Sorry! It's been a while. The warmer weather has pulled me out of the house and away from the computer more often than not. Hope you haven't lost interest!
I own nothing, JE owns her characters... ~ Maia
When Ranger arrived I was sitting very prim and proper on the trucks tailgate, one leg casually crossed over the other as I waited. I watched him quietly take in the scene, my insides churning with humiliation as a smirk crossed over his handsome features.
Turning towards T2 and myself, Ranger slowly wandered in our direction. It was probably a good thing he was wearing his dark sunglasses, because I knew if I saw the amusement swimming in his eyes I'd throttle him.
Resting my hands in my lap I caught T2's eye and we both smiled at each other in alliance. We weren't going to take any shit for this one. There'd been a lot of things I'd gotten myself into in the past, but this one had a silver lining, sort of. At least I'd located my FTA and not fallen completely flat on my face.
When Ranger reached the truck he kicked some of the roofing nails out of the way – just because he could – and rested his hands on his hips as he turned to me. "Tow trucks on the way."
"Good." I replied with a nod, my eyes connecting with Sean's briefly. He was standing behind Ranger and holding himself in check.
"I thought you were going to take care of her today?" Sean teased his buddy.
T2 shot him a look and crossed his monstrous arms over his chest. "At least I didn't roll the truck and kill her."
"Got lucky there." Ranger replied looking around at all the nails - again, just because he could. "It's going to take DOT all day to clean this mess up." Yeah, he just had to rub that in too.
"Not my problem," I replied and Ranger looked over at me, smiled. "Go ahead," I offered. He was just dying to rub this whole thing in. I could feel it. "Get it all out. You know you want to rib the two of us blind."
"I do." He replied, his grin widening. "I really, really do, but… I figure the cost of the tow truck, four new tires and just having us here to witness this is enough." Cursing under my breath, I jumped down from the truck only to be quickly rescued by Ranger when I slipped on some nails, almost falling on my ass.
Steadying me on my feet, Ranger could no longer keep in his laughter and let free everything he'd been holding in. If I'd had the footing I would've punched him square in the jaw, but by the time I found my legs my cell phone started ringing.
"Yeah?" I said while glaring at Ranger.
"Did you forget about me?" My ears perked at Morelli's voice. He'd been the one I'd called earlier.
"No," I replied, kicking nails. "I thought you'd forgotten about me." His chuckle washed over my poor mood and brought a smile to my face.
"You should know by now that I almost never forget a pretty face."
"Ah, you flirt." I sensed Ranger stiffen to my left, and without a glance in his direction, I walked away. "What can I do for you?"
"It's not what you can do for me, but what I can do for you."
"Really," I replied, kicking more nails as I walked towards the front of the Tahoe. "You got something special for me?"
"Honey, if you only knew." This time I laughed and thought about looking to see if Ranger was watching, but decided against it and continued on. "So, my contact in Washington called me a bit ago." Good news!
"Yeah?"
"Apparently your guy is in the database."
"Interesting." I hopped in the truck, fished for paper and a pen. "How deep?"
"Deep enough that it was hard to dig him up."
I smiled. "So my FTA's story is on the up and up."
"I don't know about that," Joe replied. "But, someone's trying really hard to bury whatever he's involved in." This wasn't good news.
"Perfect. Now I've got drug dealers, rival bounty hunters and the federal government after my FTA?" My mood deflated again.
"He's holding quite a bit of goods, Rachel." I sighed softly, drew circles on the paper I was holding.
Staring at my doodles I steeled myself and asked the question I didn't want to. "How much?"
"Two-mill in cash, another five hundred K in artillery and they're guesstimating about twenty kilos of cocaine. No idea on the heroine as of yet."
I groaned, rested my head against the steering wheel and closed my eyes. "He's dead, Joe." Silence. "If I don't get to him soon, he's dead."
"Sweetheart, he's dead even if you do get to him." He replied, his tone turning comforting. "You alright down there? Ranger still with you?"
"Yeah," I said quietly.
"I wish I could be of more help."
"You've done enough." I replied rolling my forehead back and forth against the hard plastic of the steering wheel. "At least now I know what ballpark I'm playing in." Joe sighed softly and I sat up in my seat. "I can't tell you how badly I wanna just walk away from this one."
"You can. Its just money, gorgeous."
"If only that were true…" and I trailed off. I wasn't just about the money anymore. It was about life and death, about my marriage and bunch of other things I couldn't even remember at the moment. Ego wouldn't let me walk away from the challenge, my heart wouldn't let me turn my back on the rest. No matter how much I wanted to crawl under a rock until this was all over with, I knew I had to carry on. "Anyway, thanks for the information."
"Anytime. You got a line on him at least?"
"He's in the area, I know that much for sure. I spotted him with my own two eyes about an hour ago."
"Then you're almost there." I smiled.
"Thanks for the support, Joe."
"Again… anytime." After I hung up the phone I stared off into space then noticing movement in the distance I squinted my eyes. About a half mile down the road a tow truck pulled up and stopped. When the driver got out, he looked down at the mess in between him and the SUV and shook his head.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know what you're thinking." Turning to get out of the truck I came up short when Ranger filled the doorway. "Jesus." I said shaking my head at him. "You scared the crap out of me." He said nothing. "I'm going to go down and talk to the tow truck driver." Ranger didn't move. Looking up at him, I frowned. "What?"
"Nothing," he said quietly then with careful movements he moved out of my way. Something in Ranger's behavior had me pausing though, looking back. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, because it was obvious something was, but left it alone.
After chatting with the tow truck driver for a few minutes we decided he'd have to wait for DOT to clean up the road before he could do anything about the Tahoe. And even then he had to go back to the shop first and switch vehicles. There was no towing the Tahoe. It was going to need to be flat bedded.
Joining up with the boys again I noticed Ranger was standing off to the side, chatting on his phone. Glancing over at Tank I shot him a questioning look. He shook his head at me and turned away.
Going over to Sean, I kept my eyes on Ranger. "This puppy isn't going anywhere for a long time."
"Didn't think it would," Sean said with a shake of his head. "What are we doing next?"
"I need to find Bucky. His time is running out, and not only because of me." Sean nodded his head and we both turned Ranger's way. "Come here a minute." I said after a few moments. Once we were a safe distance away I turned to Sean and sighed softly. "I'm getting some vibes from Ranger that he's going to leave soon."
Sean looked over my shoulder towards Ranger. "Wish I could say I didn't feel the same way." Sean's eyes met mine, held and filled with concern. "Are you alright?" I lifted a shoulder and let it drop. It wasn't my intention to put Sean in the middle of my marital affairs, but he was my friend, the only one in our group other than Tank who knew Ranger as well as I did. Unfortunately he happened to be Ranger's friend too, which made things sticky.
"You can't fix what's been broken."
Sean grimaced then reached out to run a knuckle down my cheek. "You guys were doing good there for a little while. I thought you might just pull this out."
I looked down at my hands, stared at my bare ring finger and swallowed the lump in my throat. "I thought so, too. But… we can't change what this is."
"And what would that be?"
My eye's met Sean's. "Over." I hated saying the word out loud, but saying it helped a little. Pretending that everything would be fine wasn't doing Ranger and I any good. We needed to sit down, settle everything and let it go. Only then would the healing process begin.
Looking over at Ranger I watched him hang up his phone and turn towards me. When our eyes connected I knew we were on the same page and it broke my heart. "Do you think you and T2 can supervise the clean up here?"
"Sure." Sean replied with a shrug like it was nothing. "Rach... I'm sorry." I flashed him a weak smile. "If there were ever two people who deserved each other, it's you and Ranger."
"Thanks," was all I could say.
Walking over towards my husband I steeled my back and watched him do the same. If we could make it through these next couple of hours, we might just make it out of this slightly unscathed.
Only slightly though.
Standing in front of Ranger I looked up into his chocolate brown eyes, felt my chest tighten and smiled weakly. "What do you think, bud?" He looked away, his jaw tensing. I could see he was in pain, that this was just as hard on him as it was on me. For once though, I was going to try and make this as easy on Ranger as I could. He deserved that much from me.
"Sean and T2 staying?" He finally asked and I nodded. "Alright then."
We both turned towards the Tahoe in the distance and Ranger motioned for Tank to join us.
This hurts. Oh god this hurts! I thought as I walked away.
My heart hurt so badly I wanted to rub a hand over it and make the ache go away. Each inward breath of air felt like fire as I tried to control my emotions, attempted to steady my breathing. Ranger was walking next to me, but it felt like he was a million miles away. And the tension between the two of us? Oh, you couldn't have cut it with a knife.
Watching him round the other side of the SUV, I heard him say something quietly to Tank and wanted to scream over the situation.
This isn't what I want, I know it's not what he wants, but what do I do?
Rubbing a hand over my face I took a deep breath and realized there was nothing I could do. Not everything was up to me this time. I didn't want this to end, for us to separate, but in the end it wasn't really my decision alone.
Did I want Ranger to go back to New Jersey and the life he had there? Absolutely not. I wanted him here, with me. I wanted – for once – to be more important to my husband than anything else he had going on. I wanted more than he could give me, which was probably a normal desire for most women, but this was Ranger we were talking about. One of his goals in life was to always make the impossible, possible. Guess that only applied to business.
Leaning back against the truck I gave into the fact that none of this was fair, not for me and definitely not for Ranger. But, there was no sense in denying the inevitable. I wasn't going to give and neither was my husband, and since marriage is supposed to be all about that give and take thing, we were failing miserably.
When we got back to the motel, Tank went to his room to gather his things, leaving Ranger and I alone. A part of me wished Tank would come back, that he'd stay until the very last moment so that Ranger and I wouldn't be forced to say goodbye. Unfortunately luck wasn't on my side.
"Shouldn't take me long." He said quietly.
I shrugged, smiled as cheerfully at him as I could. "Take your time." He nodded once then headed for his room. Watching him walk away I choked up a little then chastised myself for letting it happen. You reap what you sow, Rachel.
Flipping open my phone, I stared at my contact list desperate for a distraction then dialed Kathleen. She answered on the first ring. "How's it going down there?"
"We should be home in the next couple of days."
"Wow! That's good news. You found Bucky already?" I sighed softly, glanced towards Ranger's room and felt tears well up in my eyes. "Rachel?"
"I'm driving Ranger and Tank to the airport then the boys and I will pick up with the chase."
There was a bit of silence on the other end of the phone. "Oh, Rachel…"
"When this is over, I'm going to need to make arrangements to sell the townhouse in Jersey and bring the two vehicles I have there back to Dallas."
"Trivial issues. Are you sure this is what you want?"
I laughed, my chest tightening all over again. "No… no, I'm not, but it's over. He and I both know it."
"Why?" Such a simple question yet the truth was too hard to explain.
"Because his life is in Jersey and mine is in Dallas."
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Everything." I replied
"But –"
"Don't ask a lot of questions now, okay? I can't deal with questions right now. Not when he's fifty feet away and walking out of my life for the last time." Kathleen cursed viciously and I laughed. "Yeah, my sentiments exactly."
"Call me after he's gone."
"After he's gone I'm finding Bucky and going home."
"Is it gonna be that easy?" I turned at the sound of Ranger's door opening.
"Gonna have to be. Gotta go." And I disconnected.
Ranger had changed his clothes. Instead of fatigues he was wearing jeans, a clean white t-shirt and his leather jacket. He looked fantastic, so edible it hurt to think I'd never be alone with him intimately again.
After tossing his bag into the back of the Tahoe he walked over to me, smiled faintly. "This isn't how I wanted this to end."
I reached up, touched his face. "I didn't want it to end at all."
He closed his eyes. "Rachel."
"You were right, bud. I went up there with those papers in hopes of saving us. I denied it, but deep down I knew what I was doing. I'd thrown caution to the wind in a last ditch effort to hang onto you." I moved in closer to him. "Unfortunately, it was already too late. We wasted the years we should've been fixing this doing other things. Things I can't even remember being all that important at this point."
Ranger was fighting emotions, hard. "Yesterday we were fine… today I'm going home."
"That's reality."
"No, that sucks, Rachel." Reaching up he grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me into him. "Why can't we make this work?" He cried.
"Maybe because we don't love each other enough."
"Not true."
I moved away so that I could look up into his face, a face that was going to haunt me for the rest of my life. "You don't want to think it is, but soon you'll realize I'm right."
Shaking his head he pressed his lips against mine, took the kiss deeper and held on tight. "I'm always gonna love you."
My eyes met his and I touched his face again. "I love you," I mouthed and kissed him tenderly. "But, now I'm letting you go."
"I don't know how to respond to that."
I smiled. "By doing the same."
"You're killing me," he whispered, tears filling his eyes as he clung to me. "How am I ever going to shove this back down again." I smiled, finding comfort in that statement.
"You're not alone. Please don't think you're alone." A door opened behind us, Tank emerging. Ranger let me go and spun away so that he could reign in his emotions. I turned towards Tank, swiped at my tears.
"I can come back." He offered apologetically after assessing the scene.
"No," I replied with a shake of my head. "No sense in putting off the inevitable." I turned to look at Ranger, found him leaning against the Tahoe facing the other way. His shoulders were sagging and he had his hand up near his eyes. After a few minutes he donned his sunglasses and turned towards us.
"You driving?" He asked me and I nodded. "Alright."
On the way to the airport the tension in the truck was thick enough you could cut it with a knife. I wanted to reach over and take Ranger's hand in mine, but I held back. Clinging to him was the last thing either of us needed at this point. A clean break, that's what the doctor was ordering. It might not cure anything, but it sure as hell would lessen the pain.
Half way to the airport my cell phone started ringing. Pulling it out of my pocket and checking the ID, I paused for a moment, asked myself why then flipped the phone open. "You're the last person I expected to hear from right now." I said shaking my head.
"I need your help," Bucky cried.
"I don't think I'm feeling really helpful right now, Buck." Ranger turned my way.
"They're coming for me, Rachel. You've got to help me." He sounded shaken, nervous.
"Man, I'd love to, but my truck is kinda out of commission. Any idea why that is?"
Buck grumbled. "I'm sorry 'bout that. But, you've got another! Come get me! I'll go with you wherever you want. Just…" he paused and cursed as a loud banging started up in the background.
"Buck?" He didn't answer, but the commotion in the background increased. "Bucky?" The phone went dead. "Fuck." I threw the phone onto the dash, slammed on the breaks and swung the truck around.
"Peck's?" I nodded my head at Ranger and watched as he reached into his bag and retrieved his gun. "What did you hear?"
"Someone's found him."
"What did he say?" Tank called out from the backseat.
"That he needed help and that they were coming for him." Ranger cursed.
"We're gonna be too late."
"We'd better not be." I replied and punched the accelerator.
It seemed to take forever for us to get to Peck's place. When we did we pulled up beside Peck's truck and a black van, climbed out and took our positions.
Everything was quiet in the house, but the dogs were going nuts, which scared the shit out of me. Glancing over at Ranger he nodded his head once, so I called out to Buck. "Rachel?" I heard him cry from inside. "Oh, Jesus, Rachel…" He sounded far off, distant and like he was in pain.
"Bucky? Are you alright?" There was a bunch of noise inside then a window blew out, silencing the dogs for a moment. Ducking behind the hood of the Tahoe I waited, but nothing else happened right away.
"Hey, pretty lady!" I heard someone yell and peeked over the hood. "You'd best get your ass back in that truck and get the hell out of here."
"Not going to happen," I called back. "I want my FTA. Alive."
"You're gonna be picking up pieces of him in about ten minutes. And if you're not careful that pretty little truck of yours is gonna need a new paint job by the time we're done." He said laughing.
"Just take what you need and give me Wellsley!"
"You're dreamin'! This boy here's gonna pay for what he took." I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of someone getting beaten inside the house. Then tapping my head against the Tahoe in frustration, I glared up at the sky and tried to calm my frazzled nerves. I wasn't going to lose Bucky. Not this way. I'd already lost my marriage. I wouldn't lose my FTA as well.
So, without any warning I walked out from behind the truck, my hands in the air and started for the house.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Ranger called out.
"Hey!" I yelled towards the house. "You listening? How about a trade? Me for the Buckmeister!"
Someone poked their head around a curtain briefly then disappeared. "Now, why in the hell would you want to do something dumb like that?"
"I already told you, I want my FTA alive."
"You do realize I could just shoot you right where you are," he said chuckling. "Ending all this very unpleasantly for you."
"You won't make it out of the yard if you do." I replied, and knew it to be true. "My husband is standing behind the truck and he'll kill you before you can leave." That statement was greeted by silence. "Give me Bucky and I'll go with you." I heard Ranger groan from behind the truck but I tuned him out. "I called the sheriff on the way over here. He's coming with a boatload of PD and the Feds. I can help you get out of here if you'll let Bucky go." More silence. And then as if on cue, sirens started wailing in the distance.
"You can get us out of here?"
"Yup." I pointed towards the gun still in my hand, tossed it towards the Tahoe. Ranger called me a really colorful name and I flipped him the bird.
"Who's to say your husband aint gonna kill me once I make the exchange?"
"Don't worry about it, we're getting a divorce anyway." I replied. "Hello?"
"Alright… alright." The guy called out. "You start walking slowly and I'll give you Bucky."
"Rachel, no." Ranger said from behind me, but I didn't listen. I knew what I was doing was wrong, dumb, stupid and wrong, but I didn't care. Tunnel vision had set in.
After that things progressed quickly. I was so fixated on getting into the house and getting Bucky out that I didn't see the two men slip out the side window. Not until they were halfway to the woods and it was too late, anyway.
Looking over my shoulder towards Ranger – my mind and body stuck in some goofy slow motion – I realized my mistake and watched helplessly as he bolted out from behind the truck, Tank on his heels.
When the house exploded the force grabbed me and tossed me through the air like a ragdoll, flinging my body into the van with bone crunching fierceness. I hit my shoulder hard enough that I heard it pop, felt the pain almost instantaneously as wood and glass rained down from above.
Collapsing onto the ground, my last thought was of Ranger and that I'd failed all the way around. I'd lost my husband and my FTA.
And just as Ranger's face floated into my blurred vision, everything went black...
