Not mine. We are quickly drawing to a close. After this one there are only 4 more left. Thank you to everybody who has stuck with me on this journey. Thank you Rainbow for catching my errors.

Love at the Drive-thru

Chapter 25

Later that day, Ranger returned home to a waiting Steph. "What did you learn?"

"Sit down please." Ranger waited for Steph to take a seat. "I learned a few things. Les took a suicide mission, he knew going in he wouldn't be back he had less than a twenty percent chance of return. He left a letter for me, but I want Staci to read it before I let anybody else and only if she agrees to it. I think I want to retire at least from the government. We haven't had any threats against us in a long time and I want to keep it that way."

"I'm all for you retiring, I wish Les had walked away sooner too. Talk to the other core team guys and get their thoughts."

Ranger knew what they would do. Bobby's life was going great he was still with the nurse from the hospital and it was getting serious since he and Les had been looking at engagement rings for Jennifer before Les left. Tank was trying to rebuild his life since his divorce from Phoebe and was starting to date some thanks to Staci introducing him to Denise at hers and Les' wedding. So Ranger felt certain his second in command would also agree to retire. There were a few others he suspected would join him in that decision, Hal and Ram being the another two biggies.

"When are you going to talk to Staci and Les' dad?"

"Tomorrow maybe the day after. I've got a lot to process myself and I'm not sure Staci is ready for this bombshell. How could he have walked away from her? She had been all he has thought about for the last two years. I got answers but I have more questions now. Staci has started to say she doesn't believe he is dead. She says she doesn't feel that he is gone."

Steph was shocked as to how much Ranger was talking, but he needed to get a lot off of his chest. "Would I be able to help if I read the letter?"

"I really wanted Staci to read it before anybody else, but maybe you will glean something out of it I didn't. Here." Against his better judgment he handed Steph the letter Lester had left in DC.

Stephanie carefully read the letter two times trying to see what she could get from it, before carefully folding it and laying it on the coffee table in their living room. She quietly sat there waiting on Ranger to come back out of the bedroom since he had stepped away to change clothes. As she thought she sighed, the tone of the letter told her he was hoping to beat the odds or keep Staci safe.

A few minutes later Ranger came back in the living room dressed in a sleeveless t-shirt and basketball shorts. She surmised he was going to go for a run to think.

"It sounds to me like he had someone after him or her. His comment on 'Nobody is looking for her now', seems like there was someone threatening her. He was hoping the Rangeman luck would be with him."

"I know. I want to dig in this more and see who he was going after. It crossed my mind that when her trailer was shot up that maybe this is somehow connected to that incident even though I don't see why or how. It was never solved and they weren't directly involved or there when all of it happened. We thought it was drug related since the trailer next door had suspicious activity," Ranger surmised.

"I remember. Luckily, she and Les had came here that night when he saw that deal going on."

Dialing Tank's number Ranger made the decision to tell the big man about the letter. Maybe it would be better if Staci didn't know of its existence for a while until he had perhaps a few more answers. A few minutes later there was a knock at the apartment door.

Tank didn't wait on one of them to open the door after the knock and fobbed his way in. "You wanted to see me boss."

"Yeah, I got this from Steele. It answers some of the questions but gives me a whole bunch of new ones in their place." Ranger spoke as he handed Tank the letter.

Tank read the letter carefully taking in the words as he went. "It sounds like he knew what he was getting into from the start. But why would someone be after him, you have more enemies than he had?"

"That my friend is what we need to find out. For now we are keeping the security detail on Staci until we know everything."

"I'm not going to tell you what to do, but for now I wouldn't let her see that letter. I think it would only hurt her at the moment. She is still too raw from everything."

"After reading his letter and the life I have now, I think it is time for me to retire. Hopefully you and Bobby will follow suit along with some of the others."

"I might stay in for a while longer but Bobby has been debating for a while now. He really wants to possibly settle down with Jennifer. I'm not in the same situation now, even though things are good with Denise and I have decided I could care for her a lot down the road."

"I knew Bobby had been looking at rings, but I didn't know if he had purchased one yet."

"Yeah, he's got a ring and it waiting on the right time, probably over the summer. Are you going for a run?"

"I am. Wanna join?"

"Meet you in the lobby in ten."

Once Tank left Ranger turned to Steph, "You understand that there is a possibility that whoever coerced Les into taking that mission may come after me once I tell my handler that I'm retiring?"

"It crossed my mind while you and Tank were talking. Ranger, I agree with Staci, Les isn't dead or at least I believe her. They have a connection like what we have. I was told on a couple of your missions you were killed. I didn't feel it and didn't believe it. Turned out, I was right, you were very much alive. Believe her and keep digging. I would tell you to enjoy your run, but I expect you are going to be doing a lot of thinking."

He kissed her, "Babe, you know me all too well." After taking in her beauty for another moment, he disappeared out the door. His decision on retiring was finalized after he looked at her. He never wanted to risk losing his time with her.

Steph sighed at the thoughts of what Staci was enduring at the moment. She knew the pain she had gone through on all of Ranger's mission. The missions when she was told he was dead were the most brutal.

As Steph thought over the whole situation she went to assume her thinking position, she wondered what she could do to help her friend. Hoping for clues, she read Lester's letter a third time. No one is after her, stuck in Steph's mind. It was the only thing abnormal to her.

She knew Tank was right, Ranger had more enemies than the others combined. So why would someone go after Les? Another thought came to mind maybe he was the first and Ranger was right someone might come after him when he told his superiors he wanted to retire. Then again, they could come after him regardless along with the others on the team.

Eventually, Steph drifted off to sleep.

Ram had done as Ranger ordered, the bomb detector was on the car. If anybody came near the car, alarms would go off and disable the car not allowing it to start.

With everything being suspicious, Ram nor Hal took their eyes off of Staci for a moment. It wasn't lost on Staci that as they entered or exited a building the men surrounded her, including her father-in-law and grandfather-in-law.

In a matter of a few days, Staci was feeling smothered. Once they were settled in either Mateo's or the house in Colmar for the night, Ram and Hal relaxed.

The painting on the house had gone well. Staci kept the colors the same but freshened it up. On the day she had finished the last room, Hal was outside mowing. Ram had gone to Rangeman for some other equipment since they noticed a malfunction in the security system for the garage.

Neither man told Staci about the problem, but they disabled the Challenger just in case until they had time to look the car over properly.

While she had been staying with her father-in-law and grandfather-in-law she was getting more spoiled. Daisy was too for that matter. She could only imagine how they would have been if she had a baby.

Heaven help me if I had been pregnant and had a son, she thought one day. A lone tear escaped as she thought about a little boy with Lester's skin tone, her blonde hair, Lester's eyes and nose. The child would have been a heart breaker when he got older. The girls wouldn't know what hit them. She could imagine Les saying, "That boy is going to get all the pussy he will ever want." She smiled and shook her head at that thought.

In her bedroom, she looked at a picture of Les. It was taken one afternoon at a picnic. He was getting in the Challenger, the door was open and he was standing there with his arm on top of the window and the other on top of the car. His smile was blinding. She turned her attention to another one of him. It had been taken in the gym at Rangeman one morning not long before he left for his mission. He was being a smart ass and giving her a 'gun show', by flexing his biceps. "Baby, these guns can carry you back to the apartment and I could give you a different type show." She realized that was the last picture she had taken of him. More tears escaped her eyes.

Standing at the door to the bedroom was Ram, not sure what to do to help her, he cleared his throat. "I'm back."

Staci sat the last picture of Les on her nightstand and smiled at Ram, "That was the last picture I had taken of him before he left. Ram, when I look at picture of him, I feel that he is not dead. I'd know it. Something isn't right."

"Come here." He took her in his arms. "I know it isn't easy and there is nothing Hal or I can do to easy your pain, but you are not alone. As long as there is breath in my body, I'm not leaving."

She stood there taking comfort in Ram's embrace. When her tears subsided, "Where did you go?"

He needed to decide if he was going to tell her the truth or lie. Ram opted for the truth, "There was a malfunction on the system in the garage, I needed to go to Rangeman to get the parts to replace it."

Staci hadn't seen Mateo or Lucian for a couple days, they had to go to Philadelphia for two days to tend to rewriting their wills. The men had decided to leave everything they had for Staci since Les wasn't around any longer. They were going to be home later that evening. Staci planned on spending the day with them tomorrow.

She had learned to make a few of the dishes they loved to eat. Tomorrow she was going to make them dinner. Her phone rang, she had set up a special ringtone for Mateo, so she knew it was him. "Hi Papi."

"Hi Sweetheart. I wanted to let you know we were home. We are coming up in the early afternoon tomorrow to see you."

"I am looking forward to it. The painting is done. I finished it earlier today."

"I can't wait to see it."

They spoke a few more minutes before Hal came in the house. Once he finished the mowing he used the weed eater and then the edger to trim around the concrete sidewalk. Slowly the house was becoming a showplace outside and in.

Hal went to shower while Staci made dinner and Ram replaced the faulty equipment in the garage. A short time later they sat down to dinner. None of them were in a particularly talkative mood.