I deserve no credit for taking the creative genius of JE and using it for my own fun.
Jenny (JenRar) thank you for your hard work as the beta on this story. There are few people that could take my collection of ramblings and turn it into a chapter as you do.
Chapter 4 - Boom!
After skipping breakfast and lunch because neither of us could control ourselves long enough to make it downstairs for food, I knew it was time to man up and fix dinner for Stephanie. I was getting really hungry, so she had to be starving.
She was asleep, her wild hair splayed out on the pillow around her face, wearing nothing but a glow that I wasn't above saying I was proud to have put on her face. I slipped out as smoothly as possible so that I wouldn't disturb her, and then pulled the sheet up to insure that body was only seen by my eyes. I shook my head at that thought. It's not like anyone could get in this place; I had it secured tighter than Fort Knox - literally.
Since I'd admitted how I felt about her, I had this unexplainable need to protect and provide for her. I knew she was independent, so I was going to have to figure out how to rein it in some, but if there was something she needed, I wanted to be the one to provide it to her. And that was why I had the handrail in a death grip in order to make my way downstairs to cook dinner. I knew she'd be starving when she woke up again, and I was focused on having something nutritious for her to eat when she was ready.
I grilled a couple of chicken breasts, and then decided she probably wouldn't appreciate that as a meal, so I looked around in my cupboard to see if there was anything I could use to make an acceptable sauce to slather on it to hide how healthy it was. I remembered my sister mixing honey and mustard together for my nephews to dip their chicken nuggets in, so I pulled that together and dipped a finger in, pleased that the sweetness of the honey came through.
I was just finishing up a fruit smoothie when Stephanie came downstairs in my t-shirt. Her hair was pulled back and twisted like she'd tied it in a knot behind her head just to get it out of the way without having to deal with it. I poured some of the creamy fruit drink into a glass and pushed it across the bar to where she was standing.
Normally, she would have turned up her nose at one of my fruit drinks, but her slightly shaking hand reached out to accept it and gulp it down. It was half gone before she pulled it from her mouth and licked her lips. I raised an eyebrow at her, wondering if she was going to insult my attempt to give her healthy food, but she shrugged and said, "Not bad, but some whip cream on top would really set this off."
I topped her glass off with a little more and turned back to the counter, where I was tossing some spinach with cheese, raisins, and almonds to make a salad. Stephanie moved over to where I was and brought her stool along with her to sit on while I worked.
I kept an eye on the progress of her smoothie, relieved when she finished it. I knew the natural sugar in the fruit would settle her obviously low blood sugar and give her a temporary boost of energy to insure she ate the rest of her meal.
We sat out on the porch for dinner and talked as we ate. I told her all about my mother teaching me to cook, and she told me about her mother attempting to force her to do it. As was always the case when we opened up to each other, I was amazed at how much closer I felt to her. I'd gone into this relationship knowing that if we got together, it would be forever, but I had no idea just how deep it would go. I would do anything for this woman, just for the chance to put that beautiful smile on her face.
After cleaning up the kitchen, we talked about what was going to happen during the next few days. She felt like she needed to get back to work, despite my assuring her it wasn't necessary. I also knew it was one of those things that I couldn't force. She was opening herself to me, and if I began to challenge her in the work she did, then she would take it as a rejection of who she was. So despite it going against everything I wanted, I let it go.
"Bobby made me a follow up appointment with the ear doctor tomorrow afternoon, so I have to be back in time for that, at the very least," she conceded, perhaps putting off her return to chasing skips until after that meeting.
"When will you come back to work?" she asked, knowing I didn't want to go back until I had the limp under control.
I shrugged. "I can't tell yet, but I'm thinking at least a couple more days. I should be able to cover it well enough after that to keep the streets from picking up on anything."
"So, if I go back tomorrow, when will I see you again?" she asked, getting to the heart of what she wanted to know.
"Well, you could always come back here to stay at night," I tempted her, watching as she considered the offer.
"I don't even know where here is," she admitted, looking slightly embarrassed by the confession.
"You could take my car from the garage," I told her. "It has GPS in it, and you could follow that back here when you're ready."
She grinned as we both remembered the first time she'd used my GPS system to find a safe place to sleep on seven when I was out of town. She'd asked me for weeks if she'd found the Batcave, and I'd refused to answer, except to say that the Batcave was forever.
"I could do that," she said in response, grinning.
In that moment, I relaxed a little, realizing that it was really all about giving Stephanie the choice of what to do that motivated her. If I'd told her that's what she was going to do, she would have fought it, but since I'd offered it as her decision, she seemed to be more willing to entertain my suggestions. I knew there would be times when I would revert to my standard MO, but hopefully, I will have proven my intent to her well enough that she won't fight it when the time comes.
We spent the rest of the night watching television with Steph lying between my legs, leaning against my chest. I wondered what the guys would think if they could see us now. I couldn't decide if they would laugh at how comfortable and cozy we looked, or if they just be relieved that we'd finally stopped denying what was so obvious to them.
The next morning, I made us breakfast and did everything I could to keep Stephanie from getting dressed. I joined her shower, I helped picked out her clothes – including her lingerie – and I made her lunch wearing only my sweatpants, hung low on my hips. I thought I had her then, because she spent more time looking at my waist than at her plate.
But at 1430 hours, she announced she had to leave in order to get to the medical office in time. I knew she would be back in a few hours, but I hated the idea of being away from her. I was torn between volunteering to go with her and asking if she'd postpone the visit for another day or two, but in the end, I gave myself a quick lecture, consisting of damn it man, get a grip, and kissed her goodbye, handing her the keys to my newest Porsche.
She looked nervous taking the keys from my hand, but when I assured her it was just a car, she took them, promising to be careful. I decided while she was gone that I'd get online and research cars for her. I knew she didn't like taking my sports cars, but there had to be something somewhere between the clunkers she drove and the top of the line I preferred. I had to do something to get her in reliable transportation so that I wasn't worried every time she left.
I picked up my cell phone and decided to get busy, in the hope of making the time pass a little faster. When Tank answered, I jumped in with the most important order of business. "Stephanie is in route to her doctor's appointment in my car. Have someone shadow her."
"I'm doing fine. Thanks for asking, man," Tank replied in a syrupy voice, apparently hinting that my direct approach no longer worked for him.
"Is there something in the water that's making you act this way?" I blurted out in response. I needed to get this leg solid again so I could get back to Haywood and snap that office back into shape.
"No, but Ella might be slipping something into the chocolate chip muffins she's been making since you've been gone," he replied with a laugh.
I had no way to know if he was joking or not, since I knew she would deny it regardless and would stop as soon as I was back. "While you're thinking of new ways to bust my chops, can you get on assigning someone to Stephanie?"
I could hear the phone moving and other sounds in the background, before he came back online and reported, "Bobby is meeting her there for the appointment, and Vince will shadow her travel to and from. Do you want to tell me where she'll be returning so I'll know if I need to assign someone to watch her tonight?"
"No need to pull someone for tonight," I replied, not wanting to go into details right now.
"Why's that, boss man?" Tank asked, entirely too eager for details about my personal life.
I may have opened up with Stephanie, but that didn't mean I was turning over a new leaf with all my interactions.
"I'm doubting this is from Ella. I'm thinking somebody got the better of you in the ring, and you took a few too many blows to the head," I told him, hoping he would take the hint.
"I'm just messing with you, Ranger. How are things going?" He was still pushing, but he was doing it a little softer.
I paused, perhaps too long, because Tank started to laugh. I knew I needed to say something, but I had no idea how to put it into words. Finally, I just went with, "Thanks for picking her up yesterday. Having her here was exactly what we both needed."
"Glad to hear it," Tank replied sincerely. "Does this mean we're going to be seeing a little more of her around the office?"
"I hope so," I slipped up and told him. "I'm not going to push her into giving up Vinnie, but I'd love to have her working with RangeMan to do the skips, so I could assign her a partner as backup."
"Good luck with that," he laughed at me. "But if there's anything I can do to help you make the argument, let me know. I'd love to see her taken care of, too."
I knew a lot of my men felt that way. They had been around her enough to appreciate the way she treated them, and I had yet to find anybody who was immune to her open nature and accepting ways. If I announced she needed seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day coverage, I wouldn't have any shortage of volunteers.
I got a real briefing from Tank, and we went over all the activity I'd missed while I was on my mission. I decided I could begin catching up from the house, so I asked him to begin pulling together the reports that I needed to review, and I could start those now so when I got back to the office, I could hit the ground running. Hopefully, when the catch up paperwork ran out, my leg would be able to support that plan.
I was running through possible car suggestions for Stephanie, when I heard the garage door open. I got up, glad that it wasn't as painful today as it had been yesterday, and made it over to the security panel to let her in. I glanced at my watch and realized it was later than I'd thought, knowing she must have done something other than just her doctor's appointment to have taken up that much time. I mentally patted myself on the back for having assigned someone to shadow her, since she'd no doubt gone to multiple locations.
She came in and didn't hesitate to walk straight up to me, wrap her arms around my shoulders, and raise up on her toes to kiss me. Not being one to ignore such a blatant invitation, I met her halfway and showed her just how much I'd missed her, too.
When we pulled apart, we were both breathing hard and smiling. I didn't know how long it would take me to get used to being this happy. Hopefully, during the rest of my down time, I could relearn how to call on my blank face, or the guys in the office were going to give me hell over smiling so damn much.
"What did the doctor say?" I asked, keeping her against me.
She shook her head, but I waited, knowing she would eventually tell me.
"There wasn't much change, which explains why it still hurts. The ringing has gotten a little better, but he was hoping it would be completely gone by now, so he's thinking I may have some permanent damage. Until the ear drum heals, he won't commit to that one way or the other. In the meantime, I'm supposed to stay away from all loud sounds and keep using the drops he gave me."
I knew my arms were tightening around her, so I tried to focus on relaxing my grip to keep from scaring her. "Well, even if it doesn't improve, you can still get along well enough. When the ringing goes away, it will probably seem better, just because you don't have sounds competing for your attention," I said, trying to encourage her.
She looked up at me, her deep blue eyes searching for something. Finally, she gave up reading the answer and asked, "Doesn't it bother you that we just started talking about trying for something real together, and I'm already damaged?"
I couldn't allow her to keep going with that line of thought. "Not a bit. Why? Does it bother you that we committed to something real together and I'm damaged?" I glanced at my leg as evidence of what I was talking about.
"Of course not," she quickly corrected me, causing me to raise an eyebrow at her, trying to make the point that I felt the same way. "All right," she conceded, before complaining a little, "But I don't like the idea that I can't hear as well as I used to. I know it's not a big deal in the big scheme of things, but I still feel like it makes me more vulnerable. It's never been hard for people to sneak up on me, and this injury just makes it that much easier."
That was true. "I'm not going to lie; it does take away a small part of your defenses, but you have instincts that you can trust. If you learn to rely on those, even if you can't hear anything to support what your gut is telling you, you'll be fine."
She smiled up at me, but I could tell she was forcing it. It never reached the stormy color of her eyes. But true to her nature, she was refusing to dwell on this any more than was necessary. Then her whole face fell, leaving me to wonder what thought just passed her mind.
"I stopped by my parents' house to check in, and I dropped by the bonds office after the appointment with the doctor, but I forgot to go by my apartment and check on Rex," she explained.
"Do you want me to have someone go by and take care of him?" I asked, turning to get to my cell phone, where I'd left it on the counter earlier.
"No," she replied. I assumed she didn't want me to have one of the guys let themselves into her apartment. Knowing they could do it and giving them permission to just help themselves were two entirely different things, I supposed she was thinking.
She picked her purse up from where she'd dumped it on the floor at our feet and said, "I won't be able to relax if I don't go check on him now."
"Why don't you bring him back with you and put him in the kitchen?" I offered, never understanding the relationship between those two, but being smart enough to know that accommodating the rat would make everyone's lives easier.
She looked up at me and smiled, obviously appreciating my offer to house her pet, as well. "Do you want me to pick up something for dinner while I'm out?"
"No. Go do what you need to, and I'll fix something here to eat when you get back," I countered, wanting to feel useful to her in some small way.
"No salad," she argued with enough of a grin, I knew she was playing.
"No salad," I repeated, willing to eat just about anything to make her happy.
I bit my tongue to keep from telling her to be careful and just kissed her deeply once more, before opening the door to let her leave. As soon as I saw the car turn at the end of the driveway, I made my way to the kitchen, trying to figure out what I could make that would allow me to keep my promise.
I was busy stuffing chicken, hoping that she wouldn't consider the abundance of spinach inside the breast to be a salad, when my cell phone rang. My hands were covered in raw meat, so I missed the call by the time I got them washed and picked it up. Before I could pull up the number of the caller, it began to ring again.
For some reason, the insistence of someone speaking to me put me on edge, and I got that feeling in my bottom of my stomach just like I did on missions, right before bullets started whizzing past me.
"Yo," I answered quickly, hoping whoever this was would cut to the chase and let me know what was wrong.
"I'll be there in ten," Tank's voice said without any trace of the humor he'd had over the last couple of days.
"What's wrong?" I demanded, wanting him to start talking.
"We'll talk about it when I get there," he replied, as though I were some small child that would bow to his will. He might be the larger man, but I was still the big man in charge.
"Damn it, Tank, start talking," I commanded, while moving to get my boots and put them on.
"I don't have all the details, but Hector was doing his routine tracker check and was watching your Porsche, when the tracker went offline. We knew Stephanie was using it and it had been parked in her parking lot, so he called Vince and Cal, who were just a couple of blocks away, to check out what happened. They just called in and said there was a gas leak in a second floor apartment and it blew with enough force to take out the back of the apartment building and a good deal of that debris blew out onto your car." He gave me the details as I slipped my utility belt on, checking the weapons that I already knew were good to go.
"Stephanie?" I asked, not caring that my voice cracked in the middle syllable of her name.
"They're looking into it. The source of the explosion wasn't her apartment, but there's complete pandemonium there right now," he told me as he pulled into the drive.
I shut everything up and met him at the back of the garage so he didn't waste any time shutting the car off. "Let's roll," I told him, jumping in, not giving a damn about the pulling in my leg.
Tank was one of the best drivers I knew, so I held on, trusting that he'd use all his skills to get us there as fast as physically possible.
We were still a mile away, when his cell phone went off, and I had to listen to a maddeningly one-sided conversation, with very little input from the man to my left.
After he hung up, he relayed what he'd heard. "Cal and Vince got her out of the apartment. It was her neighbor's unit that took the direct hit, and the force of the explosion or the weight of the wall that collapsed partially on her knocked her out. She was still unconscious, but they said her pulse was strong and her breathing was steady. Bobby was pulling up and was going to ride with her to St. Francis."
"Take me to the hospital," I ordered, even though he probably knew that's where I wanted to be. I wasn't the least bit interested in the wreckage of her apartment when she wasn't there.
Tank pulled up to the drop off circle at the emergency room and stopped the car to let me off. "I'll go to the apartment, check on her hamster and see what can be salvaged. I'll have someone drop off an SUV for you, too."
I nodded, glad in the midst of this sudden hell that I had Tank behind me for support.
"Go take care of our girl," he added, putting the car in gear to head out once more.
I made my way in and saw Lester standing just inside. He lifted his chin in greeting and met me halfway. "Bobby called the ear, nose, and throat guy to meet them here. He said she'd definitely taken a hard hit to the head, so he was confident there was – at a minimum – a concussion, but he was more worried about the blood from her ears. The boom from the explosion, on top of what she was already dealing with, might have shredded her inner ear. He said he'd come out as soon as he knew something definitive."
I ran my hand over my face to try and control my expression. I'd known loving Stephanie was opening myself up to a new form of suffering, but I hadn't realized how much more intense the worry would be now that we'd admitted to how we felt. I was always on edge when she had to come to the ER, but this was more than I could cover up.
"She's a fighter, man. She'll be okay," Lester offered, not sounding completely convinced himself.
Slowly, the waiting room began to fill in with guys from the office. I made myself useful, filling out her paperwork, but that only took ten minutes, and then I was back to waiting with everyone else.
My cell phone rang, and I jerked it off my belt, hoping for some word from Tank to distract me from the silence of the waiting room. I answered so quickly, I hadn't checked first to see that it was Morelli on the line, instead of my second in command.
"Manoso," he began, causing me to look around, as though I expected to see him step in. "I heard what happened and wondered if you had any news. I could go to her parents' house and fill them in so they aren't left wondering what's going on."
I ran my hand through my hair, knowing it was an offer I should accept, but hating that he was the one to tell her parents. It should be my job, but they didn't really know me. I gave him the limited information I had so far and thanked him for taking it to them.
He hesitated, before saying, "I'm married, I've moved on, but she's been a friend to me since we were kids. There's not much I wouldn't do to help her."
"I'm sure she'd appreciate it, too," I told him.
"I hear she's been with you for the last couple of days," he added, pausing to give me a chance to agree.
I elected to stay silent, instead of disclosing anything about my private life to the cop that I'd envied for years.
Realizing I wasn't responding, he pressed on. "She's not an easy woman to love, but she's totally worth it, if you can be tough enough to survive nights like this."
I was torn between relief at his admission that I was the one that loved her now and pissed as hell that he was bringing up their former relationship at a moment like this. In the end, I decided that getting into a pissing match with the cop probably wasn't a good idea, so I simply said, "Toughness has never been an issue for me."
He hung up, and I went back to my brooding, silently watching the doors to the exam rooms, willing them to open with good news.
As if he'd heard my command, Bobby appeared, looking like he'd been through a battle. I knew he'd been in the office when the explosion happened, so the dirt and blood on him was all Stephanie's. I stood up and wondered if it was physically possible for your stomach to move within your abdomen to push up into your throat.
Bobby ran his hand over the back of his neck, rubbing away the tension there. "She's still out. The doctor believes she'll come around anytime, so he isn't worried about that. She does have a concussion, and there are bruises over fifty percent of her body from the force of the explosion, but the initial x-ray doesn't show anything broken. She's going to feel like she was hit by a truck, though."
He moved his hand from the back of his neck to rub over his eyes, so I knew he was holding back something big.
"What's the rest?" I asked, needing to know what was left.
"Her ears…" He looked down and seemed to be searching the tiles for the right words. "You know about her injury to her left ear, correct?"
I nodded to keep him talking.
"The doctor was already worried about permanent damage from that injury. He was clear in her check up this afternoon that any additional acoustic trauma would insure her inner ear's inability to heal. It's too soon to tell for sure, but he was confident that her left ear has been permanently compromised, and he doubted she will have any hearing restored. That wouldn't be so bad, but her right ear looks almost as bad. The drum is torn – shredded, really. The bones behind the drum were crushed, and there was extensive swelling deep into the inner ear."
"Is there nothing he can do for her right ear?" I asked, desperate for any hope that I could offer her.
"There is the possibility he could perform surgery to repair some of the damage, but he can't say for sure if she would be a candidate for that until the swelling goes down and things stabilize. Maybe six to eight weeks from now, he can reassess to see if surgery would be an option, but at this point he's leaning toward saying no. She's been around enough explosions and other loud noises that her hearing had already been reduced; she just didn't realize it, because the loss was gradual. The only thing we're really waiting for at this time is to see if she has any hearing left at all."
"You're saying she's going to wake up and not be able to hear a thing?" I asked, trying to get to the bottom of what he was trying to tell me.
"No. She'll wake up in pain, groggy, with intense ringing in both ears. Until the ringing phases out and some of the extreme damage clears up, it's classified as temporary hearing loss," he corrected me, choosing his words very carefully.
"But in a few weeks, once we're past the point of temporary hearing loss, then what are we left with?" I pushed, needing him to lay it out there.
"There's no way to know for sure, but I'd say there is an eighty percent chance Bomber will never hear again, or if she does, it will be so muffled and at such a low level that she could be classified as deaf," Bobby finally explained, his shoulders slumping, obviously hating being forced to say it out loud.
Strangely, despite the crowd of large men all listening, when Bobby finished talking, you could have heard a pin drop. My woman was lying in her hospital bed, completely unaware of how drastically her life had changed.
I felt the guys at the back of the circle disappear and knew they weren't abandoning her; they just needed some time to digest what they'd been told.
Tank stepped up and began organizing the ones that remained. "Les, you and Ram take the first shift outside her door. I'll have a schedule up in half an hour. As long as she's here, there will be twenty-four-hour coverage.
"When will she get out?" he asked Bobby.
He shrugged. "Probably sometime tomorrow. They want her to be here overnight so the nurses can wake her up and document her discomfort from the pain of her injuries. My guess is unless something goes wrong during the night, they'll release her to my care tomorrow afternoon.
"Hector, you and I are going to look at modifying some gear to be helpful to her needs, and I'm assuming you'll be in the room with her," he said to me.
I nodded, not trusting my voice to talk.
Bobby put a hand on my shoulder and asked, "You sure you don't want to go back and rest tonight? She'll probably be out of it for most of the night, and I can hang out with her so she isn't alone."
"No," I said quickly, interrupting his offer. I knew he was aware of my leg and was probably making a highly beneficial suggestion, but I had no intention of being away from her now.
"All right," he conceded, seeing the resolve in my eyes, "Room 305."
As I made my way slowly to the doors, I heard Manny speak up to ask, "Something change with the boss and Bomber?"
As much as I wanted to turn around and tell him it certainly had, I forced myself to keep walking.
Thankfully, Tank had the right words when he answered, "Yeah... Over the last few days, they finally got their shit together."
"'Bout damn time," Junior threw in.
"Yeah, but this is a bit much to handle at the start of a new relationship," Erik interjected.
"This ain't new," Tank corrected. "This is just them finally admitting what we all knew. That's his woman, and he's her man. Her ears have nothing to do with that."
I hit the swinging doors, content to leave the guys to accept what I already knew was true. I might have only had twenty-four stress free hours as her partner, but it was enough to let me know I'd never let her go. This wasn't going to be easy, but she was never going to feel like she was facing this alone.