I am not making any money, and they are still owned by Janet. Thanks to Angie for all the hard work, and your advice on this chapter. I appreciate it more than you know. Hope you enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone.

Chapter Fourteen "Perfect?"

Ranger has spent every day and night with Stephanie and the girls over the last month. Ranger and Stephanie went to sleep wrapped in each other's arms at night and woke up in the morning still entwined together. They had not made love though, they'd decided that day at the beach, that they would take their relationship one day at a time. They both had a failed marriage under their belts and the last thing they wanted to do was mess up what was between them.

Things started out great when Ranger and Stephanie told the girls about their new relationship. The girls seemed excited about having both a mother and father figure around, and that there was always someone around, the girls would never have to be alone. That was until a few weeks later, when Ranger told them he wanted to take everyone to Miami to spend some time with Julie. As soon as he said that, Angie and Mary Alice ran off to their bedroom, slamming their door behind them, leaving a very confused Stephanie and Ranger seated on the couch. Stephanie rose to go confront the girls, but was stopped by Ranger gently tugging on her hand. He pulled her back into her previous position with his arm draped over her shoulders and her head resting against his chest.

"Babe, I think you should give them a little time to deal with this. Let them sleep on it. We can talk to them in the morning, I'm sure things will be better then." He quietly spoke into her hair.

"Yeah, maybe you're right. It has been an awful lot for them to digest." Stephanie sighed and reached down to clasp Ranger's warm hand.

"Come on, Babe, how about a movie before we go to bed? We'll discuss the girls' behavior and possible solutions tomorrow over breakfast. Okay?"

Stephanie nodded her agreement and Ranger kissed the top of her head, before grabbing the remote to surf the endless movie channels.

Unsure what had caused her to wake up; Stephanie took inventory of her surroundings. Ranger was pressed tightly against her back, glancing at the clock she knew it wasn't the alarm, she reached for her cell phone and found she hadn't missed any calls. She lay there for a few minutes just listening, when she didn't hear anything she turned over and tried to go back to sleep, but the uneasy feeling just wouldn't go away. As quietly as she could, she slipped out of bed, made her way down the hall and opened the girls' bedroom door. She flipped on the light, and what she saw made her freeze in her tracks. Both beds were empty; the bathroom light was on revealing it was empty as well. Quickly she turned and ran out of the room. She frantically searched the rest of the apartment, when she found it empty; she raced back to her bedroom

"Ranger, wake up!" She shook his shoulder rather roughly.

"Babe, what's the matter? Are you okay?" He sat straight up in bed, instantly alert.

"No, Ranger, the girls are missing! I have searched the whole apartment! Where could they be?" Stephanie's voice was rising with hysteria.

"Babe, calm down. They couldn't get too far, the building is completely monitored. I'll call down to five, Lester's working, and I'll get a report from him." Ranger gave Stephanie's hand a reassuring squeeze, before picking up his cell.

While he was on the phone with Lester, Stephanie grabbed her own cell phone to check for any messages again. It was then that she noticed her purse was missing from the nightstand; she went in search of her handbag and found it on the kitchen counter. When she looked inside, she immediately realized that all of her keys and her key fob were missing. She headed back into the bedroom to tell Ranger, just as he was ending his call.

"Ranger, the girls took my keys! What did Lester say?" The panic in her voice was a tangible thing.

"Babe, we figured they had your fob. At 0500, the monitors in the stairwell were scrambled, followed by the garage cameras, and then someone exited the emergency door on the garage level. Lester figured we wanted some privacy and that we'd left for a run. He didn't check it out since only our key fobs are capable of scrambling the security. The cameras automatically come back on after ten minutes, when they did, the stairwell and garage were empty." Ranger gave her the report; he'd just received from Lester. "I have already sent out three teams to start looking for the girls. Lester's going out as soon as Bobby takes over the monitors. Lester feels really bad knowing the girls got past him on his watch. Stephanie, you need to start making calls to anybody you think of that the girls might run to and let those people know the girls are missing. It would probably be a good idea to give Morelli a call as well. I know you won't want to, but you should let your parents know about this, do you think girls might turn to them?"

"Okay, I don't think they would be at my parents. They knew about our disagreement and they were unhappy with them about the house. I'll make the calls and then if no one has heard anything, I'm going to go look for them myself. I just can't stand around here waiting, and doing nothing."

"I figured that, Babe. When you're done making your phone calls, we'll head out together and start looking. I don't want you to go by yourself." Ranger wrapped her in his arms, gave her a tender hug and kiss before releasing her. He told her to come to the control room when she was ready to leave. He left the apartment and headed down to five to get an update on status of the search.

Stephanie called everyone she could think of and no one had seen the girls. When she called Joe, he told her they could place an Amber Alert for the girls, but it was too early to file a missing person report. The Amber Alert would be broadcast over all the local radio stations, television stations and on the electronic highway signs. Stephanie was so worried about the girls, she didn't care that the entire Trenton area would soon know the girls had ran away from her. She couldn't put off the call to her parents after speaking with Joe, the 'burg grapevine would be a fury of activity in mere seconds. Of course, her mother refused to speak to her, but her father said he would let her know if he heard anything or if they showed up there. Reports from the Trenton PD and Rangeman employees came in at the top of every hour, and so far no one had any information. Finally, after they had been combing the area around Haywood Street for nearly four hours, Stephanie had an idea.

"Ranger, I can't believe no one has thought to check their old house. It's a possibility that they walked there before we even started searching for them."

"Worth a try Babe, let's go." He squeezed her hand and turned the Cayenne in that direction. They drove over to the house in silence, each lost in thought. Stephanie couldn't stop blaming herself, she should have talked to the girls last night and maybe then they wouldn't have run away. Now, all she could do was hope she could find them and get the whole misunderstanding straighten out.

"Babe, I can see the smoke rings coming out of your ears. You need to stop blaming yourself, if anyone is to blame, it's me. I told you not to bother them that it would be okay until morning. I'm the one that hurt them when I brought up Julie. The entire thing is my fault."

"I know what you are trying to do and I appreciate it, but it's my fault. I'm the one, my sister trusted to take care of them and I screwed it up, if I would have been doing my job properly the girls would have brought the problem to me, instead of running away. So you see it's entirely my fault." She sighed and rested her head back against the seat.

"Babe," he began but was interrupted sharply by Stephanie.

"Save it, Ranger. I'm to blame and you can't change my mind, so please, drop it. I just want to find them, and make sure they're alright." She held up her hand to silence him when he started to respond. He inclined his head forward slightly in acknowledgement then returned his attention back to the road.

Ten minutes later, they were pulling up in front of the house. They knew the girls had to be inside, because the kitchen and bedroom lights could be seen from the road. "You would think, with all the people looking for the girls, that someone would have driven down this street and seen the lights. If nothing else, the neighbors know the house is empty, they should have noticed." Stephanie sighed in exasperation and started to get out of the car, she turned to look at Ranger. "I think it would be best if I went in and talked to them first. They're my responsibility, and since they know me better, they might open up to me more if I go in alone."

"Okay, Babe, if that's what you want. I'll wait here, yell or call, if you need me."

Stephanie nodded her head, got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk. When she stepped inside the house, both girls were sitting on the floor in the living room with a jewelry box placed between them. Mary Alice and Angie were both holding something; they jumped when Stephanie closed the door loudly. "Girls, running away is not acceptable behavior. Everyone has been worried sick about you both. Please, tell me what caused you to run away from me"

The girls exchanged looks, tears pooling in their eyes. Mary Alice was the first to speak; she just blurted everything out all at once. "Aunt Steph, we're sorry that we scared you. We were afraid that since Ranger was going to Florida to be with his daughter, that you might like his daughter more, and then you wouldn't want us, and then we would lose another family. We got scared and wanted to come back to our old house to feel close to Mommy and Albert." By the time she'd finished the explanation; the tears had pored over and ran down her cheeks.

"Okay, I think I understand how you felt, but running away from me without talking about it was not the answer. I promise you that I'll never abandon you. I love you both. We have to agree to talk things out between us, running from problems only make them worse. Do you understand what I'm saying?" The girls' heads bobbed in agreement. Stephanie wrapped an arm around each of the girls before continuing to explain. "Someday, Ranger and I might get married. If that happens, Julie would be a part of this family as well. She's a really nice young lady. Ranger has a huge eight bedroom beach house in Miami. He just thought it would be fun for all of us to have a vacation and spent a few weeks down there. I'm sure you'll like Julie. She swims, surfs, and has lived on the beach her entire life. She's thirteen this year, so you girls could maybe get some advice from her. That is all we were thinking when we suggested it. I love you and Ranger does, too. He has never been as close to his own daughter as he's been to you girls. We just wanted to show you a good time, get away from Trenton for awhile and enjoy the beach. I want to say this again, we weren't trying to hurt you and we would never abandon you." Stephanie tightened her hold on each of the girls' shoulders before placing a kiss to the top of each of their heads.

"Thank you, Aunt Stephanie; we love both of you, too. It'll be fun to hang out with a teenager. And I have always wanted to go to the beach. Maybe I can learn to surf." Mary Alice was starting to get excited now that she understood everything she'd been told, but so far Angie wasn't completely on board with the plan.

"Are you okay, Angie? You're awfully quiet. What's in your hand?" Stephanie turned her attention to her silent niece.

"Yeah, I guess, I'm alright. I was just scared that you and Ranger wouldn't want to be around us anymore. You have never been a Mommy and since Ranger has a daughter that lives in Florida, we thought you might go to Florida with him and would just leave us in Trenton with somebody else." Stephanie rubbed her hand up and down Angie's back in a comforting motion.

"Angie, I would want both of you with me no matter where I live. I know I've never been a Mommy before, and I am not trying to replace yours, but I'm going to do my best for both of you. If Ranger wants me to go to Miami with him, then we all go. If we don't all agree, then we stay home, okay? I love both of you very much; please, never think for a minute that I don't and that I wouldn't want you. I'm very proud and honored that your mommy trusted me enough to raise her sweet, loving, kind, beautiful daughters. Now, you never answered my other question. What have you got in your hand that you're hanging onto for dear life?"

"Last year, when Albert moved in with us and became our step-father, he bought all three of us matching necklaces. Each one of them has our birthstone in it and is in the shape of a heart. He said that he wanted Mary Alice and I to know how much he loved us, and that he was very happy that we let him marry our mommy and to become our step-dad, and that he was giving each of us a piece of his heart. We had fun with Albert, he was silly, and he made us laugh. When Dad still lived here, he never did anything nice for us, and he never once bought us anything special like our necklaces. Albert wasn't our real dad, but he treated us better than Steve ever did. I miss Mommy and Albert. We wanted to keep our necklaces and also want to keep Mommy's, if that's alright." Angie was once again sobbing as she finished her story; she even had Stephanie and Mary Alice crying.

"Oh, Sweetheart, you can keep anything in this house that you want. And if, you feel closer to your mommy here, then we can always move back in. Ranger would understand if I decided not to let him have it for work." By this time, Ranger had silently walked into the house to make sure everything was going along smoothly and he'd caught the last few moments of the conversation.

"Of course, I would. Anything you girls want, that will make you happy, is fine by me." He told them with a smile.

"No, I think we both like living in your building, our apartment is really cool. And Ella's cooking is awesome and we both love Lester. He is so much fun to hang around with. We want to stay where we are, okay?" Angie spoke with confidence now that she knew her and her sister's opinions mattered and that Ranger and Stephanie would listen to them.

"Of course, it is, whatever makes you happy, makes me happy." Stephanie told them.

"Ranger, if you still want us to, we would love to go to Miami and see your beach house and meet your daughter. We're sorry we got jealous and run away. We promise not to do it again." Mary Alice said sheepishly not quite meeting his eyes.

"It is absolutely fine with me if we all go to Miami and I would love nothing more than for you to meet Julie. I told her about both of you and she is really excited about being able to spend time getting to know you girls. After all you've been through, there's no reason for you to apologize for anything, and no need to feel bad about being jealous." Ranger quietly explained to them both.

"Well, now that we have all of that cleared up, I say we head over to Pino's for dinner. When we're done, we can head back to Haywood and start packing. Does that sound like a good idea?" Stephanie looked at each of her loved ones with a smile on her face.

Everyone agreed that sounded like a plan. The girls and Stephanie were especially hungry after all the stress of the day. They started talking about what they were going to order when they got to the restaurant. Stephanie said they were definitely having extra large helpings of dessert, that comment had Ranger's lips twitching up as he helped the ladies into the Cayenne. He settled into his 'zone' as the chatter continued all the way downtown. The conversation turned from food to clothes and what they were all going to have to pack. Look out Miami; they'd soon be heading your way!

TBC…… IN: "LIFE IN MIAMI"