A/N: My apologies. My plans for kicking my feet up and relaxing with some writing while pregnant didn't exactly pan out as expected. But as a gift to all of my OBSCENELY patient readers, I'm giving you TWO whole chapters for Christmas! Yay! Hope you all enjoy and have a wonderful holiday season! With any luck this story will be all wrapped up in a few chapters, and then we can all sigh in relief ) Thanks for sticking with me. You all are the best!
Much to my disappointment, Ranger's interest in giving me a full-body search lasted about as long as it took us to evacuate our wing of the hospital. After that, it was back to business as usual with focusing on my recovery and figuring out what to do about Kate's impromptu wish list. Based on Ranger's typical expressionless demeanor, I couldn't really tell how much of it he was planning on complying with, especially considering he rarely responded well to manipulation and coercion—quite possibly never. And, you know, there was also the fact I don't think he was particularly fond of how Kate had gone about submitting her requests either.
That being said, he also didn't immediately throw the piece of paper in the trash. Maybe throughout this whole ordeal the girls had somehow endeared themselves to him, or maybe more likely, he was debating how he could use it as leverage to get them to testify for Izzy's case. Either way, he spent a lot of time over the next few days on his phone and even more time disappearing to talk with Izzy and her team.
Meanwhile, I spent that time trying not to go stir crazy in my recovery room.
This became increasingly difficult, especially after Hector dropped by one day with some wrist monitor thingy that alerted freaking grand central any time I stepped foot out of my room. And it probably wouldn't have been half so bad except for the fact such "indiscretions" resulted in members of the Rangeman SWAT brigade showing up and demanding to know what the hell was going on. And unfortunately "mind your own damn business" didn't appear to be an acceptable response.
Joke was on them though.
By the third time I tripped the system—so sue me for wanting to know if Nurse Heather was going to kick her bum of a boyfriend to the curb—I started keeping stats on their response times. Whoever took the longest to "come to my rescue" had to do the Cosmo compatibility quiz with me. All's fair, right?
Along with my new little game I invented, I was also lucky enough to have a surprise visitor help break up the monotony of recovery life. Lester dropped by my room a few times during my hospital stay, mostly because he wanted to apologize for being a jackass (his words, not mine) and leaving me with a grade-A, deranged psychopath. I told him this wasn't exactly out of the norm for me, and that I harbored no hard feelings especially considering he'd taken a few bullets and all, but this didn't seem to do much by way of making him feel any better.
That is until I switched tactics and filled him in on the gossip from the nurses' station. After a few rounds of plotting, we made a friendly bet he couldn't seduce Nurse Heather by the time his ribs healed. I of course knew I would lose because Lester Santos possessed the uncanny ability to seduce just about any red-blooded and breathing female on the planet (a success rate only rivaled by Ranger, I'd imagine), but that guy sure seemed like he could use the ego boost. It was the least I could do.
And I wasn't disappointed either. Nurse Heather was sporting a very familiar satisfied smile by the time I was signing my hospital release and transfer-of-care paperwork. I had to admit, I was a little jealous. Maybe a little depressed too.
Ranger and I still hadn't had much of a chance to settle the dust that was still lingering—quite possibly even smoldering—between us, and considering his initial reaction to my plans to return to Idaho, I'd expected more resistance when I arranged for everything to be transferred back to my doctor in the bustling metropolis of Boise.
To my surprise, he didn't do a damn thing. No yelling. No debate. No long, intense stare implying I was being a child. Hell, he didn't even flex his jaw muscle like he usually did when he was miffed.
Of course, this somehow inevitably made me feel worse. Like maybe I should have just let Ranger play the doting caregiver and drag me back to Trenton where he'd set me up in one of the immaculate Rangeman suites with the 24-hour comforts that I'd once routinely fantasized about. The more I toyed with the thought, the more I criticized myself for being a first-class idiot. That is until I remembered the reasons why I'd left in the first place.
Sure on this crazy journey I'd managed to discover a very plausible reason as to why Ranger had neglected to reciprocate my proclamation of love the last time we were together, and of course I knew he still cared about me. Hell, he'd even come right out and said he loved me! But at the end of the day, something in the back of my head was still questioning whether that was going to be enough for us. I mean, I'd gone the whole "deeply caring about someone" route before, and we'd been stuck in such a deep rut of convenience and routine that we'd stayed in the same exact place for years. And it took me just as long if not longer afterwards to realize how extremely unhealthy it all had been.
What if Ranger and I were destined for the same fate?
Also, I suppose my ultimate fear (quite possibly the driving force for all the doubt in the first place) was that once the intense attraction started to fizzle between us, as it inevitably would at some point—maybe, Ricardo Carlos Manoso, god among men, would tire of the disaster of a woman that was and still is me and leave. I mean, it wasn't entirely unfathomable, especially considering his track record of lengthy gigs with women was practically nonexistent.
Ranger was the quintessential lone wolf. Rugged, raw, and untamed. The very things that made him sinfully attractive also ironically made him quite possibly the worst candidate for relationship material. And everyone seemed aware of this undeniable fact but me.
Besides, what the hell was I doing entertaining thoughts of a relationship anyway? It's not like Ranger had really said anything about it. Maybe he just wanted me back in Trenton to keep a closer eye on me, wanted things back to what they had been before. Maybe in some strange way all my endless shenanigans offered a kind of stability to his life. The inconsistent constant that provided both purpose and entertainment, which I thought I liked being at some point in the past; a salve for the dark wolf's tortured soul.
Now I wasn't so sure.
Now I wanted to know with absolute certainty that I was the adventurer holding the dragon's heart. Because the secret I'd been harboring from both Ranger and myself since the very beginning of this adventure was that I knew the very moment I saw him back in Idaho that he was still in possession of all of mine.
