Thank you to all who have decided to join me for another chapter! So something's definitely going on with Stephanie, and she's afraid to tell Ranger what's happening. Lester and Dayna, and Bobby and Ana, will find out soon if their babies are healthy. Lula and Tank have decided that "The Big Bang" was worth it, because it may have been the thing that got them to finally concieve. I appreciate all of your thoughts and encouragement on this story!

Happy reading, Jill

Caution: Rated M for language and adult situations.

Spoilers: Through Twelve Sharp

"I'm sure you're fine, Steph," Dayna said to me. She sat down across from me and twisted open the cap on a bottle of water. "It happens."

Yeah, but it never happens to me. I know my body. "Do you think it could be something more serious?" I asked her. Samantha was seated on my lap and I was feeding her raisins out of a small container. She was alternating between eating a raisin and throwing one at Halosaurus, who was standing by the door across from us, on his cell. Sorry, I mouthed to him when a raisin hit him square in the forehead. Hal shook his head and laughed, ruffling Sam's wispy baby hair on his way out of the lounge after he'd wrapped up his phone call.

Samantha, Dayna, and I were sitting the RangeMan employee lounge on two, waiting for Lester to come back from a takedown so that he and Dayna could go to the obstetrician appointment she'd scheduled for that afternoon.

Dayna shook her head. "The only things I can think of, other than the obvious being pregnancy, are polycystic ovarian syndrome and menopause. And I'm almost certain that it's neither of those." She cocked her head to the side and peered at me. "Are you sure there's no possibility that you could be pregnant?"

I thought back to last month. I'd gotten a period right after Dayna and Lester's wedding. That meant I was right on schedule and should have gotten it by now. Or maybe not, if there was some kind of a problem. "If it doesn't come today or tomorrow, I'll make an appointment with my doctor."

"It's really too soon to take a pregnancy test," Dayna pointed out.

"Yeah, I know."

"Seeing your OB/GYN would be a good thing to do if you don't get it by tomorrow. They can probably give you a more accurate pregnancy screening." Dayna took a sip of her water and waved at Samantha with a huge smile. I caught Sam's chubby little arm just as she was about to gleefully launch a raisin into Dayna's hair.

"No," I said to Sam. I glanced up at Dayna, who was laughing. "See what you have to look forward to?"

"What did Ranger say when you told him about this morning?" Dayna asked, quickly sobering.

I grimaced. "I didn't actually tell him yet. I just don't want to mention anything until I know what's going on first."

Dayna nodded. "That's cool. I can understand that."

The employee lounge door crashed open and Manny and Lester stormed in like guerilla soldiers on a death mission in the cocaine fields of Colombia. They were each wearing black baseball hats turned backwards on their heads, tight black tee shirts, baggy black cargoes, and SWAT-type boots. Both had Kevlar vests strapped across their chests and a Glock at their waists. Their facial expressions were set to pissed the fuck off and some type of slimy-looking substance was splattered across the bottom halves of their pant legs. It looked as if Manny had also taken a slimy hit to the center of his chest.

"Chased Anderson through his fucking crack house," Lester gritted out. His cheeks were flushed red from exhaustion and anger. He stalked directly to the high-tech refrigerator in the corner and yanked out a bottle of water before chugging the entire thing without stopping. Manny threw himself down into the chair next to me and set to work removing the slime from his pants with a thick wad of paper towels. Samantha had ceased fire of her raisin missiles and was now staring up at Manny with her huge brown baby eyes, probably wondering if he'd be a good raisin-bomb target.

Dayna was frozen to her seat as she stared at her husband in horror. "Lester…what the hell is all over both of you guys' pants?"

Lester gave a bark of sarcastic laughter and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "I have no fucking clue." He removed a roll of Bounty from a cabinet and unwound about seventy sheets. "But we're thinking that it's some type of fruit preserves."

Manny looked up and nodded. "I finally got the balls to smell it just now, dawg. Grape jelly." He held up his purple paper towels to prove his point.

"How did you – why did you – what?" I asked. Lester dabbed at the mess covering the lower parts of his pant legs. Dayna got up to stand next to him and checked out the jelly mishmash.

"Anderson's usual weapon of choice is a 9 mm Beretta. That's why we went in there prepared." Les nodded towards the layer of Kevlar covering Manny's front and back. "I'm guessing that since he didn't know Pacheco and I would be paying him a visit this morning, he had no time to locate his pistol. So the asshole settled for lobbing globs of breakfast condiments at us. He's lucky I got a hold of him before he coated me with Mrs. Butterworth's." He turned towards Manny. "Sorry, man."

"Yeah," Manny muttered, wiping globs of sticky maple syrup off of his vest. I was surprised that crazy, anal Lester hadn't insisted that they disrobe before climbing into his immaculate Escalade. But two guys in bulletproof vests riding back to RangeMan without pants on wouldn't have looked good for Ranger's testosterone-loaded company.

"So Anderson's locked up down at the clink, right?" I clarified. I would have had to rethink my opinion of Lester Santos as a bounty hunter if he let Stinky Anderson slip through his fingers due to a grape jelly food fight.

Lester gave me his patented crooked grin. "Damn right." He wiped the last glob of jelly off his pants and tossed the used paper towels into the trash. His hands were all sticky and I could see purple jelly still under his fingernails. He turned to Dayna and reached for her with his hands. She squealed and ducked away, plastering her bottom up against the edge of the countertop. Lester kept his sticky hands fisted at his sides as he pressed the front of his body full-on up against hers and nuzzled her neck.

"Don't touch me," Dayna sang out, giving Lester a super-sweet smile and circling his waist with her arms.

"And how are both of my babies doing this afternoon?" he mumbled against her neck.

"We're good," she replied. "Just hungry."

"As usual." Lester paused and stared at the floor for a second. He appeared to be listening to someone speak on his two-way and he reached around to his side and hit 'talk'. "Ten-four. I'm on my way." He popped the receiver out of his ear and Dayna pulled his head back down to hers, still not allowing him to touch her perfectly-pressed lavender wrap dress with his jellied hands. Lester gripped the edges of the countertop on either side of Dayna's hips with white knuckles. He kissed her, slow and deep, and I began to wonder how she hadn't managed to get pregnant sooner.

I watched Manny get up from the table and roll his eyes at Lester. He threw his paper towels away and stood by the door, hands on hips. "Yo. Lester, man."

Lester reluctantly dragged his lips away from Dayna's and groaned in frustration. "Bossman needs me. I'll debrief with him and then we'll leave," he said to her. He moved over to the sink and lathered up his sticky hands.

"Please tell me you're not going with me to Dr. Saunders's office looking like that," Dayna exclaimed. "Lester, you smell like an IHOP!"

"Cálmate, mami. I planned on taking a shower and changing first. What time is our appointment?"

"In forty-five minutes!"

"Oh. No need to worry. I'll only be with Ranger for ten minutes at the most." Lester tossed his paper towels into the trash and he and Manny stalked out of the lounge. I turned to Dayna and we each exchanged a big Jersey eye roll. She was getting better at her Jersey eye rolls. She's tried to teach me the Miami eye roll several times, but I'm just not Latina enough to get it right.

"Guys," I lamented. Samantha started to get fussy, so I laid her down in her stroller with her pacifier and pulled a blanket up to her cheek. Her little eyelashes fluttered shut and I let out a sigh of relief. She hadn't napped all day. Stacks and stacks of medical files surrounded Dayna at the table, and she had been going through them one by one, documenting things while we talked and waited for Les. She saw me looking incredulously at all the charts.

Dayna blew out a big breath and smiled. "Whoever said that documenting nurse's notes was easy should get punched," she exclaimed. "Actually, I think it was one of my instructors in my last year of grad school who told me that."

"What are you doing all of that for?" I asked her. "Are those RangeMan employees' medical charts?"

Dayna nodded. "Your husband ordered, as a new RangeMan company policy, that the guys undergo mandatory semi-annual health screenings. You know, like vision tests and stuff like that. I've been trying to get as many of the guys finished as I can this week, so that I'm not backed up on my other work. Only the contract employees are left and I'll probably fly through them tomorrow."

"Sounds intense," I commented.

"It is. You should have seen it yesterday, though. Lester and Bobby. I swear, they share a brain. Bobby put on his shades and pretended he was Ray Charles during his eye test. He even went as far as arguing with me about why I'd bother checking a blind man's sight. Lester pretended he was deaf during his hearing test. I wanted to kill them both."

I was cracking up. "Bobby does do a good Ray Charles," I agreed. "One year he came to the TPD's Halloween Lock-Up as him."

"I forgot what he was this past year," Dayna said, deep in thought.

"Michael Jackson."

"Oh, yeah. Yikes."

Ranger came to the dinner table that evening dressed in full SWAT gear, complete with a Glock on one hip, a Taser on the other, and two pistols strapped to his legs. His SEALS hat was backwards on his head. The handle of a butterfly knife was sticking out of a pocket in his cargoes and he had two sets of cuffs and a stun gun strapped to his belt. He was wired with a two-way and the Kevlar strapped across his chest and back told me that he was in it for the kill. I was horrified at the sight of him, yet oh-so-very turned on at the same time.

"Where are you going?" I exclaimed. "Ella just brought dinner up!"

Ranger ignored me. He pulled me flush against the front of his body and slowly lowered his mouth to mine. He flicked his tongue over my bottom lip and groaned into my mouth when I opened for him, letting him taste the inside. My fingers involuntarily curled into the seat of his pants as he backed me against a wall in the dining room. Ranger's warm hands came around to the front of my little boxer shorts and he dipped his fingers beneath the elastic of my thong, brushing them up against my wet folds. I gasped at the contact and he captured my lips with his, thrusting his tongue deep into my mouth as two of his thick fingers found their way into my throbbing center and swept across my g-spot.

I couldn't stop the groan that escaped my throat. Ranger worked his hand within me, creating magic with his talented fingers and rubbing them against my inner walls in just the way that he knew would drive me insane with desire and pleasure. At last, I exploded around his digits and white spots danced in front of my eyelids as my lower half contracted around him. He slowly withdrew his fingers from my body and brought them up to his lips to lick them clean before burying his face in my neck to control his breathing. He pressed his groin against my belly and I felt him thick and hard and hot through his cargoes.

"Was that to distract me from your leaving?" I breathed. I didn't care. The man was damn amazing.

"Babe," he mumbled against my lips. "I have to go. I don't know when I'll be back. It may not be tonight."

My heart sank. "But what if I need you?" I whispered, suddenly terrified of not having him with me in the event that there was something wrong with my...girly parts.

"Call Ella first. Then call Hal or Manny if something serious comes up. And whatever you do, do NOT leave the building until I call you and tell you it's safe." Ranger kissed me quickly one last time and started towards the door. I grabbed Sam's high-tech baby monitor off the dining room table and followed him out to the elevator. He pulled me to him and held me close while we rode down to the underground garage. When the elevator doors opened, Lester's Escalade and Tank's Navigator were idling near the garage's entrance. Bobby came into view and approached the Escalade with a huge black case, probably filled with guns and assorted weapons. He set the case in the back of the SUV and slammed the trunk hatch shut just as Tank walked up to Ranger and I.

"You riding with Santos?" Tank asked Ranger.

Ranger nodded. "Take Brown with you. Make sure you have enough ammo." Lester walked up to us and did the "guy" handshake with Ranger.

"You ready?" Lester asked him, grinning. Ranger returned his smile but didn't say anything. He was ready.

Tank approached Bobby and handed him his wallet. "You left this in Control, Brown," he barked. He turned his attention to me. "Lula and Ana are upstairs in our apartment. They wanted to know if you and Dayna wanted to have a "girls night" tonight, since Ranger instructed the guys not to let any of you out of the building until you hear from one of us."

"I'll stop by to see them later," I told Tank. My heart just wasn't into a "girls night" right now.

He studied me intensely. "You gonna be okay while we're gone, Bombshell?"

"I hope so," I said quietly. I wasn't thrilled about Ranger being gone, possibly overnight, when I didn't really even know where they were headed.

Bobby was thumbing through the contents of his wallet. "Didn't I have two twenties in here? What happened to the other one?" he demanded to Tank.

Tank feigned surprise. "Sorry, Brown. It may have just slipped out," he said. He pulled a bill out of the pocket of his cargoes and waved it in Bobby's face. "Finder's fee."

"Tank, man -

"Hey, dir-tay...baby I got your money, don't you worry...I said HEY! Baby I got your money..." Tank sang.

Lester joined in on the second verse. "Hey, dir-tay...baby I got your money, don't you worry...I said HEY!"

Bobby snatched the twenty out of Tank's fingers and stuffed it back into his wallet. "Santos, you weren't even born when that song came out."

"Bull-shizzle, Bo-bizzle," Lester quipped. "I was eighteen."

"Same thing."

"I've employed a bunch of goons," Ranger muttered.

Bobby, Tank, and Lester were all dressed identically to Ranger. Between the four of them, they had eight pairs of cuffs, sixteen firearms, and four stun guns strapped to their bodies. Not to mention what was in the trunk of the Escalade. I'd be surprised if whoever they were after didn't shit their pants just from the sight of them.

The elevator opened behind us and Dayna stepped out in her jammies and a pair of fuzzy black flip flops. Her long, brown hair had been straightened and hung to her rear end in thick layers. Lester strode over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"You look like you're ready for bed," he mumbled against her neck. "I really, really, really wish I could join you." He nipped playfully at her earlobe and pressed his lower body into hers, eliciting a small moan from her throat. He lifted the hem of her skimpy black tank top and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss directly below her navel. Saying goodbye to the baby, I thought. Jesus. Lester really has changed.

"Mic check," announced Bobby into his two-way. A round of 'checks' and 'heres' gruffly surfaced from the group and Ranger pulled me to him for one last kiss before climbing into Lester's truck.

"I'll be careful, I promise," Ranger told me. He wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me to him. He smelled delicious and I had a strong urge to drag him back upstairs to finish what we'd started earlier. "Take care of my baby girl. And help Dayna through this. She's not used to Santos leaving for an undetermined length of time. Especially now that she's pregnant." I nodded and glanced at Dayna, who was staring up at Lester with shining eyes and her bottom lip between her teeth as he spoke quietly to her. He kissed her passionately and I saw him mouth, "I love you" to her before he climbed up into his Escalade and slid into the butter-soft leather driver's seat.

Tank and Bobby loaded themselves into Tank's Navigator and the thump of The Game's bass suddenly rolled cleanly through the underground garage.

"Let's ride," Lester announced. He strapped on his seat belt and started tapping the finger with his platinum wedding band on it up against the open window frame to the beat of the bass booming from Tank's SUV.

Ranger pressed himself against me and dropped a kiss into my hair. "I love you, Ranger," I told him.

"And you, my babe, I love more than life itself." He kissed me deeply and pulled away before hoisting himself up into Lester's SUV and slamming the door after him.

I went up to the Escalade and stood next to the open passenger's side window. "You still haven't told us who you guys are after," I said to Ranger quietly, before Lester pulled the SUV out of the garage.

He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly before he spoke. "Remember Edward Scrog?"

My stomach dropped into a free-fall. When the clanging in my head stopped, I replied, "Yeah..."

"He's out of Rahway on parole. Good behavior. Must have had one hell of a defense attorney. Got word about an hour ago that he's not too happy with neither you or I right now."

Shit. And the psychos just kept piling up.

Well, well, well. Another nutcase for Steph to add to her list. Will Ranger and the guys come back from their operation in one piece? And I know everyone is dying to find out what's wrong with Steph, and the next chapter will bring us some answers. What's worse than Scrog back in town to rain on Steph and Ranger's parade? Read on to find out!