A/N: Be sure to check out the Days of Fifty Challenge 2. My one-shot will be posted somewhere in there. Authors area announced after the last chapter is posted. The Top Five FSOG Stories Facebook group will be posting the voting polls for May in a few days. You must be a member of the group and you can vote for your favorite complete, work in progress, and series stories. Also, be sure to find my author page on Facebook, Steele Heart. More novel info will follow there, including the reveal of my publication pen name.

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I don't own FSOG or it's characters. No beta, all mistakes are my own. This is a work of fiction being written as an original story and adapted for FanFiction posting. This story will only remain on FFN before it is pulled so that I may publish to Amazon. No, I don't have dates yet.

Laters,

Falling Undercover

Chapter 14

Sunday dawned brighter than Saturday had ended. Ana woke feeling refreshed and well rested. She didn't remember falling asleep last night, she was still in her robe and her hair was in a messy bun after having showered. Ana looked to the corner of room to see that once again, the chair had been moved. Christopher had watched her sleeping again. Thinking over the night, Ana smiled to herself. They had spent all evening cuddled in the bed, Christopher's arms wrapped around her with her head on his shoulder. After the movie change, which resulted in viewing Sinister, a movie that scared Ana to her core, they gorged themselves on Chinese food.

Ana talked about her childhood with Christopher, telling him things she'd never told anyone else. Ana confessed to her abandonment issues after Carla left her and Ray. Her dislike of Vicki for the first few months she and Ray dated. She confessed to loving her brother Zack immediately though. He was one of the few friends she had in school. Ana was a bright student, ahead of the class and always had her nose stuck in a book. Zack was technically two months younger than Ana, but he was bigger. He was the perfect big brother.

"A smile like that and one would think you were dreaming of paradise." Ana rolled over looking toward the door of her bedroom. There in a pair of flannel pants and nothing else stood Christopher holding two cups of coffee.

"Stop. Unless those mugs bear black gold I suggest you retreat." Ana sat up as Christopher walked toward her and handed her a dark green mug.

"It's been a week, I've learned. Just the way you like it. The rain's stopped. What do you want to do today?" Christian had to pry himself from Ana's bed this morning before she woke to see him still lying there with his arms around her. He moved the chair in her corner to throw her off, hoping to try and create some distance. Sitting on the side of the bed, Ana sat up next to him taking a long sip from her mug.

"Keep making my coffee like this and I could fall in love with you." Christian swallowed the lump in his throat and took a sip of his own coffee. He needed to talk to Taylor or Logan this week. He needed to see if the team had made any headway on the case and update them on developments. Christian hated lying to Ana. He had argued with Taylor about the undercover assignment to begin with. When he read the file, Christian felt being honest was an okay way to go. Taylor denied his request to even tell Sawyer. He didn't want to risk a panic over what could be a false alarm. Granted the photos had been confirmed to being those of their victims, the DNA sample in the condom was inconclusive. Christian had thought his biggest fear coming to Seattle was running into his family. After last night, his biggest fear is that he'll break both his and Ana's hearts.

"Nah, I leave my wet towels on the floor. You'd get sick of me pretty quick." Ana snorted into her coffee. She didn't care what kind of slob he might be. She had hired help to clean up around the place. She liked the easy way they could sit in silence though. She loved the fact that neither felt the need talk. They could simply sit with each other in comfort.

"Gail would be the one to deal with that. I say I'm golden." Ana started to say more but was interrupted by her phone's shrill ring. She groaned praying it wasn't a work call.

"Steele." Ana didn't look at the caller ID before pressing the accept button, and she winced when she heard the voice on the other end.

"Anastasia Rose Steele, I did not raise you to bark into a phone like that. You may have billions in the bank and your pretty pictures in all the papers, but you're still my daughter and shot, drugged, or not, I can and will take a switch to your behind." Vicki Steele was a nurturer, but also a disciplinarian. She had no guilt about telling her grown children how to live their lives. She called them on every mistake they ever made and forced Ana and Zack to face reality whenever necessary. Vicki was also the first one to always say I love you and the one Ana wanted to talk to the most when she needed sage advice.

"Sorry mom, I didn't look at my caller ID again. You're lucky I was awake. Chris had to talk me to death so I could sleep after the horribly scary movie he convinced me to watch last night. Couple that with the storm and it's a wonder I don't have bags under my eyes." Ana stared Christopher down as she spoke to her mother daring him to but in.

"Judging from the fact that you're in your robe still, the way I left you last night, I would say you've not looked in a mirror yet. Who told you there weren't bags under your eyes?" Christian couldn't help it. No matter how adorably sexy she looked in her robe, she was to easy to tease.

"Oh, Ana. I like him. I want to meet him. Kate says he's sex on legs. You have to bring him this afternoon." Vicki giggled when she heard Christopher's response to Ana's snark. Kate had called yesterday after she visited the apartment to gossip about the way Christopher and Ana acted with each other.

"What's going on this afternoon mom?" Ana was confused. She hadn't made plans for the day yet so she didn't know what her mother was referring to.

"Honestly Anastasia. You run a multi-billion dollar company. You hardly ever take a day off. I assumed you would have checked your email by now. Your brother sent us all one. He's scheduled for Skype time at 2. We all need to be together. He says he only gets thirty minutes so he's splitting it with us and the girls. Pam sent me a whole new set of photos of Maggie too. You're going to love them." Ana looked at Christopher and wondered what to do. Her parents knew that he had been hired as her bodyguard, but he had quickly become a friend. Vicki and Ray both would pick up on the underlying tension. Vicki would see how comfortable they were with each other and pull out her fabric tape measure to get Ana fitted for her wedding dress. Ray thinks any man that speaks with Ana wants in her panties, that means one look at Christopher and he'll want to show him his shop.

Ray Steele was a former marine and former Fire Chief for Seattle. He was broad shouldered with strong arms. He spent his days now building custom furniture. Ana built his shop on his property a few years back, with brand new equipment. Ray had the best and biggest saws money could buy. On more than one occasion he's offered to use said saws to chop up a body for Ana and sink to the bottom of Lake Washington.

"2 o'clock. I think I swing that. I assume there will be food and entertainment." If Ana knew her mother, she had already been to the store and bought out the meat department intent on making Ray grill.

"You and your hunky body guard be here at noon. You're dad's smoking a brisket. We'll find something to entertain ourselves with while it finishes. He said we'd be able to eat after we talked with your brother." Ana inwardly groaned. There was no getting out of this.

"Alright we'll be there. Should I stop for the worms?" Her dad loved to fish after a big storm and they only had about a mile's walk to the lake shore.

"No, he won't want to be away from his grill. Bring wine though. I don't know who the man's been talking to this weekend, but your father's doing his silent ninja talk thing and well, your guy might need a warnin." Ana covered her face with her free hand and could only guess what Luke had told her father.

"I'll grab daddy his Sam Adams too. It can't hurt any to be prepared. I've got time to ask Gail to make a lemon cake. Think that might help." Ana thought back to the one time she brought a boy home in high school. She was sure that Matt Givens was going to ask her to prom. Zack hated the boy and she was convinced he told her father all kinds of stories after announcing she was bringing to their barbecue that weekend. Ray spent the rest of the week silently talking to himself. The family could see his lips moving when he walked around the house, but no one ever heard a word he said. Matt was only at the house a half hour before Ray pulled him away. Ana never knew what her daddy said to the boy, but he stopped calling her after that and asked Cindy Baxter to prom instead.

"Baby girl, if that man is anything like the way Kate described him, he's gonna need all the bullet proofin' he can get." Ana spent another five minutes on the phone with her mother before saying her goodbyes and hanging up.

"So I get to meet the folks huh?" Christian had a smile a mile wide on his face. He had never done the whole meet the parents thing before. He was looking forward to it, even if Ana thought her father might resort to violence.

"I'm telling you, don't do it. If you see his ear twitching avoid his eyes like he's Medusa. Don't do that sir, parade rest, titled chin shit. Look him in the eyes and you might as well roll over and die. You see an ear twitch, it means his face is about to turn red and the vein in his forehead will start bulging next. Then he's gonna grab you by the throat and toss you across the yard. Ray Steele is the Alpha at 2147 Meadowbrook drive. You roll over and show him your belly. Look at the ground. Show him however you want that you recognize he's the top dog, but whatever you do, don't look him in the eye." Zack brought home a fellow cadet on break once and when the kid made a lewd comment about Ana with Ray in ear shot, well, Zack didn't bring home any cadets after that. Ray kept his hands to himself when the kids were in school, because he wouldn't risk assaulting a minor, but grown ass men were fair game.

Christian sat in the driver's seat, following Ana's directions while she told him the do's and don'ts of her parent's house. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a plain gray t-shirt. Ana was in the seat to his right dressed in cut off shorts, a navy blue tank top and converse. She had braided her hair and swept it around her left shoulder. Christian fought every urge within himself to keep from reaching over and stroking the bare skin of her leg or playing with the end of the braid that hung just about her breast.

"Vicki Steele is many things, but a bartender is not one of them. If she offers you anything other than a glass of wine or a bottle of beer, turn her down. She makes her cocktails with triple the necessary amount of alcohol. By the time you start a second drink it's too late. You're drunk. She gets Kate every time with her cosmos." Ana tried to think of everything he needed to know before they got there. She spent an hour texting Kate demanding a verbatim play by play of her phone call with Vicki the day before. Ana groaned when Kate described Vicki's elation at hearing Ana had a crush. A crush, that's what Kate called it and told Vicki she needed to get in daughter's ear about cleaning the cobwebs out before she became a crusty old cat lady. Ana cringed just thinking about the vulgar way her mother and best friend talk when it comes to their sex lives.

"What about your brother Ana? You said you get to talk to him for fifteen minutes. Is that something that happens often?" Christian tried to remember if there were any notes about where Zack was currently located be he didn't think that the security clearance approved the transfer of info.

"It'll be the first time I've talked to him since he left. That was months ago. I'm not sure where he is. He quoted op-sec when we asked where he would be this time. Pam won't tell us anything other than to let us know she's gotten a phone call or an email. Couple years ago he was in Afghanistan and we went four months without hearing his voice. The mail runs pretty well over there, but the fighting knocked out communications so often. He tends to save most of his calls for Pam and Maggie. When he gets to schedule time for a computer and we get a video call, we try to get together so that all three of us can talk to him. I was in Tokyo once and missed the video call and had to wait another two months before Pam demanded he hang up and call me instead." Ana's heart ached thinking of her brother. She hated being so far away from him, but Zack felt it was his calling. He was determined to earn Top Gun and that meant he had to be in the air as often as he could.

"You miss your brother." Christian only stated the obvious, but it was easy to see the love she had for him. He had listened to the stories she told yesterday. While Ana and Zack were best buddies in elementary, neither was keen on their parent dating the other's. They spent a month playing pranks trying to separate the two of them, but in the end they were won over. Christian smiled thinking of Ana as a cute little nine year old spending unlimited time in a bookstore and being told to grab whatever books she wanted. Apparently, books were Ana's catnip. Ray on the other hand took Zack to a Mariner's game and then hung out by the locker rooms waiting for players to leave so that Zack could try and get his baseball signed. They managed two names before Zack declared Ray the best man in the world.

"If he were here, he'd be arguing with Kate daily over who my best friend was. I miss him dearly. He made me and Pam a promise though. Fifteen years. He would do fifteen years and then he was going to leave active service. He plans to move home when he's done, and I told him whatever he wanted to do, I would support him. I just want my brother home." It was all true, Ana even promised Zack she would by her own Boeing jet for him to fly if he would come home.

The rest of the ride into Bellevue was spent in companionable silence. Christian bristled when he turned into the gated community for Ana's parents. Another mile west and he would reach the gate for his parent's private drive. It was too close. Christian fought down the anxiety he felt every time he thought of coming face to face with his own brother again after so many years. Elliot's sent a letter every six months to his P.O. Box in Chicago since the last family dinner. Not a single envelope has been opened. Mia tends to send emails when she wants to tell him something. Usually it's to brag about her newest client or to tell him which celebrity she's rubbed elbows with. Last email he got from her was three and half months ago and it included pictures from a vacation she took to Turks and Caicos. His father was the only one that hadn't reached out to him since he left the dinner table that day. Carrick Grey was the one that he wanted to talk to the most though.

"Annie! Pam told me about you getting shot. What the fuck?" Zack's face was larger than life on the laptop screen. Her family was huddled around the patio table so that he could see each of them, including looked worn beyond his 25 years. He was still in dirty desert camos with an olive green scarf covering his neck and he hadn't shaved in at least two days.

"Some crazy douche nozzle. Police have no suspects and the shittiest eye witness sketch ever. Unless they find the gun on a sidewalk with prints in the system already, they'll never find out who it was. I was lucky, but the stitches get to come out this week. I'm gonna have a wicked scar, which I think it cool. Kate wants me to fly to Miami and meet with some plastic surgeon. She said Miami is the the plastic surgery capitol of the country." Kate was a firm believer that her looks were part of her brand. A scar was bad marketing she said. Ana told her to get over it, that's what airbrushing was for.

"Who's the gorilla behind you?" Zack tilted his head toward the corner of the screen closet to Christopher and Ana had to smile to herself.

"That's Christopher. The body guard Luke hired." Ana smiled when she turned to look at him and wave him closer to the table.

"You two aren't playing Whitney and Kevin are you?" And just like that Ana and Christopher both froze in their tracks. Raymond Steele saw it. He had listened to Luke yesterday, but he knew his daughter. She had a good head on her shoulders. Ana knew better than to fish off the company pier. At least that was what Ray thought. He hated to be proven wrong. He knew sooner or later Ana would meet a man and fall in love. He expected it in college to be honest, but she was always so focused.

The family spent the next ten minutes talking with Zack before sending their love and saying their "see you next times." "Christopher, how about we get a beer and I show you my shop." Ana groaned hearing her father. She knew he would catch the look she gave Christopher while talking to Zack. It didn't help that Chris kept touching her. One moment his hand was on he small of her back, the next he was caressing her neck. Vicki had made several comments already while they played cards. She saw the sexual tension and was demanding an hour at Bellefleur's to outfit Ana with new lingerie.

Christian followed Ray to his shop. He listened as Ray told him how Ana built the shop as a retirement gift. He had plenty room to work and store his furniture inside the large structure. He also had a leather reclining sofa, a 50 inch led TV connected to the cable and a fridge full of beer and dip to go with the chips it the cabinet next to it.

"Christopher, I want you to listen to me and I want you to listen good." Ray handed him the beer after popping off the cap and took a swig before he caught Christopher's eyes and continued. "That's my little girl that you've been hired to protect. Now I know she's important in the business world and people have a billion and one reasons to want to harm her. I don't give a damn about them though. You were hired to protect her and that's what I expect you to do."

Christian took a swig of his beer before he broke Ray's gaze and looked around the shop. "Sir, I want nothing more than to ensure Ana's safety."

Ray watched the man for a minute. He could see the confidence, but he needed to make sure the boy understood he had a job to do. "I'm glad we see eye to eye on that then. You just remember to keep your gun armed and ready to aim to defend her and keep your cock holstered."