Chapter 11

I saw Ram for dinner the next couple of nights, and we continued with our easy camaraderie. He was so easy to talk to. He'd joke around with me, but he wouldn't let me get away with any bullshit. I could tell him I didn't want to talk about something and he'd drop it if I promised I wasn't in any danger or anything.

It was great.

The kissing and progressively heavy petting was also divine, let me tell ya. The man has skills. If he could get me this worked up in the living room while fully clothed, I was in for a damn good experience once we graduated to the bedroom and being naked.

The thought of Ram naked made my brain short circuit for a minute, and I had to shake my head to reboot. I'd seen him in itty-bitty swimming trunks, and that was one helluva fantastic view, so the fully monty must be spectacular.

Is it getting hot in here? I'm too young for menopause. Right? Right?

Saturday morning, he came over to my apartment bearing gifts. From the Tasty Pastry. I could really learn to love this man.

He knocked on the door and waited for me to answer and then gave me a toe-curling kiss as a greeting. "Good morning, sweetheart," he said with a dimple-flashing grin.

"Hi," I replied once I was able to think again.

"So I thought maybe we'd have a light breakfast, go for a jog, and then we can figure out what we want to do for the rest of the day before we go to your parents house for dinner. Sound okay?" he asked with a grin.

I shrugged. I still wasn't a fan of jogging, but I was able to get my skips much easier, my pants fit much better and it seemed to make all the Merry Men nearly giddy with joy, so on balance, it was worth it.

Ram in particular was very enthusiastic that I was working out even the little that I was doing.

We did the work out thing and then went back to his house to shower and change. "So what next, kemosabe?" I asked.

Ram grinned at me and tweaked one of my curls. "I'm up for anything."

I smiled wickedly at him. "That sounds promising."

He groaned and closed his eyes. "Not what I meant, but yeah, that too."

I snuggled into his arms with a happy sigh. Soon, I promised myself. Very soon.

We ended up spending the day in his backyard playing with the dogs, grilling out burgers for lunch and then curled up on his couch watching movies until it was time to leave for my mom's house.

The feeling of impending doom also increased. Mom had been less than over the top enthusiastic that I was coming to dinner, but I hoped she'd at least be polite.

I changed into the clothes I'd brought just for dinner, a modest black skirt, light blue short-sleeved summery blouse and a pair of strappy black high-heeled sandals. It was cute and feminine, but I figured it would get the mom seal of approval.

Ram was in khakis and a blue button down, which made his blue eyes sparkle. Damn, but he was one gorgeous guy.

"Ready to go, sweetheart?" he asked once he tucked a gun into a holster at each ankle and a knife at his waist.

"Do I have to?"

He grinned at me. "It was your idea."

"Temporary insanity."

He grinned at me. "I've got ice cream in the fridge if it doesn't go well."

"You're the smartest man on the planet."

"I was a boy scout once. Always be prepared," he quipped and put his hand at my waist to guide me out. I really didn't want to go. Why I had I come up with this damn stupid idea again?

Mom's Burg-dar was working and she and grandma were on the front porch as we walked up the front steps.

"Stephanie," she said in a tight voice as we stepped inside. "Who's your… friend?" The word friend was not friendly.

"Mom, grandma, this is Ram. We're seeing each other."

Mom narrowed her eyes at me while grandma gave him a thorough once over before grinning at me. "Good job, baby girl. I approve."

I smiled at my grandmother. "Thanks, grandma. I think he's pretty great, too."

Grandma winked at Ram, who winked back at her. Grandma cackled. "Yep, you'll do, sonny. You'll do."

"Thank you, ma'am," he said politely. Then he turned to my mother. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Plum."

Mom stared at him for a moment before perfunctorily shaking his outstretched hand. "What's your name?" she demanded.

Crap, this didn't bode well. I'd counted on her at least being marginally polite at first.

"Michael Ramsey, ma'am. Ram is a nickname."

She sniffed and looked at me. "Stephanie, I need you in the kitchen, though God knows you're no help in there."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "Sure, mom, let me introduce Ram to dad and I'll be there."

Mom stalked away and I looked at grandma. "What's with her?"

Grandma shook her head. "I guess she thought you were back with that horse's patoot, the cop, since she's been on the phone with Angie Morelli all day."

"Why would she think that?"

Grandma shrugged her bony shoulders. "'Cause your mother lost her mind when she went through the change and it never came back?"

I grinned at her and grabbed Ram's hand to lead him into the living room to meet my dad. "So talk about sports, and you'll be fine," I told him. "Yankees, not Mets."

"Got it," he assured me.

"Dad, I'd like you to meet Michael Ramsey, or Ram," I said to my dad. Dad looked up from the TV and studied Ram for a minute before standing up and shaking his hand.

"You one of those bounty hunter too?" he asked.

Ram nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Army?"

"Navy SEAL, sir."

Dad nodded. "Then you might be trained enough to keep up with my pumpkin."

Ram smiled broadly at him. "Maybe."

Dad grinned back at him and I rolled my eyes at them. "Men."

Grandma smiled. "Hey, at least your dad seems to like him," she pointed out.

"True."

"Let's go see what your mom wants," she suggested. "Making her wait just makes it worse."

Also true.

We went into the kitchen together, and mom was viciously stirring a pot of tomato sauce. Eek, this was bad. No matter how angry she was at me, she almost never took it out on the food.

"What can I help with, mom?" I asked tentatively after sharing an apprehensive glance with grandma.

"Stephanie Michelle Plum, how could you bring that, that man into my house?" she hissed.

I took an involuntary step back. "What?"

"That man, that man you cheated on poor Joseph with!"

"Wait just one minute," I said. "I didn't cheat on Joe, he cheated on me!"

"He said that you'd cheated on him with one of those thugs, which was why he'd gone to that Gilman woman," mom insisted.

"Hold up, you've talked to Joe? After I told you that he cheated on me?"

"Of course! I had to apologize for the scene you made," she told me disdainfully.

I went from confused and mildly irritated to full on pissed. "What the hell? Are you nuts? He cheated on me! I didn't cheat on him, and Ram had absolutely nothing to do with anything! He's been helping me to get better at bounty hunting, and we just recently moved from friends to more, but I sure as bloody hell didn't cheat on Joe! And the fact that you, my own mother, would apologize to that fucking asshole for the lies that he told about me, and worse, that you'd believe them? God, mom, what kind of mother are you?"

"You will not talk to me like that!" she demanded.

"How about how you talk to me? Like I'm a mentally deficient five year old. When are you going to stop doing that?"

"When you start acting your age," she retorted. "When you stop dressing like a tramp and acting like a common whore. When you marry Joseph as you should have when you were sixteen-year-old slut. When you prove you're more than the worthless trash you are now."

I froze. "So tell me how you really feel about me," I muttered.

Mom actually looked a little surprised at her outburst.

"Helen!" dad shouted, completely aghast. "What the hell was that?"

"She… she pushed me into it!" she tried to deflect the blame onto me.

I reached up to wipe the tears off my face and felt Ram's presence at my back as he wrapped his arms around me. They must have heard the commotion and come to investigate.

"I didn't push you into calling me those names," I whispered. "You just finally admitted what you always really thought about me."

Mom set her lips into a mutinous glare and refused to speak.

"Helen Marie Mazur, I've had it with your holier than thou attitude," my grandmother said, her usual joking demeanor replaced with one of firmness. "You act as though you've never made a mistake. Well, girlie, you have. I was there. I remember them. You're lucky your father didn't kill Anthony Morelli when I caught him with his hand up your skirt when you were fourteen. Might have been better for everyone if he had."

"Mother!" mom blushed furiously. "You said you'd never mention that again!"

"When you do your own daughter the favor of letting her past mistakes stay in the past, I'll do the same for you," grandma spat. "Then there was the time I caught you with Anthony again when you were fifteen. It wasn't just his hand up your skirt then, was it?"

Mom looked like she was about to die of embarrassment as she shook her head frantically.

"We just kept it hushed up, and Anthony Morelli at least had the sense not to spread it around town, unlike his damned son," grandma continued. "And back in those days, that would have completely ruined your reputation and no one would have married you. I didn't want you to marry Anthony because we knew what his father was like, and his father before him, and I knew he'd be like that too. He had that meanness in his eyes. But oh, how you wept and wailed and cried to be allowed to marry him! You engineered me finding you so we'd force him to marry you. But I wanted better for you than what Angie Morelli got. I wanted more for you than being beat on and cheated on. So I forbade you from ever seeing him again, and I kept a close eye on you until he got Angie knocked up and was forced into a shotgun wedding with her just a couple of months later. I've kept my mouth shut for fifty years, but no more! I'm going to tell every damn person I know why you're so damn insistent on making poor Stephanie marry a man who isn't right for her because I wouldn't let you marry his father!"

"You wouldn't!"

"After hearing what you said to your own daughter, I'm absolutely going to make sure all of your oh-so-proper friends know what a little tramp and whore and slut and trash you are," grandma said seriously. "Let's see how fast they turn on you when they find out about your past and how you've been trying to force Stephanie to marry a man just so you could fulfill your childhood fantasy through her! How long do you think it'll be before they're all gossiping about you and what a bitch you are now?"

Grandma marched to the phone and mom tried to run over to her. My dad blocked her way. "No," he said firmly. "I can't believe what you just said to Stephanie, or why you've really been so insistent that she marry that asshole all these years."

"Frank, please," she begged as grandma began to dial the phone, "I have to stop her from saying anything!"

"And have you ever stopped from gossiping about your daughter?" dad demanded. "How much time do you spend on the phone sharing stories with your so-called friends? Did you ever stop to think for even one minute how that might hurt our girl?"

"Hello, Myra?" grandma was saying. I knew she was talking to Myra Stanislow, one of the biggest gossips in the Burg. "This is Edna Mazur."

Mom became frantic and tried to push past dad. He held her tight and refused to let go. "Mother, no!" mom shouted. "Please, no!" Then mom fainted in dad's arms.

"Mrya, I'm sorry, but Helen's been drinking again and just passed out in the kitchen. I have to go, I'll call you later," grandma said as she hung up the phone.

I stared at her in awe. "Would you really have done it?"

"Damn straight, and I still will if she doesn't shape up and apologize and mean it the minute she wakes up. If I even think for a second that she's lying, I'll call Myra back," grandma said seriously.

Then she grinned at us. "Think your cutie can keep me safe from your mother?"

Ram smiled at her. "We'll do our best."

Dad lowered mom to the floor, but left here there. It was a few minutes before she came around.

"What?" she mumbled as she stared up at us. "What happened?"

Her eyes widened in shock as the memories came flooding back. "Mother! You didn't!"

"Anything you want to say to Stephanie?" grandma asked, not answering her question.

Mom sat up and turned a venomous glare on me. "This is all your fault!" she shrieked as she stood shakily and launched herself at me.

Ram stepped in front of me and she bounced off his chest, her hands curled into claws as she tried to reach out to me. Dad grabbed her and pulled her back but she continued to struggle. "You should have never been born!" she yelled at me. "I wanted a son, I told everyone you were going to be a boy, but you were a girl! From the very beginning, you've done nothing but embarrass and humiliate me! I hate you! Get out of my house and never come back, you ungrateful bitch!"

"I didn't tell her," grandma said flatly. "I was giving you a chance to realize what your damn fool actions have done. But you just proved that you're the most hateful, spiteful bitch I've ever known, and I'd regret that you were ever born except that I would have Stephanie otherwise. One day, I hope you regret those words, and I hope you feel the shame that you ought for being so consumed by what other people think that you forgot to care about your own family. So I will be telling everyone about your flaws since you love pointing out everyone else's."

"Frank, you have to stop her!"

"Stop her? Hell, I'm going to help her," dad said.

"You can't mean that!"

"Oh yeah, I do. I can't believe what a vicious, evil little witch you are. You seem so nice and sweet, but you're really just a viper, aren't you? And I'm not staying in this house one more day. I'm leaving you, Helen."

She turned around to stare at him in shock. "But… but what will the neighbors say?"

I'd heard that from her so many times that it wasn't a surprise. It was to dad apparently.

"What the hell does it matter what they say?" he asked, legitimately bewildered. "I tell you that I'm leaving you, and you only care what the neighbors say? That just proves that there's nothing here left to save, if there ever was beyond dinner and clean shorts."

"What they'll probably say," grandma said, "is that you're an awful person and a terrible wife and mother. And they'd be right."

"Get out!" she screeched at grandma. "Get out of my house! I've housed you and clothed you and fed you, and this is how you repay me?"

"What about those twenty years that I housed and fed and clothed you?" grandma retorted. "I've only lived here for five years. You owe me fifteen more."

"That was dad's house," mom said disdainfully.

"Then this is Frank's house, and I'll only leave if he tells me to," grandma retorted.

"Shit, you mean that would have been all it took?" dad muttered. "She can stay, I'm leaving."

Mom crossed her arms and glared ferociously. "Grandma, you can stay with me," I offered quietly.

"No, thank you, baby girl. I'm staying right here," grandma said.

I nodded and swallowed hard. "Let's go," I said softly to Ram. He just nodded and took my hand, keeping an eye on my mother as dad walked us to the door.

"I'll call you tomorrow, pumpkin," dad said as he kissed my cheek. "Try not to worry about what happened tonight, it wasn't your fault, it was hers. And I'd been thinking, dreaming really, about leaving for a long time, this was just the kick in the ass I needed to actually do it."

I had nothing to say, so I just nodded again.

Ram opened the passenger door and helped me before jogging around to the driver's side of his truck. I stared sightlessly out the window, completely and totally unaware of my surroundings.

"Sweetheart, do you want to stay at my house tonight?" Ram asked after a few minutes. "Or me stay with you?"

"Huh? Oh, I'll be fine alone."

"No, you won't. You're clearly upset, and for good reason. My question is just whether to stop by and pick up Rex and some clothes for you, or to swing by my place so I can feed the dogs and grab some clothes for me. Either is completely fine, but I'm not leaving you alone tonight. That is not fine."

I blinked back yet more years as he reached out to grasp my hand. "Um, maybe your place if you don't mind," I said hesitantly. "Might be nice to be incommunicado for a bit if grandma does actually spill the beans."

He just nodded. "You're welcome at my house anytime," he assured me. "You know this. That's why you've got a key and the alarm codes." He'd given me a key so I could come use his home gym whenever I wanted (translation: not often), but so far, I hadn't been there without him.

"Steph, honey?" Ram asked.

I jumped and then realized we were at my apartment and he had my door open and was waiting for me to unbuckle my seat belt. "Oh. Sorry."

I climbed out and we headed up to my apartment. I packed up some clothes and toiletries, enough for a few days in case the blowback from everything was really bad, while Ram packed Rex's hamster pellets and extra cedar bedding.

"Ready," I said softly.

Ram set the bag of hamster stuff on the counter and drew me into his arms. "I'm sorry, well, that your mom's a bitch."

I laughed humorlessly. "I'm used to it by now. I just didn't expect her to be so direct. She's usually much more polite about it."

He just rested his chin on the top of my head. "You don't know how much I wanted to shoot her."

"Join the club."

"Pretty damn big club. We need an email listserv," Ram said. I laughed, as he intended.

"Come on, sweetheart, let's go home," he said.

Home. That sounded scarily good coming from him.

Author's note: Sorry I vanished. My uncle got sicker (he'd been ill for a while) and then passed away just before Christmas. And a Christmas Eve funeral left me rather depressed, it was so sad seeing my aunt and cousins so distraught. That combined with the usual chaos of the holidays left me little time and even less inspiration to write, and so there you go.

But I'm back now, so please let me know what you think! What do you think of my rationale for why Helen's such a witchy woman to Stephanie?

Hope everyone had a great holiday and that 2013 is off to a fabulous start!