Standard fanfic disclaimers for this chapter and all in series, in case I forgot to say that!

Ranger's Other Women

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a/n This takes during High Five when Ranger kisses Stephanie for the first time. He asks her what she thinks about exploring their growing attraction and she says she thinks it would be a bad idea. (As opposed to grabbing him and dragging him up to her bed, like any sane or normal woman would, LOL.)

a/n 2 Spanish is translated in brackets within the text.

The Third Woman: Rita

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[Ranger]

She had a lot of muscles for a little five foot nothing Latina chick.

Man, look at those cute biceps, I thought.

"Buy you another?" I asked, nodded my head towards the frozen margarita she had gulped down in a couple slurps.

"Okay, lindo, I could use it." [handsome]

I held up two fingers, caught the bartender's eye. In a few seconds another shot of tequila and her margarita appeared in front of us.

I said, "Tough day?"

"Oh yeah. Job sucks but it pay good."

"What do you do?" As long as she wasn't a bounty hunter, it was cool with me.

"I drive a front loader forklift at the Wal-Mart warehouse in South Orange. It's a union job, pays a lot more than cleaning offices or some shit like that."

I must have registered surprise. She snorted and said, "What? A big macho guy like you don't think a woman can drive an industrial vehicle?"

The carefully enunciated phrase industrial vehicle made me smile and she sucked in a breath, looked me over more closely. I said, "No, I'm used to seeing women drive fortified humvees and trucks in the military."

"That what you do? You a soldier?"

Oh. Um...I cursed the four or so shots of tequila I downed just now. Mentoring Stephanie Plum can be hard on a man's nerves, even my famous nerves of steel. I shrugged and used the famous crappy line, "I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you."

It didn't go over so great as a pickup line. I guess it works better in my own, ah, social circle, where we all get the joke. To recover, I held out a hand and said, "Frederick Rodriguez," introducing myself. Sort of.

Her callused little hand slid into mine and we shook. She said, "Rita Gutierrez. Where ya from, soldier?"

"Not Soldier, Rita. Call me Frederick."

"Or Freddy?"

If she must...

"So answer the question: where you from, Freddy?"

I rummaged through my brain, where the fuck was my alter ego Freddy Rodriguez from? I said, "My family is Puerto Rican, mostly, but I was born and raised in..." I almost said The Bronx but I wasn't sure I could produce and maintain a Bronx accent while drinking tequila shots..."Jersey City."

"Oh yeah? My Tia lives there, on Liberty Avenue near the park. Not a great neighborhood, but..." [aunt]

She did a pretty little shrug that accentuated her pert breasts in the thin white tank top. No bra.

I grinned and said, "Not great but it's home, yeah, I know how it is."

"Me, I'm from Newark," Rita told me.

Oh thank god I hadn't said I was Carlos Manoso from Newark.

I ordered another round and we chatted. Well, she talked, I looked at her chest. Finally she caught me out and grinned, giving me a playful bump on the arm.

"You wanna come home with me, handsome? Take a closer look?"

"I..."

"You don't have to worry, you use a condom and we can have some fun. No strings."

I looked into her very pretty, very hopeful big brown eyes and all I could see was Stephanie's blue eyes filling with tears earlier tonight, as she handed me the remaining fragments of the day-old BMW I gave her. All I could feel was her lips under mine and her voice saying, "I think it would be a bad idea."

Stephanie and me- - -a bad idea? God, I hoped not, because I was pretty sure that I, tough as nails Ranger Manoso, was falling in love.

I said, "I gotta go," and I strode out of Shorty's as fast as I could, trying to look cool, to be Ranger, Rita's hissed, "Pendejo, " followed me out the grubby door. [asshole/ jerk]

From the safety of my Porsche I dialed a contact and ordered yet another car for Steph. A Mercedes. This time.

the end