These are not my characters. They belong to the author Janet Evanovich and thank you for letting us borrow them and run with our fantasies.
I dreamed this story and got up that day and put most of it to paper. This is the story of Ranger's worst nightmare. His past coming back to haunt him in the worst way. This is one of my dark stories and probably not canon. Don't stop reading before you see where I'm going in the story because I usually have twists and surprises in store. HEA ending. Least I could do. (Evil grin)
Thanks to Mandyh my beta for all the help and patience with my questions!
Warning-Smut Alert and some violence
Love Interrupted
Present Day
I sat in the sand looking out at the azure sky and the clear blue aquamarine waves gently lapping at the beach. A little string of babbled half incoherent words brought me back to the situation at hand.
Alex grunted and was shoveling sand into his plastic bucket like he was on a serious mission.
The handsome man sitting next to me wrinkled his nose. "Hey buddy. This is a really important mission so maybe we should refresh that super hero diaper."
"Nuh, uh."
"Come on buddy super heroes don't go around trailing that. What do you say? We could also have some tough guy juice and some bad guy smack down cheese and crackers. You're my hombrecito (little man)."
Two years ago
I was looking out the window of the seventh floor apartment at the Trenton skyline, thinking back over the last few years.
I had loved two men at one time. Morelli was a TPD homicide cop. We had a long history and had started dating shortly after I had met Ranger. The relationship was comfortable and safe but sometimes volatile, which often caused us to break up and get back together for periods of time. It was tiring and it wasn't healthy or the ideal relationship.
My relationship with Ranger had been like a slow build. There had been an almost instant attraction and an unusual mental connection. I had loved Morelli, but I fell slowly in love with Ranger. I was like a moth to his flame. I could never stay away from him, even when he had told me that there would never be a relationship or a ring or a future and he sent me back to another man. It had been a surprise to find out that he had felt the same about me and was drawn to me in the same way all along. He had only pushed me away because he thought I was safer without him.
I was so happy now. Ranger and I had just committed to each other finally. He had come to my apartment one night and found me crying and alone. I told him that Morelli and I had finally broken up for good. He stayed with me that night and the next morning we had made love and he finally confessed his feelings and that he loved me and wanted me to move in with him.
After his confession, I gave up my apartment and moved in with him almost immediately. This had been a secret dream and I wasn't going to waste any time now that it had come true.
We spent six blissful weeks together and then he was called to do a mission. Some seriously dangerous job that the government needed a super hero to fix when shit gets messed up. It was to be a short one but it still didn't make me feel any better. He would be in danger and I would be without him. I loved him so much.
The day he left we could hardly let each other go. I promised him that I would wait forever and he promised that he would come home to me no matter what.
Four weeks later, I was at the mall looking at lingerie, planning for my man's return when someone pecked me on the shoulder. I turned around. A female from my past with a shit-eating grin on her face grabbed me and hugged me tight.
"Omigosh! Roxanne. How are you? You look so great!"
"I'm good now chick. How the hell are you?"
"Really good. Where have you been? What have you been doing?"
"I have been in the Airforce. I trained as a software engineer. I'm a new civilian looking for a job in the real world."
"Wow. Software engineer. Let me make a call. "Yo."
"Yo back. Hey Tank, could Rangeman use an ex-Airforce software engineer?"
"Maybe. Send him over."
"Not a he. Happens to be a she."
"No shit? Send her for sure."
I giggled. "Rox, I got you an interview with the company I work for. I think it will be a perfect fit for you."
"Fantastic! When and where?"
"Follow me girl." Roxanne had been in my circle of friends at Bryant and Stratton College when I went there. We had lost touch about a year after we graduated. Rox had been different than most girls. She was beautiful and exotic looking and definitely marched to her own drummer. She was known to be bi-sexual and even though feminine and gorgeous was known to be a dominant female lover. She had a reputation for bringing both her male and female partners to their knees literally. I wondered about what her Airforce playground must have been like.
Tank was immediately smitten with her exotic looks and dark intelligence. He hired her on the spot and set her up with Rangeman's in-house super hacker and software extraordinaire, Hector for training. Then he issued an apartment to her.
Hector was an ex-gang member, scary, gay and one of my best buddies at Rangeman. He didn't appear to speak much English and didn't want to have much to do with me at first. After we did a couple jobs together and he covered my butt and I actually ended up covering his on Stark Street one day, we ended up almost inseparable. Gay or not, Hector is a dangerous badass and an ex-gang enforcer. A gang member had spied him and wanted to make him his bitch for gangland cred. I snuck up and put a gun to the punk's head to stop it.
Now he's mah sexy papi and I love him. The only person that he speaks to in clear enough English to understand is me.
"Hola, mujer sexi Estefania."
"Hola, sexi papi." I hugged him. You met my friend?"
"Si. I going to keep an eyeball on her." I furrowed my brows.
"Okay. See you later."
I was headed to the lounge when a whirlwind of sexy Cuban energy grabbed me and spun me around. "Where you going Beautiful?"
"Looking for some lunch. The usual Rangeman choices, twigs and berries or bean sprouts and tofutti. What are you having?"
"I don't eat twigs and berries. I have a twig and berries."
"Oh you poor thing. Have you ever tried those penile enhancement pills? I haven't heard of a drug to make your berries bigger."
Lester gave me a wolf grin and grabbed my hand and put it to the front of his pants. "Shit!" He was almost as big as Ranger and growing. Time to put this tiger to sleep.
"Don't have a problem in that area Gorgeous."
"Very nice package indeed Lester. Don't let Grandma Mazur get a hold of that." He immediately began to shrink and I giggled.
"Way to ruin a perfectly good moment Steph." He led me to the elevator and punched the garage level.
We went to an Italian deli down the street and pigged out on Italian subs and potato chips. I got mine loaded with oil, mayo, and the works. I moaned and licked and sucked every delectable bite down.
I was smacking my lips and wiping the leftover juices and oil off my mouth when Lester painfully stated, "Gorgeous, that was fucking torture. I got the 'blue balls' from a lunch date. Unless you're offering to help, I gotta' go meet a hand about a huge problem in my cargo pants. Excuse me."
I giggled. "I've never seen blue balls. Can I peek before you go?" He groaned and took off running toward the restrooms.
After a long day of boring computer software searches, I finally retreated to the penthouse at level seven where I now lived with my man that was currently on a mission. I missed him so much.
Everything reminded me of him. There were the keys in the tray in the foyer, the Bvlgari body wash in his shower, the feel and smell of his sheets, the smell of his t-shirts. I had at first refused to let Ella wash the sheets and dirty clothes that he had left because they still contained his smell within the fabric.
I sat in the dressing room looking at the safe there. A while back, he had given me the combination to the complicated contraption and entered my thumbprint into the security screen. He had told me that it had his important documents, will, aliases, passports, emergency information and contacts, military documents, weapons, and it had medals. There were lots of medals from his military career. My man was a hero.
He had told me that I could look inside and that he had no more secrets from me. I had never really wanted to intrude till now. I was bored and missed him and just wanted to touch these important things that were his. After two tries I finally got the door open.
I reached in and pulled out his medals and opened the boxes and looked at each one. I gently pulled out the documents and began to open them and scan them. One was a will that included me and I had to blink several times when reading the next. It was a legal document giving me half of his share of the Rangeman Company. It was not part of the will. My God! He had never told me about this. Then I pulled out a small box and opened it and gasped. Enclosed in it was a beautiful pink diamond ring surrounded in white diamonds. I was shocked and snapped the box closed and set it back in. I quickly put everything back in as I had found it and shut the door. I felt guilty now for looking at those very personal things of his. I'm sure he had not wanted me to see some of that.
I lay in bed that night hugging his pillow thinking about the items that I had found. Mrs. Ricardo Carlos "Ranger" Manoso was all that I had dreamed of being one day. I felt so warm and happy. I smiled and closed my eyes and fell into a comfortable sleep.
TBC
