Ranger came out of Vinnie's office with that 200-watt smile on his face. "Babe, can I see you outside, now?"
"What I say?" Lula mumbled to Connie under her breath.
I put the files down and followed Ranger out front. He took me by the elbow and ushered me into the alley that's between the Bonds office and the bookstore next door. Leading me in a little further than usual, he leaned against the wall, one foot flat against it casually, and pulled me to him by my collar. He looked at me straight in the eyes with that dilated-black, hungry look of his and kissed me. Lots of tongue, so I knew he was serious. "I have to go away for a couple of weeks Babe. When I get back, we have to talk."
"Uh, ok Batman. What's wrong with right now?" I asked, trying to get him to open up a bit.
"Be patient. If I'm gone for more than two weeks, Tank will be in touch." I looked up at him to see if he would continue. "I can't tell you more. Gotta go."
With that he pulled me to him again so there was no space between us and kissed me—a really wonderful kiss that could certainly lead to other things if we weren't in an alley. In fact, I think it was me that inserted a knee between his legs during the process and oh my God, I felt him respond. We broke apart, breathless, with a lot of mutual longing. "Gotta go, Babe. I'm in the wind. See Tank if you need anything."
You would think after all these years I wouldn't be surprised that he'd leave so suddenly, saying so little, but once again I was left with my mouth hanging open (just hoped I wasn't drooling) as he took off into the sunset to fight the bad guys. I tried to adjust myself a little and finger-comb my rat's nest of a hairdo as I walked back into the Bonds office, knowing Connie and Lula would have a million questions that I just didn't have answers for.
"You look like you've been thoroughly kissed," Lula smiled, taking in my bedraggled appearance. "What's up with Batman? He off to save third-world countries again?"
"The Man of Mystery didn't say anything, except he'd be gone for a few weeks." And he wants to talk. Hmm, I wondered what that was about? Actually if I thought about it for too long I could come up with a zillion ideas and none of them would be too good. Guess I'd just have to wait and find out for myself—it's wasn't like he ever told me anything anyway. Who knew, when he got back maybe I'd find out that all he wanted was a dentist referral. I shook my head. Batman wouldn't need a dentist referral. His teeth were perfect.
Chapter 2 The mission
13 days, 7 hours and 51 minutes after Ranger went into the wind, I got a call from Tank. "Bomber? Tank. Can you meet me at Rangeman in an hour?"
I was silent for two beats. "Is this about Ranger?"
"I can't tell you anything over the phone, meet me on 5–my office, one hour."
"Ok I'll try. I'm sitting here staking out Mickey Kraven…Lula and I need to take him in. Today's the last day on his bond and Vinnie's losing it."
"Santos can help, I'm sending him over now. Where are you?"
"I'm the only one signed on for this apprehension. I can't just leave this to Lula and Lester."
"Your GPS tracker is showing me you're at McKinley and Chambers, Santos is on his way," he said as he hung up. I swear sometimes Tank has the phone manners of a Neanderthal.
Five minutes later the doors of a brand new, shiny black Explorer opened and Lester and Ram jumped out. "Hey Beautiful, Boss man #2 sent us to get this ass-wipe so you and he can pow-wow. Let's roll, you don't want to keep the man waiting." With that, Lester and I approached Kraven's front door, guns drawn . That is, Lester's gun was drawn. I had my trusty can of hair spray in my left hand and my cuffs in my right. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lula and Ram head to the back door—her AK-47 held prominently in both hands, in case he tried for a hasty escape.
Kraven is a blondish, scruffy-haired guy about 6 foot tall, decent build, with blood-shot blue eyes. He was the type of guy that looked like he drank a six-pack for breakfast. What I didn't expect was the iron ball apparatus with spikes sticking out of it, attached to a chain in his right hand when he opened the door. He looked right at me, and started swinging. Holy shit that thing looked like it could turn me into Swiss cheese! Good thing Les was off to the right, out of Kraven's field of vision covering me. We always try to not shoot anyone, but this guy was begging for a flesh wound, and Lester let him have it—right to the shoulder—and he droped that contraption like a hot potato. As soon as Ram and Lula heard the shot, they were through the back door and on Kraven in under a minute. Within two, he's cuffed, dragged into the back of the SUV, and shackled to the restraints on the floor. The Mighty Men came through again.
"OK Beautiful, Ram can take him in. Give him your paperwork. I'll take Lula back to the Bonds office and then take you to Rangeman. Give me your keys; you're shaking like a leaf. You're too shook up to drive." Usually I'd fight him on that, but Lester was right. I saw my life flash in front of me when Kraven started swinging that thing at me. Good thing I didn't throw up. Ten minutes later we'd dropped Lula off and were headed to Haywood.
"Les, do you know what's on Tank's mind?" I asked, trying to pry some information out of him.
"No can do, Beautiful. You gotta talk to the man himself."
"Yeah, but he scares me sometimes."
"Yeah, me too." Lester laughed slightly. We spent the rest of the short drive in silence, which was unusual for the normally chatty Lester.
Les fobbed the parking gate open and parked as close to the elevator as humanly possible. Going up to the 5th floor I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. "OK, its show time", I said to myself as we got out. I quickly thanked Lester for his help and he turned to head to his cubicle. I headed in the opposite direction to Tank's office.
"Bomber, come on in," Tank said as he grinned. I hugged the wall as I approached cautiously and tried to make myself invisible, which didn't seem to be working. "Sit down," he said as he closed the door and folded himself back behind his desk. I sat down, fidgeting with the hem of my shirt. "We have a little problem on our hands. Ranger's mission went FUBAR…"
I start to get up. "Is he…?"
"Sit. He's ok, Bomber, but…."
"But what, Tank? What are you not telling me?" I had tears in my eyes now and was starting to shake.
"Please, calm down and let me tell you what I can. Ranger finished his mission two days ago. He was supposed to be extracted last night but the helicopter that was coming for him was shot down before it made it to him. We know where he is, but the government can't get another helo to him for 3 days. We have ways and means that the government doesn't and one of our 'copters is on it's way to him right now. It would be really dangerous for him to remain there any longer and his cover might be exposed. The 'copter will take him to catch a plane back to the states. But because we aren't authorized to do this extraction we have to lay low in Miami for at least the 4 to 5 days it would take for the government's 'copter to get in, switch him to a plane, and get back here. If they suspect our involvement, they will be looking to try to court martial all of us, so we need to set up a front until all of this passes over."
"We'd like for you to go down to Miami with Lester posing as a married couple on vacation. Since the physical descriptions of Lester and Ranger are pretty much the same, "good-looking, well-built Latino", we can easily switch out Lester for Ranger once you're down there."
I listened intently as Tank explained his proposed plan. I wasn't sure I could pull it off but if I was honest with myself, I didn't want to disappoint Ranger. "I don't think the couple thing is a good idea," I said. "Look what happened in Hawaii."
"The only person I blame for that fiasco is Morelli. What kind of a macho, asinine move was that? Did he really think you wanted him to just show up?"
"I invited him to come with me, and when he couldn't I never expected him to just come anyway. You know the whole story, don't you?"
"I try to keep out of Ranger's personal life, but yeah, I know about the high bond skip and Mr. & Mrs. Manoso," he said with a wolf-grin on his face.
"If I agree to this, what do you need me to do?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
"You'll be traveling as Mr. & Mrs. Victor Colón, wealthy businessman and his second wife living in Scarsdale, NY. Hal is getting the documentation together as we speak. I'll have driver's licenses, passports, and credit cards for you, Lester, and Ranger within the hour. There's a commercial flight out of Newark leaving at 5 today. That should give you enough time to go home and take care of things. Since we need you to pass for a very well-to-do couple, Ella will shop and pack for you and Lester…I even see matching luggage," he said with a wry smile. Who knew Tank could even smile?
"And if I don't agree, what will happen? Who will you get to play Mrs. Colón? Uh, what's her first name?"
"It's Jennifer…Victor and Jennifer Colón. If you don't want to do this, we were thinking maybe Jeanne Ellen…"
My first thought was 'over my dead body'! "Ok, ok," I quickly chimed in. "I'll do it." There's no way on earth that I'd let Ranger spend four days with Jeanne Ellen. Tank looked at me and smiled again. "I said that out loud didn't I? Shit."
Tank barely nodded but I could tell the weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
The flight took off without delay and I settled in to stare out the window as the Jersey landscape got smaller and smaller. The plane banked after its ascent and headed towards the open waters of the Altantic for the 2½ hour flight to Miami. I could tell Lester sensed something was going on with me, because he kept trying to get me to talk. My one-word answers were probably annoying him as I saw him shifting awkwardly in his seat through the corner of my eye.
I rummaged around in my bag, looking for some gum and growled when I realized that I was coming up empty handed. Irritated, I grumbled to myself and thought back on how my mood had seriously gone down hill. My emotions had been all over the place today. I went from trying to catch an FTA this morning to make ends meet, to being scared that something terrible had happened to Ranger. And then I found myself on a plane headed towards Miami. How was it that my life was so unpredictable? 'It's my fucked up mood and I intend to enjoy every second of it. I can call my mother and Joe when we land, not that Joe will even care. We are so off-again that it looks like there will never be another on', I continued my one-way rant to myself as Lester picked up the In Flight magazine from the seat pocket in front of him and buried his head in it.
2 hours and 10 minutes later the flight attendant came over the loudspeaker to announce our descent into Miami International Airport. We put our seats back into their upright position and Lester took my hand for the landing.
"Beautiful…Jennifer," Lester cooed in my ear. "Are you ready for a week in Paradise with me? I can make you feel oh so good."
"Lester…"
Lester laughed as he took my hand again. "Seriously Steph, is everything ok? Are you going to be able to do this? "
"I don't know Les. This is bringing up a lot of stuff I thought I shoved aside. You know all about my trips into denial land…they have this habit of making me believe everything is ok. And this is beginning to feel a lot like Hawaii." I took a deep breath and figured I might as well go for broke and let Lester know how I really felt. He'd always been a good friend to me and right now I really needed to be honest with someone.
"I… I really do love him you know? How can I spend 4 days with him…pretending…again? It just keeps getting harder and harder. I know he feels something…I guess. I mean the physical stuff is there. It's really hard for us to keep our hands off each other—all of you guys have seen it on tape, I'm sure. Part of me wants that to be enough, but the other part wants…I don't even know what the other part wants. Oh God, I can't believe I'm telling you this."
"It's ok Beautiful, shhh, it'll be ok." Lester picked up my hand, kissed it, and looked into my eyes with such a softness that I couldn't help but believe him and hope that everything would be ok. Denial land here I come.
Leaving the baggage claim carousel we were approached by a well-dressed limo driver with a Mr. & Mrs. Colón sign prominently displayed in his hands. We walked over to him and he took our matching bags from Lester. "I could get used to this kind of treatment," I mumbled to Les as we followed him to a shiny black Mercedes parked right in front.
The driver opened the back door for us and Lester, never one to miss an opportunity, kissed me thoroughly on the lips with a "Welcome to Miami" greeting as we ducked into the limo, followed by a whispered, "You never know who's watching."
On the way to our private oasis, our limo driver introduced himself. His name is Jorge Rodriguez and he would be our chauffeur for the week. I wondered if he was on the up and up? I guessed I'd do a search on him once we were settled in and I had a chance to power up my laptop. I wondered if he was even a Rangeman employee? I also wondered if he got a good look at Lester…or enough of a look to be able to tell the difference between Les and Ranger once the swap was made. Tank mentioned that I shouldn't be too trusting.
I could feel the humidity doing things to my hair as we continued our drive along the palm tree laden highway, the sun setting off to our right. I had no idea where we were, but my spidey-sense told me we were heading south. About 20 minutes later we arrived at what looked to me like a private mansion. It was beautiful…I could see a pool with a waterfall; trees, shrubs and flowering plants were everywhere. I thought I was in paradise. As I looked around, it appeared that we were the only ones here and I silently wondered where Ranger was? Was he even in this country yet? And my most important question to myself was, 'could I keep up this charade'?