Chapter 4

Leaving Stephanie's apartment so abruptly had raised too many questions in Ranger's mind. Once outside the door, he had hesitated, his steps slowing. The moment of indecisiveness passed quickly enough, however, that the other men did not notice. Hector and Tank were joking with each other as they descended the stairs, but it was clear they were relieved that there had been no real danger here.

They were wrong, Ranger thought. This brief visit had had all the elements of being one of the most important moments of his entire life. And he had blown it. Now he was in danger of losing everything that he had discovered he wanted. That he needed. With every step that took him farther and farther away from Stephanie, Ranger tried to figure out what had made him act so stupid with her just now and, more importantly, what he could do to make things right.

He had to do something, and soon, but how could he face her? When he had arrived at her apartment, his first instinct, his overwhelming need had been to hold her. To feel her wildly beating heart against his chest, to know she was alive and safe.

His emotions had been so close to the surface in that moment and he had never felt so vulnerable, exposed. Instincts again, it seemed, had taken over then and put up a protective wall. Just a natural reflex, and one that had served him well so many times in the past. But not this time.

He knew that he had to undo the damage that his actions had caused tonight, only he was at a loss to know what he could do. He had messed up royally, but that was only part of the problem. Stephanie had been so embarrassed, he knew that her first inclination was going to be to hide from him. From all of them. His hopes to get her to come back to work at RangeMan with him seemed pretty much trashed now.

Could things have gone any worse, he wondered. An explosion would have been an easier thing to deal with. There had been no way of knowing just how many problems could arise with the arrival of that mystery package. Imagined worries had not even come close to the dire reality of the situation he now found himself in.

With the box back in the center of his thoughts, Ranger felt a cold chill fill his bones. So they knew what the package had in it, but who sent it? And why? Anyone who knew Stephanie would have realized that an unknown package sitting by her door would raise alarms. Ranger got the sinking feeling that this was not over, not by a long shot.

He had the drive back to RangeMan to think things over. Though he was far from having a clear idea of what needed to happen next to get Stephanie back into his life, what he was sure about was he needed to know who had sent the box that had started off this whole incident. After hearing the story about Stephanie's friend and the box she had been so excited about, Ranger knew that a call to Mary Lou should be first on that agenda. Ranger headed straight to his office, he would do that now, hoping that whatever Stephanie's best friend had to say would shed some light on the origin of her mystery box.

It was not hard to find the number for Stephanie's friend but clearing his mind to have a conversation with her took a few minutes. His hands trembled slightly as he punched in the phone number. Unknowingly Ranger held his breath, exhaling sharply when the call went straight to voicemail. He tried the number again. Same result. Ranger put the phone on the desk and stared at for a long minute. Frustration threatened to shatter his calm facade. Nothing cool or business like about him now. His hands clenched shut, opened, clenched again.

Finally, Ranger grabbed the phone again, this time leaving a message when his call to Mary Lou was again unanswered. It was not enough, not by a long shot. Fixing things with Stephanie meant finding a way to help her and waiting to get started on that was killing him.

With tremendous effort not to punch anything, Ranger moved around the desk and sat down in his favorite chair. In an effort to control his actions, he assumed a thinking position. Elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his fingers steepled in front of his face, he forced himself to push back the anxiety he felt. "Damn it!" he groaned. He could make it through months of life-threatening covert operations without breaking a sweat, but he couldn't be around Stephanie for ten minutes before his whole world went FUBAR?

. .

The moment the men had left, Stephanie lost the fight to hold back her tears. Not of joy like they would have been a few minutes ago. No these were tears of loss, humiliation, and she could not handle it all alone. It took her a few minutes, but she found her phone and quickly dialed Mary Lou.

Not only would her best friend understand what she was going through with her mixed emotions for Ranger, Mary Lou was the one person that Stephanie knew who could appreciate the box that had mysteriously appeared on her doorstep. Bottom line, Stephanie needed help and she hoped Mary Lou would have some time to spend with her this evening.

"Hey Steph," Mary Lou answered the call with enthusiasm. "What's up?" In the background, Stephanie could hear the chaos that was her friend's life with her boys.

"Oh, hi Mar, hope I haven't caught you at a bad time." Suddenly it occurred to Stephanie to look at the clock on her phone. Yep, talk about bad timing, she had called her friend at dinner time. There was no way they were going to have any time to talk now.

"You know what?" Stephanie said quickly. "I'll let you go, can you call me when you get a minute?"

The noise continued on Mary Lou's end adding to Stephanie's urgency to end the call. "Yeah, okay," her friend said. A beep indicated another call and Mary Lou glanced at the screen. Unknown number. She ignored it. She had heard the desperate tremor in Stephanie's voice and knew something was very wrong.

Mary Lou could only guess what it was all about. Ignoring another unknown caller she made a decision. Looking at her husband, pointedly, she said,"Tell you what, I'll come over when the kids are done here. Lenny can watch a movie with them tonight and we can talk." Lenny nodded and Mary Lou mouthed the words 'thank you' to him.

Stephanie hesitated, she really hated to mess up Mary Lou's evening no matter how much she had wanted to talk to her. "It's okay," she said. "We can find another time."

"Steph," Mary Lou said firmly, ignoring yet another unknown call "I'm coming over, give me half an hour, Okay?"

This time Stephanie did not hesitate to thank her. She really needed this, so she said goodbye and dropped back down on the couch. To wait, and to give herself time to think about everything that had happened today.

Mary Lou tapped her phone against her chin, thinking. All of the missed calls forgotten as she wondered what could be happening with her friend. Stephanie sounded really bad, like about to cry bad.

That did not happen often. Usually, Stephanie could laugh off her problems, trying to cover up how much they actually hurt her. Mary Lou had seen her through some tough times but not even when Stephanie had found Dickie in la flagrante dilecto had crying been her first reaction.

All she wanted was for Stephanie to be happy. The mama bear in her had Mary Lou vowing to attack whoever it was that had hurt her friend. True to her word, Mary Lou was knocking at Stephanie's door exactly thirty minutes later. When the door opened, Mary Lou came in and immediately pulled Stephanie into a big hug. Stephanie tried again to fight back tears that seemed to be coming all too readily today.

"Thanks for coming," she said softly.

Mary Lou gently led her over to the couch. As soon as they were both seated, she lifted her purse to her lap and took out a cheerful looking Tupperware container. "I'll bet you haven't eaten anything today, am I right?" she said. It wasn't a question. "So, we had more mac and cheese than the kids could eat," Mary Lou laughed. "And you know they can eat a lot when they want to," she said with a wink. "But the leftovers are all yours if you want them."

Stephanie took the bowl gratefully. It was true, she had not had a chance to eat before all the craziness had started this afternoon. "Thanks, Mar, you know me too well," she said, returning the smile, as sad as hers was.

As Stephanie slowly lifted the lid and took the first bite, Mary Lou sensed that her friend was going to need some time to gather her thoughts. Stephanie's voice had been filled with anguish when they had talked earlier, and emotional things always took a little time for her to sort out. Truthfully, with Stephanie's crazy life she could be upset about any number of things so Mary Lou decided to start the conversation with the one thing she had been aware of.

"Yeah. So, I heard all about how you are begging Joe to reconsider and marry you," she said with a laugh, thinking that the relentless burg gossip had finally gotten to her and that was what had her friend all upset tonight. "You gotta give him points for trying." She gave Stephanie another wink and rolled her eyes. "Ol' Joe has really kept this up for a long time. Thought he would've given it up by now."

Though it was far from funny, Stephanie couldn't help but laugh. Before the box, before Ranger, and before her mother's phone call, Joe had been the biggest pain that she had dealt with today. It did not surprise her one bit that Mary Lou had already heard all about it either.

"Seriously," Stephanie said with a smirk. Then her shoulders dropped and she looked down at the food in her hands. She placed bowl the on the coffee table and lifted her eyes to meet Mary Lou's. "I wish he was the worst thing that had happened to me today."

That got Mary Lou's attention. She leaned forward and grabbed Stephanie's arm. "What?" Shaking her head she stared at Stephanie. "What's going on Steph?"

Tears glistened in Stephanie's eyes again. She drew in a deep breath, exhaling slowly to control the urge to burst out crying. "Ranger's back," she said. "I saw him today."

"And this is a bad thing?" Mary Lou asked, peering more closely at her. "Steph?" Mary Lou was alarmed at the look on Stephanie's face. Since she had walked out on Joe all those months ago, Stephanie had been anxiously waiting for Ranger to come home. What could have happened to change that? Gently she urged her friend to share what was bothering her.

Revealing what had happened between her and Ranger today turned out to be more difficult than Stephanie had anticipated. Though it pained her, she did her best to explain everything. Describing all of the details to Mary Lou tore her heart apart all over again.

"And then he came in and just turned his attention to what was in the box," Stephanie said, "He hardly even looked at me again"

Mary Lou was indignant on behalf of her best friend and was about to say a few choice words about how she felt when the look on Stephanie's face changed all of a sudden. Wow, what was going on here? Trying to follow Stephanie's mood swings left her speechless.

The box! Stephanie gaped at Mary Lou. Oops, with all of her angst about Ranger, she had forgotten all about the stuff still scattered over the kitchen table. The conversation now took a sharp detour. Maybe she would come back to talking about Ranger later, but right now she had to know what Mary Lou thought about the package that had started this whole mess.

With the decision firmly made in her mind, Stephanie slowly smiled at Mary Lou, her eyes sparkling with a bit of mischief. Maybe it would ease her pain to focus on something else, so Stephanie stood and pulled Mary Lou up with her. "Would you like to take a look at the things that were in the box?"