Life is like pizza with toppings you've never tried. Half of your friends tell you it's delicious; he other half tell you its disgusting. When you take that bite, and realize it actually tastes good, someone will lean forward and say, "hey, aren't you allergic to those?"

No, I'm not allergic to anything, but there are many things I would seriously dislike. Kind of like walking into the kitchen after a morning jog to eat my bribe of pineapple upside-down cake and realizing that there was a huge water bug one it.

"Eeyyaaiiii!" I scream at the top of my lungs, more to get the air out of my frozen body than to hope that I'll be rescued. As I live in an apartment building where about nine out of ten people are old and most likely deaf, no one's going to hear me. Without a shred of dignity, I turn on my heel and shoot out the room with the intent of grabbing the car keys and going to Vinnie's office.

About halfway out the door, I realize that I'm not really going anywhere.

"Whoa, babe."

I glance up. There's only one person I know that can say 'babe' without sounding pathetic or dull. Neither of these words describe Ranger. Words like hot, mysterious, and sexy are more apt. And dangerous. Don't forget dangerous. Ranger wears danger just as well as he wears his normal attire of black, tight clothing. Ex-military, but he still has the mentality. And the body.

"There's a roach in my kitchen!" I gripe. "And it's on my cake!"

He smiles. "A bounty hunter who's afraid of a little bug?"

"Hey," I say, offended. "It was big." But even if it were small, I probably would have had a similar reaction. What does my job have to do with it?

In case I didn't mention it, my name is Stephanie Plum. I live in Jersey, and my current occupation was chasing down people who violated their bonds. That's where the money comes in. I used to work with lingerie, but I got laid off. I mean, now life is a lot more dangerous, but there are a lot of perks. Life is never boring, I meet some very interesting people, and I'm rather well known. Mostly for allegedly burning down a funeral home. No one believes me when I say it wasn't me.

Ranger goes off to kill the bug, and I take the opportunity to study how tight his jeans are from behind. I technically have a boyfriend, but that's no reason not to look once in a while. A moment or two passed, then Ranger came back. "All gone," He said.

"It was big, wasn't it?"

"Sure, babe."

"My cake?"

"I threw it away," He glances at me. "Does Rex want it?"

Rex is my hamster, and the closest thing I'll ever have to a child at the rate my life is going. "No," I say sadly. "But it was my last piece of food."

Ranger chuckles. "How about you do me a favor, and I'll buy you a new cake."

"It was my mother's," I inform him. "No one makes pineapple upside-down cake the way she does."

"Then I'll buy you another type."

"What do I have to do?" I ask suspiciously.

"I need you to distract someone for me while my men sneak through the back door and…do something," Ranger says.

I don't ask what they're going to do. Because Ranger will probably say that he would have to kill me if he told me. And while he might not actually kill me, he might take me to his secret hideout, the Bat Cave, and never let me go. Which does have some things going for it…

Whenever I need help taking someone down, I ask Ranger. If he ca't do it, I ask Lula. She's my faithful sidekick, and if I'm having a bad day, I can layer on the mascara and bring her along. No one notices me when Lula's around. Lula likes to wear tight stretchy clothing in bright colors that's only a few dozen sizes too small. Sometimes I worry that some internal organ will not be able to withstand the pressure and will explode, but I've come to think that Lula is indestructible. Kind of like the Buick, my back-up car. An atomic bomb could go off, and when the SWAT teams come rolling in, they'd see a leveled city with a power-blue car smack in the middle, as perfect as can be.

Ranger only needs my help when he needs a distraction. Tease the hair, add the make up, and squeeze into a dress made for someone about seen pounds lighter, I'm not an eye-popper, but I can hold my ground.

Now Ranger needs me. So I have to choose between going into a potentially dangerous situation, where I could get jumped, shot at, groped, chased, peed on, or whatever else may happen. But if I lived… I would get cake. Decisions, decisions. Fortunately, it's an easy one.

"Make it chocolate," I say.