The first time was thorough and thrilling. The second time was in the shower, and was soapy and sensual. After I toweled off, I wondered if I cared about how my hair looked enough to go to the effort of blowing it dry. I felt boneless and content in a way that I hadn't felt since Ranger had left for Colombia. I decided that drying my hair would require me to stay upright, and I really wanted to melt down on a chair into a puddle of goo. As I finished drying my body, Ranger carried through his housecoat and wrapped it around me. He had already pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and I knew from experience that would be all he had on. I smiled at him, and Ranger laughed. "Oh, no", he said. "I have things that I need to get done today, especially if we are going to your parents' for dinner tomorrow."

"Okay", I said. "I still need to talk to them and ask them if it would be alright."

"Has your mother ever said no in the past?"

I laughed. "No, but there's a first time for everything." Ranger tied the sash closed and gave me another kiss, then tugged my hand and led me to the kitchen. Ella had put a lemon poppyseed loaf in the fridge, with sliced cheeses and a large bowl of fruit salad. "Yum", I said as I spied the breakfast. After all, lemon poppyseed loaf was like cake, and who didn't like cake for breakfast?

Ranger smiled. He placed the platter of cheese and the cutting board out on the breakfast bar as I divided the fruit salad into two bowls and placed them on the breakfast bar. I started a pot of coffee while Ranger sliced a few pieces of quick bread and sat down, and I prepared my cup ready to add the coffee. Ranger didn't need his prepared with cream or sugar. He took his black. I thought he was nuts.

"Tank arranged with Morelli to come to the office at five today for dinner, and to stay for a meeting with you, me, Tank and him to talk about this mob situation. We're hoping to come up with a game plan."

"When did you decide that?"

"Tank arranged it with Morelli yesterday evening. He said that you had already left for the day, and he didn't want to disturb you. He sent you a text, but you didn't respond."

I thought for a moment. "I had a long soak in the bath and shaved, so that's probably where I was. I didn't even hear my phone buzz."

"That would do it. I had a good chance to go over the data that you pulled together. You did a phenomenal job, babe."

I smiled. My heart felt a little lighter. Hearing Tank's reaction and Morelli's reaction had meant a lot to me, but hearing that Ranger liked it was the most important of all. Nobody could make me feel as good about myself as Ranger could.

"You worked very hard on that research. How many hours did you spend on it?"

"About twenty-four, between my research into the various people and the research into the company itself."

"We'll have to start charging Morelli for the time."

"Don't laugh about it. Tank told me that this work is in response to the favor you owed Morelli for the work he did in getting Dickie charged for tax evasion. However, I was talking to Morelli last night and he was saying that he has involved his captain in the discussion, and his captain was equally as impressed by the research that was done. He asked whether we would periodically mind working for the force as consultants to provide this sort of information to them on particularly stubborn cases."

"That's something to consider. How long does it take to do a search?"

"If there is nothing there, about half an hour. However, if In-Spect identifies avenues that deserve to be explored, then that amount of time goes up astronomically. So, in this case, there were five things that I was researching – the company itself, and the four people. I went down some rabbit holes and did a lot of in-depth investigating. I spent about five hours on each of those components."

"I'll assume that each person will require as much detail when I quote a project, and I'll bill you out at seventy-five dollars an hour. That gives us a lot of profit, is still reasonable, but is a high enough cost that the TPD won't be coming to us all the time asking for us to do their research. What do you think about that?"

"That sounds good to me – especially the part where they don't come to us constantly. I am way behind in my analysis of Bordin's employees because I took the two days to do the research on the Vistonnis and the Bianchis. I am also behind in my skip tracing."

"Tank told me that Miguel and Ramon were going skip tracing with you on Monday?"

"Yes. Tank set it up yesterday afternoon. I'm not sure why I need two people to help, but Tank insisted."

"One is to help you capture the skips, and the other is to watch your back."

"I think it's a bit of overkill."

Ranger looked at me. "Babe", he said.

"Seriously, Ranger. My apartment has only been firebombed. It's not like it is anything unusual."

"Babe, I am happier than I have ever been now that you have moved in with me. I don't want to take any chances that something happened to you. I don't think I could cope if you were ever hurt or killed, especially knowing that it was something that could have been avoided." I sighed. "You mean everything to me, babe." He reached across and picked up my hand, and kissed my fingers.

"I love you too, but don't you think this is a bit of overkill?"

"Your apartment was firebombed."

"It's not like it is something that hasn't happened before."

"I know, but you could have been in it."

"But I wasn't."

"But you could have been. Rebecca didn't know that you don't live there any longer. She intended to burn your place, babe. She intended to burn Rex, to burn your clothes, to burn your furniture and, if she got lucky, she intended to burn you as well. Just because she didn't get the chance to doesn't mean that she should be given another chance to kill you. When she figures out that you completed the research, and she might now that Morelli is giving a bit of push back, she will be gunning for you. Do my adrenal glands a favor and play it safe."

I looked at him and wanted to argue with him, but he was right. If I had lived there, it wouldn't be just a firebombing. It would have been a disaster, and that's what Rebecca wanted for me.

"The good news is that she doesn't know where I am living at the moment", I said.

Ranger smiled. "Only you would find a piece of good news in amongst all the crap."

I sighed. "Okay, I'll take Miguel and Ramon." I sighed again and must have looked long-suffering, because Ranger's lips twitched and I could tell that he was thinking about smiling.

"Thank you", he said.

"Did you hear that the empty lot next to us is for sale? Miguel told me. He wondered if you had wanted to buy it to build another building on the site and perhaps join the two with a bridge. There isn't quite enough room for everybody now, and the company keeps continuing to grow. I can see it with the number of new companies that we have starting up. It is hard for me to keep up with the research."

He finished his fruit. "That's a good idea. I'll look into it. I've been trying to decide what to do about the space. I was debating about getting another building for the staff quarters, but the problem is that I want to keep my Emergency Response Team close so that they can mobilize quickly in a crisis. But if I was able to move them somewhere close by, it would open up two more floors to work with. We need to hire more people as well. We need another person in accounting, another person in IT, and I'd like to start a HR department with hiring a person responsible for recruitment and retention, and another for training. It is getting too much for me to do the HR functions. We have grown fast and I can no longer do all the administrative functions myself in addition to what I like to do – the design of security programs. That's what makes me happy. Right now, I spend three-quarters of my day doing administration and half my day doing security design and working with clients. Yes, I know that adds up to more than one day, and that is reflective of the overtime I am spending. Like you, I work about ten hours a day five days a week, with another six hours on average each day on the weekend. Add in my training responsibilities for PMC, and I'm swamped."

"Would you still do the final interview of all the applicants, and just use the HR department for screening purposes?"

"That's the intent. Another building with maybe a glassed in bridge spanning the two would be an excellent option for the staff quarters. I'd like to have a couple of extra efficiency apartments for guests, four floors of staff apartments, and I'd like to expand the ERT teams to four rather than our current two. Each team would be responsible for one week out of the month rather than two, and I think that will be much fairer to the teams."

"This is a rude question, but can the company afford to build another building?"

"That partly depends upon how expensive the property is. My instinct is that it isn't an opportunity that we want to pass up, and that we should make it work. I will have to talk to the Chief Financial Officer to see what he says." He paused. "So tell me. How was the bacon when I was gone?"

"How did you know that I had bacon?"

Ranger laughed. "It was just a guess, but it seems that I guessed right?"

"Yes, you did. Why did you guess that?"

"Ella looks on the staff here as her boys. But you she looks on as an only daughter, and she loves spoiling you. Luis says that her desserts have improved greatly since you started eating dessert. She loves making you things to eat that she thinks you might like, just like she loves making you soup when you are sick."

"She has a big heart and a lot of love to share."

"She does. When she delivered her son, there were complications and she ended up having to have an emergency hysterectomy. I always thought that she would have been a great mom to a horde of children, but instead she was a great mother figure to all the neighborhood boys. Her son constantly had friends over for meals or to sleep over. She was absolutely gutted when her son died. Luis was as well. They both adored him. But Ella said that one of the problems with her son dying was that all his friends stayed away from them from that point on. I tried to go at least once a month so that I could talk to them, and it broke my heart to see them struggling so much. You wouldn't recognize them the way they were then. They were dejected and beaten down. They couldn't even stand up straight. They had no purpose in life and didn't see anything to be joyous about. Ella would start crying at the drop of a hat, and Luis just looked anxious all the time. But coming here was good for them. Having people to look after gave them a new lease on life. Luis likes puttering in his jobs, Ella is someone who loves being busy and taking care of people, and the two of them are happy. The guys are grateful that they are here as well. There couldn't be a better couple to take care of the building and the people who work here."

"What are you planning on doing when they retire?"

"I don't know if they ever will. I'll give them the choice, but I suspect that they won't want to. They are very happy here. What I would do, if they would let me, is put them into partial retirement. Perhaps have Ella do just the cooking, and have someone else in to do the cleaning and the laundry. Have Luis oversee the building maintenance but hire people to do the work. I don't know. That's about ten years in the future, and a lot can change in ten years."

"That's true. I worry about Ella sometimes just because she is so busy and because she doesn't get much of a chance to see friends. She works seven days a week."

"True, she doesn't see friends very often. I've tried to get her to work six days a week instead of seven, and I've tried to make her understand that I don't need a hot breakfast prepared each day. I can, after all, go to the break room for my breakfast. But every time I bring up the subject, she starts to cry. It doesn't matter how diplomatically I phrase it. She said that she likes making me special foods." Ranger flushed. "She said that all the boys here are important to her, but I'm like her son and she likes to spoil me. She said that it makes her feel good to know that she is taking care of me."

"I can see that. She makes me bacon every day when you are gone. I eat dinner in the break room just so that she doesn't have to separate out a meal just for me, but she always makes sure that there is a special treat in the fridge for me for my bedtime snack. It was funny the other day. I was thanking Ella for the breakfast she had made me. It was a superior BLT, and luckily I didn't say what it was. Ramon overheard and asked whether it was bacon. I told him it was an olive and peanut butter sandwich. He turned a little green."

"Imagine that", said Ranger with a half-smile.

"I don't understand it myself. He said that, if that was what I was eating when you weren't here, he'd stick to the break room food."