"I can't believe you've been here for a month and a half now," Lindsay said in awe as she and Nick were walking through Strawberry fields. Nick and Aurie had plans to head to Texas in a few days, so this was the last that the cousins would be able to get together until the wedding. Nick grinned.
"Me either, seems like time has just flown by with all that has happened," he mused allowed, taking his cousin by the arm in a gentlemanly fashion. Lindsay sighed.
"Yeah, it has been something," she paused, "How's Aurie?"
"Good, I think," Nick admitted with a slight quiver in his voice, "She's working hard and the guy, Carlos, that's taking over in Ali's place is doing great with everything that's been placed on him. She'd be better with Anthony in custody..."
"We all would," Lindsay mused, "right now it's just a file on Mac's desk."
"We'll get him," Nick assured, "guys like that always make a mistake." Lindsay smiled at her cousin.
"Let's hope so," she agreed. They walked on for a while longer before Nick took the time to speak again.
"So, fancy running away again and getting married to me," he teased. Lindsay laughed and was about ready to answer...
"Aw, damn! I was hopping to ask her that," the cousin's turned to see Danny striding up behind them, a big smile and some sexy sunglasses in place. Lindsay blushed and Nick chuckled.
"That so, Messer," Nick greeted the new comer, "better pick up you pool game, if you want that right..."
"I think you mean 'privilege and honor'," Danny interrupted with a grin and a firm handshake, while wrapping an arm around Lindsay's waist, "and their ain't nothing wrong with my game, Stokes, you just got lucky..."
"You paired him with Hawks," Lindsay interceded, "The man is a math master... how did you expect to win?"
"Didn't think about that at the time," Danny admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck while Lindsay and Nick laughed at him.
"But hey," Nick laughed, "we had fun and I made a little something to spend on the baby..."
"Uh huh, sure," Lindsay teased from Danny's side, "I can totally see that!" It was Nick who looked sheepish now, and Danny got a good laugh out of that. The trio walked a bit farther, completing Lindsay and Nick's loop.
"You still here," Lindsay called to Aurie who was situated under a tree and reading. Aurie smiled and shrugged.
"I was waiting for some handsome guy to come and find me, looks like Danny found you first." Nick cringed in mock pain.
"Ouch, I'm wounded..."
"Hi, Wounded, I'm Aurie," his lady teased with a wide grin, causing Danny and Lindsay to laugh at her silliness. The weather seemed to make for it and being that this was likely the last times they would see each other – they went with it. But even through her silliness, Lindsay, Danny, and Nick could all still hear the slightest traces of grief in her joking mood.
Sitting down, the group fed themselves on subs from a nearby deli that Danny had picked up. They laughed and teased on another like old friends. After finishing, Nick made a Frisbee appear seemingly out of mid-air and challenged Danny to a little afternoon fun.
While the men tossed the disk back and forth trying to out do one another, Lindsay and Aurie sat comfortably, watched, and talked. Shortly, they realized that they weren't the only females enjoy the shows of masculinity before them – Nick and Danny had inadvertently attracted a collection of young and old women to their game.
Lindsay and Aurie laughed and toasted themselves, and their men, with their bottles of water. Two elderly women wandered over to them and congratulated them on catching two excellent specimens.
The ladies thanked the women and wished them a good day as they left, all the while smiling and laughing.
CSI: NY
"You're miss them, don't you," Danny mumbled from his pillow, "they just landed in Texas two hours ago... and you miss them. You're such a girl...Oww...what was that for?!" She had hit him with a pillow.
It was late and they had to work the next day – but, sure enough, Lindsay was sitting up and wide awake.
"Is that a rhetorical question," she whispered with a small smirk, "he's more of a brother then my own brothers..."
"All ten of them! I find that hard to imagine," Danny teased.
"You haven't even met them yet," she said exasperated, " why are you so afraid of them?" Danny sat up and looked at her.
"There are ten of them," he said simply.
"Their teddy bears," Lindsay brushed off.
"There are ten of them!" Danny exclaimed, "I demand the right to know when I am going to meet them, so I can get to practicing my sprints!"
"They aren't going to hurt you..."
"NO! They aren't going to hurt you," Danny pointed at her, "but me...I'm fare game and its hunting season!" He flopped face first in to the pillow, dramatically, causing her to giggle and grin at his prone form.
"They won't hurt you, I won't let them," Lindsay promised stocking his head, "besides you've gotten on Nick's good side – and that will be a big help..."
"Nick will leave me to the lions, for his own entertainment," came the muffled interruption. Lindsay ignored it and rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, the only two people who really matter are Daddy and Grammy," Lindsay finished, "and she all ready loves you..."
"But your Dad," Danny asked sitting up slightly and looking at her. Lindsay grimaced and looked away, trying to appear innocent to the question's answer – a hard, if not impossible feat, in her nude form.
"Montana?!"
"You're romantically involved with me," Lindsay admitted, to which Danny nodded, "so he isn't going to like you openly – at least not right away..."
Danny was quiet for a moment and then nodded silently.
"Sounds about right," he admitted, "My own Nana will be the same way when you two meet..."
"Oh, really," Lindsay questioned with a raised eyebrow and a small smile. Danny shrugged.
"Yeah, but there is an easy way to fix that..," he tempted and she bit.
"Whats that?" Moving suddenly, Lindsay squealed as he snagged her waist and pulled her bellow him and he kissed with everything he had.
After a few seconds of kissable bliss, they separated and panted heavily, while staring into each other's eyes.
"I ask again, Messer," Lindsay panted in husky voice, "What could I do that would make your Nana like me better, faster?"
"You could be pregnant with her first great-grandchild," Danny whispered right back and looking strait into her eyes. Lindsay was silent for a moment and took the time to search his eyes for what he was saying.
"Do you want to have a baby, Danny?"
Danny kissed her again – this time lovingly and softly. He let his heart shift through the kiss and let her see just how much she meant to him. On her end, Lindsay could taste and she reveled in that fact. With a small smile, she returned her own feelings and hoped he felt that she felt the same way.
He read it loud and clear.
"And to answer you question, Montana," Danny whispered and breath from her lips, "only if your the mother."
"You got a deal, cowboy," Lindsay whispered back. With a delicious smirk, Danny rolled her over and...
"But there's one more thing..."
CSI: NY
"Goodnight, Mom. Night, Dad," Nick called from the doorway. Aurie giggled from the bed and watched her lover shake his head and close the door.
"It's weird being here..," Aurie whined.
"I thought you would be excited about being in Texas," Nick said pulling his shirt over head. Once free, he grinned at her and crawled onto the bed beside her. Aurie looked up and kissed him. Kissing back, Nick started to groan and eventually moaned out-loud when she pulled away.
"Not Texas, Texas is okay..," Aurie mumbled, causing Nick to raise an eyebrow at her.
"'Okay'? If it's 'okay,' then what the problem..,"
"The room..," she was leading him, but he didn't know where.
"The room?" he looked around, "What about it?"
"You don't see it?" she asked.
"No."
"How can you miss it?"
"What?! What am I missing?"
"Are you serious?!"
"What?!"
"You are serious!"
"WHAT?! What's wrong?"
"I don't believe you don't see it..."
"You're not going to tell me until your ready, are you?"
"How again did you get the job in Vegas..?"
"What is that suppose to mean..?"
"Because it certainly wasn't your observational skills..."
"Wha..Hey!"
"Or your reasoning skills, for that matter..."
"Will you, please, just tell me?!" Nick pleaded. Aurie looked at him with uncertainty.
"I'm not sure I want to tell you now..," Aurie hesitated.
"Aurie," Nick growled.
"You going to want to smack your self," she inserted quickly, "I don't think you want to know... in fact it doesn't matter anymore... Goodnight!" she kissed him and rolled over, snuggling down for sleep.
Nick paused and looked at his girlfriend, annoyance and confusion the top two emotions spreading across his handsome face. He opened and closed his mouth in a wordless motion. He continued on until he finally shook himself and looked at his girlfriend...
...the one who was adamantly trying to pretend to sleep.
Placing on hand on the other side over her rounded belly and boxed her in. He glared down at her silently and she knew he was there...
She heaved a sigh.
"We're sleeping in your childhood bedroom..," he nodded, "...the one with the Western dressed Muppets border..."
He held there for a moment, before looking up at the offending parchment attached to the walls of his old room. Realizing her point, he groaned and rested his head on her shoulder.
"The one I put up when I was fourteen..."
Aurie's eyes snapped open and she sat up quickly, knocking the Vegas CSI off the bed and onto the floor. She looked down at him with a shocked expression and her own wordless mouth motions. Nick just shrugged and gingerly got back into bed with her.
"What can I say," he said pulling her down beside him, "chicks dig Kermit in chaps..."
CSI: NY
Shelia looked up at the man stepping away from the desk, his whole being giving off strange vibrations. Shaking herself and playing it down as being tiered from her shift and ready to go home, she gently set the package behind the desk and went back to her reports for the day.
"Hey Shelia! Your relief is here!"
"Oh, thank God Mike," the woman laughed, "I was beginning to go crazy."
"Well that can't be good," Mike said taking her place at the desk and watching her log herself out of the computer, "for you or the baby!" Shelia laughed and smiled at him.
"Thanks for you concern, sweetheart, but I'm okay..."
"Charlie taking good care of you I hope..."
"Oh, you know it," Shelia laughed, before turning back to work, "look I'm going to take this downstairs," she pointed to the box on the floor, "I already left a note and called the person it was left for, so she may call back sometime tomorrow..."
"Oh, I do hope you get that management position," Mike mused while logging in. Shelia smiled.
"Me, too," she admitted, before nodding to him, "good night."
"Goodnight," Mike called after her.
Downstairs, Shelia met up with Cecilla, one of the evening maids, and the two ladies went down to the storage facility together. Shelia carrying the package and Cecilla carrying a stack of old sheets.
"The management don't throw nothing away and the younger maids don't ever check to see if the sheets they using have holes or not from all the washes and uses," Cecilla complained and explained in the same breath.
"Well, if I get this job, I'll look into new sheets," Shelia promised, "can't have our four star guests sleeping on holy sheets...can we?"
"Don't know," Cecilla joked, "use that in the ad and they make start flocking here!"
The ladies laughed and were still laughing when the reached their destination. Shelia put her box down first and Cecilla placed the sheets on top while she moved other things around on the shelving beside her.
Shelia bid Cecilla a good night and started to leave, but only stopped when she heard a faint sound...
...a ticking sound...
CSI: NY
"Damn, this isn't what we need so soon," Hawks muttered as he, Stella, Mac, Danny, and Lindsay all stood in the remains of a downstairs storage facility of the downtown Radisson Hotel.
"Tell me about it," Mac muttered with a sigh, "but since we are here...Lindsay...Danny...you two start on the employees, maybe they saw the package or something... also see if you can get all the security video from the last two days," he ordered. The two nodded and Danny started moving, but Lindsay stopped him.
"Mac," Lindsay called, causing her boss and colleagues to all look at her, "this is the hotel that Nick and Aurie were staying at and Danny and I," she looked at Danny quickly, before turning back, " had dinner with them the day Flack woke up..," she explained. Mac took a moment and then nodded.
"Have either of you been here in the last 48 hours – even for a few minutes?" he asked. The both shook their heads to the negative and he nodded.
"Good, then we can still continue," he said with a small smirk, "get to work." Smiling, Danny and Lindsay left to do their assigned tasks.
"Hey, Mac," Hawks called ten minuets later. Mac moved from his position across the room, to Hawks's, flashlight first.
"Check this out," Hawks said as Mac approached. Mac squatted down next to the doctor and raised his light to where Hawks pointed.
"Are those what I think they are," Hawks asked. Mac leaned closer and gently cleaned the area off, but said nothing.
Soon Stella wandered over, expressing her own curiosity.
"See for yourself," Hawks offered and moved slightly out of the way. Stella joined the two men and looked at the anomaly that had been found. Dropping her flashlight, she looked with an astonished expression at Hawks, shaking her head.
"No way..."
"But there it is," Hawks insisted with a bemused smile.
"Hieroglyphics," Mac announced, he dropped his flashlight and looked ,unseeingly, forward, "now who do we know that knows hieroglyphics..?"
Stella and Hawks looked at one another with shock, astonishment, and a little bit of uneasiness...
...Mac just nodded.
CSI: NY
There it is the last installment of "Home on the Range!" It's over and I am done!!
Woohoo!! Finished my first chapter story!!!
It's not what I would have imagined for the end,
but the bunnies stopped here – so here we stop!!
I want to thank all of you who read and those that reviewed --
you are all great and I hope you enjoyed it!!
If there is enough call for it...
I might be persuaded to write about Aurie and Nick in Vegas, but I'm not sure yet...
... a little mystery is good...
...keeps the imagination going...
...kudos and God Bless!!!
The Princess has left the building!!
(Only to bounce over to another for a while...)