"Relax", said Ranger. We were on our way to his family's house again. I had met most of his family for the first time just a couple of weeks earlier. At least, I had met his immediate family who all lived in Newark. I hadn't, however, met Ranger's sister Maria and her husband, as they both lived in Florida, or his brother Silvio who was in the military and was currently stationed in the Middle East. Apparently, Maria felt left out with not having had a chance to meet me, and she and her husband had arranged to come up to Newark to get to know me. Ranger's family had been quite excited to find out that Ranger was interested in someone. I was the first woman that he had brought home since he had brought home Rachel fifteen years ago. That was a long time for him to be celibate. Of course, we hadn't actually been celibate over the years. That was something we kept quiet though, especially since I'd had a boyfriend at the time – and that boyfriend wasn't Ranger.

I don't know if I could claim Ranger as a boyfriend now either. Sure, I'd broken up with Morelli and didn't have any ties to him any longer. And I had decided that, if Ranger was interested, I would be interesting in exploring a romantic relationship with him. I think. I needed to get to know him better, however, before I decided for sure. What I knew, I liked. I don't think I had ever met someone that I respected as much as I respect Ranger. He was an honorable man, slow to anger, supportive.

Both of the last two qualities were surprising to me. I'd had two previous serious relationships. The first was with Dickie, my ex-husband. He was only supportive to me when we were making love, and when we were together I thought that meant that he loved me. It wasn't until we were married that I found out that he was supportive to many other women as well. I walked in on him being supportive to Joyce Barnhardt, that skank, on my dining room table, three months after I had gotten married to Dickie. I left Dickie – and my dining room table – behind and filed for divorce in the shortest marriage in Burg history.

My second serious relationship was with Joe Morelli, a Trenton cop. That relationship lasted longer than my marriage to Dickie. He, like Ranger, was an honorable man. Unlike Ranger, he was quick-tempered and frequently had to talk himself down from whatever the stressor was. Unfortunately, that stressor was often me. He was loving and kind, and unlike Dickie he was faithful and loyal. He just had a slight problem with my chosen profession and believed that I attracted trouble faster than he could get rid of it. He often commented that I should have a regular police officer dedicated just to me, to handle all the firebombings, vandalisms, thefts, shootings, assaults, kidnappings, murder attempts… They weren't my fault, however. And I didn't have that many – just an average of one a week or so. Surely there were other people who were on first name basis with every police officer on the force.

Okay, he may have had a point, but it didn't make me feel good when he pointed out that I collected disasters like other women collected purses. So what if I had to call the police on a weekly – and sometimes daily – basis? I looked at me as someone providing a valuable service. I was making sure that there was a demand for officers and was, in fact, assuring job security for the police. I told him that the police union should be awarding me a medal. He didn't think much of my theory and instead grabbed his Rolaids from his pocket and chewed on two – or four, depending upon the situation that I had been in that caused that complaint in the first place.

So now I had broken up with Morelli. He had yelled at me one too many times when what I really needed was support . Not the kind of support that Dickie provided, but honest emotional support. When he yelled at me, I had just shot someone – not fatally – but it was still upsetting to me. Ranger had run into the crime scene and asked me if I was okay. Morelli ran into the crime scene right afterwards and proceeded to chew me out. The difference between the two people really slapped me in the face. It was a little hard to take.

I had known that the difference existed. After all, that was why I had begun to rely on Ranger more and more as the relationship between Morelli and me was breaking down. I needed Ranger's constancy. He was my rock, not Morelli, and that told me that the relationship was doomed as well. I guess Morelli sensed there was a problem too. His solution to the problem was to propose with the intention that, when we were married, to get me pregnant and make me quit my job, but I knew by then that Morelli would never become my rock.

I guess everybody had different characteristics that they needed in the person that they considered their rock. I needed constancy, unwavering support, and a steadiness that gave me strength when things went wrong in my life. Because things went wrong in my life an awful lot. Morelli wasn't that person.

So Morelli and I had broken up. He was unhappy about it, but to tell you the truth I felt like there was a weight off my shoulders. I no longer had to be nervous about telling him that I had experienced one of my many mishaps. Even though he was still often the responding detective when I had a mishap. Well, that wasn't not entirely true. I was still nervous about telling him. He still yelled at me. But at least I knew I wasn't going home to that anger when I left work for the day. Even though he didn't hang on to his anger, he did hang on to his belief that I needed to quit my job. That belief was hard to take on a daily basis and had been a constant source of tension.

We may have broken up, but Trenton was still anticipating that we'd get back together. That wouldn't happen. Even so, I heard that there was a pool going in the precinct of when our reunion would occur. Eddie, my friend who was married to my cousin Shirley-the-whiner, and Carl, another friend that I had known since diapered days, had both contacted me to try to find out how they should vote.

I had even basically told Morelli that I was now seeing Ranger, a fact that upset Morelli. He told me that he wouldn't stop trying to get back together with me. He said he wanted to marry me. He was more dedicated to me now than he was the whole time that we were together. Sure, he'd asked me to marry him a few times, but I had always known that he wasn't serious. He was serious about me not getting hurt, and he was serious in that he loved me, and he thought by marrying me I wouldn't get into trouble. I loved him, too, and I would be upset if something happened to him. But just like I knew that I didn't want the white picket fence with Morelli, I also knew that he didn't really want it with me either. We were good friends, and we knew each other well.

I knew that I'd always love him. I hoped we'd always be friends. But at the end of our relationship, we were losing the friendship and the love was being used as a weapon rather than a support. So I tapped out. Morelli was, unfortunately, ready to go another round.

But tapping out was a good move for me. It meant that I was free to investigate a relationship with Ranger, and that seemed to be something Ranger was interested in too. He had asked me out for a few dates now – and he had asked me to his parents' for dinner. That was a couple of weeks ago and, despite me being incredibly nervous, his family seemed very nice and welcoming. I met his grandmother, his mom and dad, three of his sisters, two of his brother-in-laws, and his four nephews and one niece. Unlike the last time my parents saw Ranger, his family didn't ask me when I was marrying him, and also unlike my grandmother, no one asked me for an accounting of how he was in bed. I had a good time with his family.

But I hadn't met Maria and her husband, and I would be meeting the rest of his family – except for Silvio – for only the second time. I was nervous.

"My family likes you", said Ranger. He took my clenched hand and raised it to his lips. He kissed my knuckles before putting it on his leg so that he could downshift.

"What happens if Maria doesn't like me?"

"How could she not? Everyone likes you. You're the most likeable person that I have ever met. You just have to walk in a room and within minutes you have the occupants all wrapped around your little finger."

"That's not true. Besides, your family isn't just anyone. I want your family to like me. It's important to me to make a good impression."

"You already have."

"What's your sister like?"

"She's a lot like you. I think you'll get along together with her well."

"Your poor family. Is she also a disaster magnet?"

"You aren't a disaster magnet. You just happen to work in an area where you are exposed to the underbelly of society, and you come into contact with a wide variety of people that are more criminally inclined. Some of those people aren't nice people to play with and they take it out on you. That isn't your fault, and it doesn't make you a disaster magnet."

"Unlucky then?"

"I hope not. I hope tonight, especially, you'll be very lucky."

I smiled. I wanted to be lucky later as well.