Wow... So I had intended on posting this chapter about a month ago. The chapter I just finished has been almost complete since late February, but work, and choir, and responsibility and a bout of depression got in my way. Yesterday saw the first choir concert for the year and it was mostly a success, so I've rewarded myself with some time at the computer for writing to finish off the chapter so I can post this one. (Okay, gonna stop rambling now, cause I have a feeling I'm not making sense).

Chapter 12

It was with a great many hugs and promises that the guys and I eventually parted ways in the departure lounge at Newark airport Thursday morning. All my belongings were either packed up and being stuffed into the back of the plane as we spoke, or boxed up and being stored in Tank's garage. There wasn't terribly much to show for my thirty-five years of life, but it was me and I didn't want to just get rid of it.

Each of the three guys standing before me now had offered to come with me at least for a few days to help ease the transition, but I'd refused. It was just delaying the inevitable. The Boston crew were acutely aware of my 'special circumstances' such as they were with Ranger and had heard enough stories about my escapades and penchant for finding myself in the wrong place at the right time that they'd apparently put together an extensive 'Welcome to Boston" training program for me. I had a feeling, based on what I'd heard from Lester, that there was a power point presentation involved. I could feel a yawn coming on at the very thought of it.

Bobby had forwarded my medical history, complete with notes on how to deal with me when I refused to go to the hospital (I assumed that was just Bobby's number written out with 'call me' under it) to the Boston medic, a 'perfectly capable' guy by the name of Stitch. If he didn't have four arms, blue fur and a funny voice I was going to be disappointed. I'd mentioned as much to Bobby and received a guffaw in response but no warning not to say that kind of thing to the man himself, so I was planning an opening line about Ohana for when I met him.

"Don't forget to call," Lester reminded me, wiping away the tears that had suddenly sprung to my eyes as they called my flight to be boarded. Despite everything in my life at the moment I just wasn't ready to leave these guys behind. They'd been the best friends a girl could have.

"Hey now," Bobby said softly, leaning into Lester's shoulder. The last few days they'd been much more open with their relationship. "Hey now."

"Don't dream it's over," Lester crooned, finishing Bobby's unintentional song lyrics.

I sniffled a weak smile, but my heard was aching.

"We'll be on the other end of the phone any time you need to talk," Bobby soothed, reaching over to put a hand on my shoulder. "If anyone gives you a hard time, you have to tell us straight away. You're moving to Boston to get away from the crap, so don't let any new crap in."

"What is this?" I asked, managing to control my waterworks. "My first day of kindergarten?"

"Feels a bit like it," Tank admitted, briefly squeezing my other shoulder. "Have you got your lunch box?"

We all gave a short laugh, during which Lester pulled us into a rare group hug. God, we were turning into a bunch of touchy feely sissies. It might be a good thing I was moving away for a while, or we might have been braiding each other's hair and making daisy chain necklaces by the time Ranger got back from wherever he was. Just the thought of Tank with a full head of hair was enough to sober me up from my well of sadness. And just in time, too, because as Lester finally relinquished his grip on us, the final boarding call for my flight came over the loud speaker.

"Seriously, though," Bobby assured me. "You'll make new friends in no time."

And with that final encouragement, I was ushered throught the doors into the plane. The first step to a new – albeit temporary – life.

*o*

One and a half hours later I emerged from the cramped tube that masqueraded as a 'luxurious' passenger plane and made my way through the unfamiliar airport towards baggage claim where I would meet my very first Boston Merry Man. I had a quick look around when I first arrived at the carousel for the tell-tale muscular man in painted on black t-shirt and coordinating cargos and combat boots, but couldn't find them, so I proceeded to focus on retrieving my belongings.

I had the long strap of my duffle hooked over my arm and was attempting to manoeuvre my overly large and extremely heavy suitcase off the moving pathway when an arm reached around me, deftly disengaged my hand from the handle and slid the case to the stationary ground beside me like it weighed no more than a baby bird.

"Thanks," I said, huffing an escaped curl from my face.

"No problem," he replied. His voice was low and gravelly, which I'd learned over the years working with the guy at Rangeman was not synonymous with cranky or bad guy. A lot of my preconceived ideas and stereotypes had been smashed by the Merry Men and as I finally managed to secure all my bags to the correct body parts and lift my head to see my saviour – a typically muscled man in a skin tight black on black Rangeman uniform, sporting a full head of closely cropped bright red hair and a facial scar that reminded me of the character Scar from the Lion King – I realised this was going to be yet another case.

Unless he turned out to be an asshole, that is.

"You must be Ms Plum," he said, flipping a little placard I hadn't noticed before up to reveal my name in bold letters.

"What do you mean 'must be'?" I asked, trying my hardest not to take offense.

"Just that you match the description and file photo I received in my orders," he explained with a shrug, deftly sliding my hand off and his hand on to the suitcase handle again. "This way."

I decided to let this one go, not wanting to delve into what kinds of descriptions he'd received while we were out in a public place. I didn't need locals overhearing and making snap judgements. As he strode away with my luggage, the seas of people parting in his path, it was all I could do to jog along in his wake.

"You know my name," I pointed out as we broke free of the masses and started moving quicker toward the exit. "Can I know yours?"

"You can," he stated simply as I managed to catch up enough to walk beside him. I waited for him to fill in the obvious blanks, but we'd covered a hundred yards in silence and he wasn't forthcoming with the information.

"Well, are you going to tell me?" I asked.

"I am," he agreed easily. He hadn't so much as glanced at me since we started moving, too focused on our exit (and presumably keeping an invisible eye on everything around us).

"Can you tell me now?" I felt like an impatient child, but he was being deliberately difficult.

"I can," he said.

"But you won't?" I was studying the side of his scarred face, trying to read a professionally unreadable expression.

"That's not what you asked," he informed me.

My feet froze to the tiles. "What?"

It took him a few steps to realise I'd stopped, at which point he turned to face me fully, a professionally blank expression on his face. I could see I was going to need break the Boston Merry Men of that habit, and soon. I'd gotten too used to the Trenton guys being at ease around me. My ability to read micro expressions had gotten rusty.

"What's wrong?" he asked, eyeing me carefully.

"Why won't you tell me your name?"

He shrugged. "Because you haven't asked me to."

A frustrated growl bubbled up my throat and burst out of my mouth. My fists clenched tighter around the straps of the bags I carried. "Yes I have!" I insisted. "Multiple times now."

"No," he disagreed matter-of-factly. "You haven't. You have merely questioned my ability to tell you my name and if I would tell you. I have answered all your questions accurately. You can know my name. I can tell you my name. And I will tell you my name. Just as soon as you asked the right question."

I glared at him for a full minute, trying to calm down so I wouldn't go flying off he handle in my first ten minutes of my new life. It was hard, but once I reminded myself that most of the anger currently coursing through my body was actually earmarked for Morelli and the residents of Chambersburg, Trenton, I was able to bottle it. At least until my first training session in the gym. I'd found that my self-defence lessons were extremely useful for working off my anger at the world.

"What is your name?" I asked slowly, working to not clench my jaw.

"You didn't say 'please'," he replied nonchalantly, and I thought I saw a hint of a smile as he turned to resume wheeling my luggage toward the parking complex.

Or so I thought, because as I trotted to catch up to him once more, we passed a sign that pointed toward parking and veered in the opposite direction.

"Uhhh…" I uttered, ever so eloquently. "Where are we going?"

"Back to Rangeman."

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from making a snarky comment. This guy was really bringing out the worst in me. "Are we walking?" I asked instead.

He glanced over his shoulder at me, his damaged eye half squinting. "Currently," he said. "Yes."

"No," I sighed. "Are we walking to Rangeman?"

"No."

"Where are we walking to?" I tried.

"You shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition," he informed me. "It's bad grammar."

That was it. One of us wasn't going to make it to Rangeman. I wasn't entirely sure yet which on, but if he dodged one more question I was probably going to tackle him , wrangle his gun out of his holster and shoot him. Probably not a fatal shot, but still.

Taking a deep breath to keep my cool, I asked the most carefully worded question of my life: "What is the destination to which we are walking?" He was making me feel like I did when I was writing my first assignment for college. Stupid. Like I wasn't ready for this section of my life.

"We are walking to the pickup zone," he said, offering up the most comprehensive statement of information since we met. "Harry's doing a lap of the airport and is gonna pick us up there."

"Oh, okay" I said, grateful that he had decided to be helpful. I hiked my handbag a little higher, adjusted my grip on the duffle and skipped a step to fall in rhythm with him, even just for a few strides. "So will you please tell me your name?"

"I will," he agreed, coming to a halt at the curb among a long line of waiting travellers. As soon as he'd made sure that my suitcase wasn't going to roll away on him, he turned a blinding and also mildly frightening grin in my direction. "You'll find the phrasing eventually."

"May you please, for Christ sake, tell me what your god damn name is?" I growled.

"May is for when you want to do something."

Shaking my head, I dropped my bags at my feet and pulled my phone out of my pocket, hitting speed dial 2. "Whatever," I grunted. "I'm gonna call Tank."

"What?" he asked, a hint of panic in his tone. I'd be lying if I said I didn't take a little pleasure in it. "Why?"

It seemed the Boston crew, or at the very least this member of it, was scared of the big man. Interesting nugget of information to file away for later. "I'm just letting him know that I landed safely," I pointed out. "Why? Is there something else I should be telling him while I'm at it?"

In the few seconds it took for me to reply, he'd managed to school his expression back into the blank face I knew so well. "No," he said.

Giving him an admittedly satisfied smile, I raised the phone to me ear just in time to hear the final ring before Tank's booming voice travelling down the line. "Please tell me you've changed your mind and you're coming back on the next available flight," he said. "The men are in a deep state of depression knowing that you're not here anymore."

"They're just sad because they have to start doing their own searches again," I quipped, rolling my eyes at my new 'friend'. If I wasn't mistaken, he had a peculiar, almost curious expression lurking just beneath the surface. He was still worried. As much as he didn't want me to know, the fact that I could talk so casually to the second in charge had him nervous. It probably didn't help that I had a very commonly known intimate past with the big boss. Gauging the overall feel of the Boston crew would be an eye opening activity.

"You're completely right," Tank agreed easily. "They do hate sitting at their desks."

"Don't we all though?"

Mr. Mystery Merry Man, I noticed, was watching me carefully out of the corner of his eye while maintaining the appearance of looking out for the standard black SUV. It was only because I was so attuned to noticing the little ways the men spy on people without looking like it that I was able to up on it.

"So I assume you've landed safely and are calling to let me know," Tank mentioned. "Have you found your first Boston babysitter?"

I made a sound of confirmation. "Can he really be called a babysitter though?" I asked. "I mean his whole job is to get me from Point A to Point B. Not to keep an eye on me and make sure I don't die while mom and dad are away."

As Tank chuckled into my ear, I took pleasure in the slight expression change that I interpreted as confusion on the marred face of my supposed babysitter.

"Actually, that is his job," Tank said. "That is the job of every single member of the Boston crew for however long you're there."

Now it was my turn to laugh, because if the Boston guys were looking after me while mom and dad were away, one could conclude that Ranger and Tank were mom and dad. It was a disturbing though, but oddly appropriate. "So does that make you mom or dad?" I asked.

Scarface was now staring at me with the furrowed brow of a man who did not understand the conversation he was listening to. Which made sense if he was terrified of Tank. The man didn't let his game face slide with many people, so it was hard for the lowly humans of the world to imagine Tank saying anything humorous.

"Oh, I'm definitely Mom," he assured me. "So who'd they assign you on your first day?"

"Well," I said, settling my rump against the rail that separated the pick up waiting area from the side walk. "That's a complicated question. One that I can't quite answer at the moment."

Tank's change of tone was immediate. Concern hardened his voice. "What do you mean? Have they not arrived yet?"

"No, no," I said. "They're here. I'm looking at one of them right now, and the other is on his way back around with the SUV – his name is Harry. I just can't tell you the name of the Rangeman I'm currently looking at."

My chaperone's already pale face grew even whiter, his eyes widening almost to the size of saucers, which was a surprised, since I was expecting a barrage of unrelenting blank expression for at least the first month. Especially after the initial greeting I'd received from him. Apparently, I just had a knack for disarming Merry Men.

"Why can't you tell me his name?" Tank asked, his voice pitched low. I pictured him becoming eerily still and menacing at his desk, trying to intimidate a man who was two hundred and eighty miles away. I met the man's eyes. It was working.

"He hasn't told me yet," I explained. "Apparently I haven't asked the right question yet."

"Red hair?" Tank said.

"Yep."

"Scar down the right side of his face?"

"That's the one."

"It's Q," Tank informed me.

"Q?"

My mystery man had turned his full attention back to the road, probably thinking that he would be safer if he was minding his own business. When I said his name (letter?) though, his head snapped around so quick and so independently of his body that he reminded me of an owl. He even had the massive eyes like one.

"Short for Question Master," Tank explained. "He won't answer the question he knows you're asking unless you word it the correct way. Something he picked up from his wife."

"His wife?"

I was loving how forthcoming Tank was being with information, but it had nothing on the way Q was starting to perspire. He was literally sweating bullets. This guy could probably withstand hours of torture without giving up a single nugget of information, but having Tank spill his back story to me had him metaphorically shaking in his boots.

"She's an elementary school teacher. Apparently teachers spend their time trying to coax their students to ask the right question by not answering directly," Tank said. "Q picked it up from his wife and refined it into the most annoying habit known to man, but it has its advantages in our line of work."

"I can see how," I agreed.

"His actual name is Trevor," Tank went on. "But he hates it. You might want to tuck that tidbit away for future leverage."

"Duly noted," I said, smiling slightly. Just then a black SUV I recognised instantly as a Rangeman fleet vehicle came around the bend. "Harry's here," I said. "I'll let you get back to comforting the guys."

"I was actually just letting them wallow in it," Tank responded. And then he was gone. No goodbye. No nothing. The phone manners in the company were atrocious.

Hope you're all enjoying this journey we're on together.