So this chapter introduces "Angry Ranger." He's going to be spending quite a bit of time with us. There are probably some people who won't be in love with this Ranger, but like I said, if you stick with me I think his motivations and actions will all make sense. And I hope by the end that you'll love him even more.

Don't own them, make no profit, will return them. Rating for language and smut.

Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter! If I didn't get you personally, know that I appreciate your time reading this!

…

Steph turned sideways in her bathroom and lifted her shirt. Already, the outline of her growing belly could be seen, even though she was only four months along. She poked at her belly, smiling at the hardness she could feel.

She had decided pretty quickly that she was not one of those women who gloried in being pregnant. She didn't have that pregnant-woman glow, either, and had pretty much decided that that was just a ploy some women used to feel superior.

It was going to be almost impossible to keep it a secret much longer, she realized. The only person who knew was Mary Lou, and that was only because she had to have somebody to freak out with in the beginning. Mary Lou had been a godsend, driving her to Newark to a doctor there, helping her figure out how to cope with the morning sickness, adding an elastic waist to her cargo pants.

Speaking of cargo pants, she tried again to snap the top button, but even with the elastic, it wasn't going to happen. She wandered into her bedroom and found a huge RangeMan hooded sweatshirt and pulled that on. Hopefully no one would notice that the pants were unbuttoned. Of course, it was July and a hundred degrees outside, which made the sweatshirt an odd choice, but she could fib her way out of that one.

Ranger still didn't know. The little amount of time he was in Trenton, they had managed to restore the easy interaction of their friendship. It wasn't the same, though, since 'that night.' But she had hesitated to destroy even the semblance of intimacy between them.

She no longer had that option. Though she had no idea what his reaction was going to be. She doubted it would be good. But it didn't matter.

"We'll do just fine without a man, won't we little girl," she said to her belly as she finished getting dressed. She had taken to talking to her belly a lot. It was too early, of course, for the doctor to confirm the sex of the baby, but she knew it was a girl.

And now she was going to have to work up the nerve to tell this little girl's father.

…

Steph dropped her purse into the drawer of her desk and settled in at her cubicle. A stack of searches was in her in-box, all from Rodriguez. She rolled her eyes and grabbed the first to get started. Some days she hated this job, but most of the time she loved it. It was certainly better than bounty hunting, though she did miss the excitement and the freedom. Here, she was under Ranger's control.

A hush fell over the control room. Speak of the devil. A moment later, she felt his presence behind her. Glancing behind her, she gave him a quick finger wave.

"Babe. How was your weekend?"

"Good." She and Mary Lou had gone to Philly and stocked up on maternity clothes. "Went shopping."

His lips tilted up.

"How was your weekend?" she said.

"Miami."

She rolled her eyes and motioned with her hand for him to continue. "Did you see Julie?"

He sat down in the guest chair beside her desk and stretched his legs outward. "Yeah. She's getting lippy. Rachel says it's because she's almost a teenager."

She grinned. Poor guy had no idea how to handle that. "Is she glad to have you down there so much?"

"I think so. I've been getting a lot of sullen looks and shrugs, but she shows up at the office after school most days that I'm down there."

"Then she likes having you there," she said. Though Steph wasn't nearly as thrilled as Julie. He was spending more and more of his time in Miami and she was terrified that one day he would walk in and announce that he wasn't coming back.

He stood up. "Speaking of which, I'm going back down tomorrow morning, and will probably be gone for a couple weeks."

Which meant she could chicken out again and tell him when he got back, or she could do it tonight and buy herself a few weeks before she had to face him.

"I don't have to work tonight," he said. "Want to stick around and have dinner with me?"

She took a deep breath. "Sure."

…

Steph stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor right at six o'clock. She had run home and changed into a pair of looser pants - even the unsnapped cargo pants had become uncomfortable as the day wore on. She paired it with a loose shirt and hoped Ranger wouldn't notice her belly.

Ella was waiting for the elevator with an empty tray in her hands. "Hello, dear," she said as soon as the doors opened. "I just dropped off dinner, but Ranger is still in the shower."

"Okay. Um Ella," she paused trying to work up the courage to do this. The reminder of how tight those damn cargo pants were convinced her. "If I bring you some new black shirts and cargo pants, can you embroider them so they pass as the uniform?"

Ella cocked her head to the side and scanned up and down Steph's body. Steph could feel her cheeks heating up, and mentally groaned when Ella jerked straight up and her face split with a wide grin. Ella leaned closer and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "How far along are you?"

Steph blew out a sigh. "Four months, and those cargo pants aren't going to last long at all."

Ella reached over and gave her a quick hug. "Oh I'm so excited for you! I'll get some maternity pants ordered and some nice baggy shirts and have them for you in no time."

"Thanks."

Ella patted her on the hand and got into the elevator. Steph took a deep breath. One down, one to go. Unfortunately, Ella didn't really count. She rested her hand on her belly, partly for courage and partly to try to calm herself, and stepped through the door.

Ranger was walking out of the bedroom, rubbing his damp hair with a towel. His eyes zeroed in on the way her hand was protectively curled under the bulge in her stomach. Steph held her breath as he slowly looked up at her.

Now or never. She blurted it out: "I'm pregnant."

Not a single muscle in his body moved. The towel in his hand was frozen in place against his head. For once his face, instead of being blank, had hardened into an angry, accusatory stare.

Steph gulped. Fear sliced through her, leaving pinpricks of sensation behind. This was just Ranger, she reminded herself. He would never hurt her.

The towel dropped from his fingers and he walked toward her, until he was looming above her. Her stomach did a somersault. She'd seen him take that same stance with skips for years. "What did you say?" he said, his voice deceptively soft and calm.

She tried to take a deep enough breath to answer, but couldn't draw in air past whatever was lodged in her throat. Her heart was pounding so hard her teeth were almost chattering. She clamped her jaw shut but had no control over the way her hands were shaking.

"I'm, um, I'm pregnant," she said, so softly the words were almost inaudible, even to herself.

Anger immediately hardened his expression further, which she hadn't thought was even possible. She tried to breathe, but every breath was getting more and more shallow, more difficult to take.

"You said you were on the pill."

"I was! It's not foolproof."

He took a step back, like he had just noticed how terrified she was, and his face slipped back into a blank mask. "Fine."

Her eyes widened. "Fine? Fine? What the hell does that mean?"

"It means, Stephanie," he said, enunciating every word, "that we'll get married and you'll have a baby."

Her already dangerously high heartbeat ratcheted up another notch. She stared at him, and knew with a sinking feeling in her stomach that he meant exactly what he said, and had no intention of budging. Her head was suddenly fuzzy and she blinked rapidly at him. "And after the baby's born," she said, trailing off in fear of what his next words were going to be.

"Then we'll undo it. Do I need to spell it out?"

Her eyes filled with tears but she turned away before he could see them. "Fine." She meant to simply leave, not being able to stomach his reaction, but his hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm.

"We're not done here." Though anger still emanated from him, his words were calm and toneless. He pulled her toward him and placed a hand against her stomach, his eyes widening when he realized how hard and distended it already was. "Why did you wait so long to say anything? That was months ago."

"I didn't have the nerve," she said quietly.

"It's too late to..." he trailed off.

She jerked her arm out of his grasp. "It wouldn't have mattered. And you can't be mad at me. I didn't do this."

"Did you miss any pills?"

"No! I've been taking the damn things for fifteen years. I'm pretty sure I know how to use them."

"How do you know it's mine?"

"The timing's right."

"You've got to do better than that." Still that damn toneless voice that gave away nothing.

She huffed out a sigh. "Do you want details?"

"Yes."

She crossed her arms, hesitant to explain something so personal.

"It's a little late to be shy, Stephanie."

She rolled her eyes. "I hadn't slept with Joe since I'd had my last period. I certainly didn't sleep with him after we, uh, after you showed me the pictures. So there was only that one night when it was possible."

"Why weren't you sleeping with Joe before?"

She waved a hand. "Schedules didn't line up, I was annoyed with him, he was apparently fucking Terry - pick a reason." She stepped away from him, towards the door again. "I'm going home." She opened it, but he reached above her and slammed it shut.

"I don't think so."

She turned around and glared at him. "What are you going to do? Lock me in here?"

"No," he said, like it was the most logical thing in the world. "You're going to stay here tonight, and tomorrow morning before I leave, we're going to the courthouse."

She gave him a pissy look. "There's a three day waiting period."

"Then you'll go with me to Miami and we'll do it there." He turned and walked toward the dining room.

She chased after him. "You can't just decide everything, Ranger. I get a say in this too. And I'm not going to Miami. I have to work."

He sat down at the table and started piling food onto his plate. "You can work from that office. Eat."

"I'm not hungry."

He stopped and looked up at her. "Sit down, Stephanie. And eat."

She held his gaze for a minute before finally caving. She sank into one of the chairs and dropped a small serving of rice onto her plate, purposely letting the spoon bang against the plate. She grabbed the smallest piece of chicken and flung that down on her plate too, not caring how childish her actions were.

Ignoring her, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pushed a speed dial button. "Book Stephanie a seat on the same flight tomorrow. Return Thursday."

"Wednesday," she muttered under her breath. It was Monday now - if they were getting married on Tuesday, hell, she could come back Tuesday night. There was no way she was staying an extra day.

He stared at her with that damn blank expression. His voice was low and cold. "Don't you want a honeymoon?"

She dropped back in her chair and flipped him off. His expression relaxed and the corners of his mouth tilted up. He spoke back into the phone. "And give Silvio a heads up so he can have some work ready for her."

She went back to eating - after all it was Ella's food and it was amazing - and ignored the rest of his conversation. He made one more call - this one in Spanish - before eating himself. As she finished her meal, the enormity of his words finally sank in. He expected them to actually fly to Miami and get married. It had crossed her mind that this would be his reaction - he had married Rachel, after all - but she hadn't seriously considered it. Of course, there had been the quick, fleeting thought that he'd be thrilled and tell her how much he loved her, but she hadn't let herself dwell on that.

His anger, though, she hadn't expected at all. She had always assumed that there was a temper somewhere under there that he kept tightly controlled, but she hadn't seen it before now. She shuddered to think that she might have only glimpsed the tip of the iceberg.

He finished before she did and carried his plate and cup into the kitchen. She listened absently to the sound of the running water, and then the dishwasher opening and closing. She'd give him some time to cool down, and then work on this marriage issue. No way in hell was she going through with that.

"I'll be in the gym," Ranger said as he walked past. "I'll be back in an hour. Don't go anywhere."

"What am I supposed to do for an hour?" she yelled after him. But the only reply was the sound of the door slamming shut.

…

In the next chapter (I'll post tomorrow) we'll see what's going through Ranger's head right now. Don't give up yet!