A/N: It is a bit odd, how this story was supposed to be all angst and all that and then did a 180 even for myself. But I have to admit i actually love the turn and despite the fact that us crazy writers love to put Ranger and Steph in all sorts of odd and crazy storielines with odd jobs I can't remember of ever having read one in which Steph owned a sex shop. Also... this will soon wrap up. I figure anything between one and three more chapters and we are all done. Thanks for sticking with it for so long and never losing hope.


One would think getting Vinnie to sell me Pleasure Treasure should have been a piece of cake. Seeing how he was desperate to get rid of it I had assumed he'd be more than ecstatic to finally have someone interested in taking this not so particularly family friendly venture of his hands, but I was wrong.

"Are you crazy, Plum? Your mother would kill me if I'd agree to that," he exclaimed, shaking his head.

"From where I'm standing, my mother has nothing to do with any of this. It isn't like I plan on renaming it into Plumventures or something like that. Also, if you don't agree to this my mother will be the least of your worries."

He became pale for a moment, looking cautiously at me and thinking about options.

"You'd sent your boyfriend Ranger after me?" he asked almost shocked and I found his thinking slightly odd. I knew Vinnie had certain respect for Ranger – read that as fear – but I hadn't been aware that he seemed more fearful of Ranger than his own family. I had meant my own wrath and Harry the Hammer as well as his lovely wife who was known for wearing the pants in their marriage, but Ranger seemed to hold the bigger threat to Vinnie. The idea of Vinnie thinking I'd run to ranger like some spoilt and petulant child since my big, mean cousin wasn't giving me what I want seemed amusing and irritating in equal parts. And the fact that this conversation was probably going to get very quickly very interesting with me probably equaling the picture or a tomato and blushing as well as stuttering being the main focus of that conversation. But… I needed to grow up. If I wanted this to actually work out I needed to get over my inner frigid Burg-girl and into business-woman mode. So, in order for this to work and get done, I'd let Vinnie think whatever he wanted and used it for my advantage.

"If that's what it takes," I commented nonchalantly with a shrug off my shoulders and a somewhat serious expression.

There was silence for a solid minute between the two of us with Vinnie looking like he wanted to win a staring contest. Two could play this game. I had been around the Merry Men long enough to know a thing about mental warfare. Silence and staring were usually the first step. If that didn't win and convince your opponent to give in other measures would follow quickly. Vinnie proved to be an easy target, since my staring at him seemed to be all it took.

"Fine, it seems there is no way of winning this either way. Either it is your mother up my ass for selling this crap thing to you, or it is my wife and father-in-law giving me hell and pressure. But the sale is final. No coming back complaining or changing of minds. Once sold, this is yours and yours alone. And you deal with your mother."

He pushed a contract over his ugly desk in with he had scribbled the sum of my offer, which in all fairness was very low and me having expected to get into this with a lot of bargaining and hackling on his part. Guess he really wanted to get rid of that branch of the family business.

I signed on the dotted line and Vinnie more or less threw me the keys for the shop.

"I'll have the money wired in the next few days.'

"I hope you know what you are doing, Plum. I don't know where you've been these past months and I can see you changed a lot, which I guess is good for you. But as much as you might have changed, things around here didn't change. This is going to cause some stir in the rumor mill…"

"Good," I almost shouted excitedly with a big grin. "I hope for a stir. Free publicity."

Vinnie just looked at me incredulous and I decided that i should leave. When I passed Lula and Connie on the way out they looked equally confused with a hit of proudness on their faces. The door to Vinnie's office had been wide open during our exchange so they knew exactly what had happened. And even if the door hadn't been closed, they would still have known about it. Nothing in the office ever stayed secret for long.

For a moment I had considered stopping on my way out and asking for them to keep their mouths shut about this, but figured… why the hell? It wasn't as if I was doing anything illegal or bad. And sooner or later it would have made its way out. That way, it might cause a certain buzz and curiosity as well as maybe a little anticipation. And it would take a lot of breaking the news to people close to me out of my hand. I would most likely still have to explain the 'why' a lot of times, but it was better than starting right from the scratch with 'I've got to tell you something…'

I sat in Ranger's Porsche which he had loaned me – or forced on me – for a long moment, looking at the keys in my hand and realizing what had just happened. It wasn't as if I was feeling a first bout of buyer's remorse, but for the first time wondered how I'd break that news to Ranger. I wasn't sure whether this had been his idea when he encouraged me to do whatever I wanted with the money and my life. It was after all a very far push from looking for a new orientation in life and then going and buying a sex shop. Ranger was a very open guy in regards of a lot of stuff and from previous experiences I knew that he didn't hold the Burg's stance on a lot of things and saw things less problematic and drama-worthy, especially when they fell into categories that were certainly going to be gossip-heavy. But Ranger ran a very successful and very respectable business. And while I had never had a 1950's mindset of things like sexuality and that things like that belonged in dark and hush-hush shops in some back-alley it wasn't everyone's approach and maybe Ranger being involved with someone who owned a shop that sold all things sexual and sexy could harm his reputation in the business world and with his maybe not so open-minded clients. And that thought had to come now and couldn't have popped up few minutes earlier?

Letting out a sigh, I put the Porsche in motion and made my way across town, thinking now would be as good a time as any to inspect my purchase. I hadn't been in Treasure Pleasure for ages. Sure, I had been away from Trenton for almost a year, but even before that it had been a while. Caroline had been for a while a regular skip for me to bring in but when she decided to clean up her act – or get better at shop lifting and not getting caught anymore – I had no more reason to really visit her store. I wasn't necessarily adventures girl when it came to sex with Morelli back when he had been doing the deed. So I had never felt the need for a visit at Treasure Pleasure outside my job.

That surely was about to change.

I found a rather good spot for parking fairly quickly and made my to the front door, unlocking it without much fuss and stepping inside a moment later. I had noticed two or three people on the street who looked at me oddly when they saw me unlocking the door and figured I'd probably needed to get used to. It would have already been interesting in regards of people recognizing me before I had been accused of killing someone and then running. Now, with me having been for weeks on the front pages and now just having been on front pages with me being innocent and bring back the presumably dead it wasn't doing much in regards of staying unrecognized. Which means even if I had asked Connie and Lula to secrecy people around here would have talked. It would probably take only hours for these news making it to my mother and maybe another few to make it to Ranger, but for the moment I had other things on my mind.

Switching on the light I realized that Vinnie had been right – few things changed since I had been gone. Sure, he was talking about the way people behaved around her, but looking at the interior of the shop under the rather bad lighting I realized it was also true for a lot of other things. I might not have stepped inside Treasure Pleasure for years, but it looked exactly like the last time I was here. Maybe merchandise was different – obviously – but other than that the shop was uninviting and ugly as always. The lightning was dim which didn't go very well with the whole interior being already dark to begin with. The walls were a very dark shade of blue, the shelves made out of very dark wood or dark pained metal and the occasional red bulbs around added nothing ton feel open. Of course, the shop's storefront windows being placated with odd foil to make it almost impossible to look inside the actual shop was keeping daylight out, adding to the whole dark inside.

I fished out my phone and walked through every aisle and corner of the shop, making photos off everything and adding notes what I wanted done. I also realized I needed to read up and educate myself a little since half the stuff I walked past and read out loud to myself I wasn't even sure what the items were used for, whether there were guys or girls and what it was they did in detail.

I wasn't really surprised when my phone showed an incoming call from my mother while I was taking another picture. For a few moments I debated whether I wanted to really answer right now or postpone this rather and undoubtedly long conversation to a later point, but no time like the present.

"Mother," I said shortly after I had pressed the accept button.

"Stephanie Michelle Plum this is your mo-," started before stopping midway in what could only be described as the beginning of a rant. No doubt she had definitely heard about my acquisition. "I just heard from Susan Faccone that her son had just seen you opening the door to that horrible shop your cousin looks after. And you opened the door with a key. Which mean you weren't there as a customer which itself would have been bad enough. But…. unlocking the door means you… you… you…" she went on and kept repeating the last word several times. Almost as if she either didn't know what I was doing there or that she didn't want to say out loud what I was possibly doing unlocking doors or a shop my mother deemed unworthy.

"Of course I had a key. Shops around here aren't really up to the latest locking and security mechanisms so owners have to sort of enter the old fashioned way, with a key."

"Ow- ow- owner?" she asked, sounding close to a heart attack.

"Yes, I followed your advice and took the shop of Vinnie's hands so he doesn't have to worry about his wife or his father in law. I told him to send his thanks and appreciation your way."

"My advice?" she almost shrieked. If I didn't know I'd say she was about to faint. "You can't be serious Stephanie."

"I actually never have been more serious about anything else in my life. Okay, well maybe I am more serious about Carlos, but… that's pretty much the only thing that tops the seriousness I feel for this business venture."

"Stephanie," my mother said, sounding like she was talking through gritted teeth somehow.

"Helen," I said as a reply. And calling your mother by her first name felt odd, especially since I never had before. I was usually a good daughter, I swear.

When my mother didn't say anything further – probably more due to being stunned speechless – I went on. "You always said I was wild, uncontrollable and the wild card in the family. Forever and a day I was the one people talked about, gossiped about and had opinions about. Few of these opinions were stellar or positive. But you dealt with it one way or another and I never listened to your requests of new jobs, settling down or bearing children before regardless how often you threated to exclude me from Friday's pot roast dinner or called me up continuously to sway me. You don't really think if I haven't budged before I start now, do you?"

Instead of dissecting each of my points separately and explain to me more detailed why this was a bad idea I was surprised to hear my mother say "This isn't finished yet. We'll talk about this later again. Maybe when you have come to your senses about this ridiculous venture and are capable of listening to me. For once at least." And then she hung up. I guess this was as dramatic as end of phone calls with my mother would ever get. She was raised in the Burg after all, manners toped everything, even disagreements.

I continued to work quietly my way through the store, coming up with ideas and what to change and do with the place when I got another phone call. I figured Ranger had finally been included in the latest Stephanie-Plum-Gossip but decided on playing the unsuspecting girlfriend.

"Babe," came his signature greeting through the line.

"Carlos," I offered back. "What can I do for you?"

"I actually just wanted to make sure you are alright since your trackers and the trackers of the Porsche have you currently located at Treasure Pleasure."

"What makes you think I'm in trouble?" I asked amused. "Maybe I'm just browsing."

Instead of replying to my suggestion, he just laughed for a solid minute. "I had actually figured you could have spontaneously decided on letting Vinnie rope you back in and going after one of his skips. Especially seeing that had been at Vinnie's shortly before."

That of course made a lot more sense than my possible scenario.

"But then I got a phone call that made me think the world is coming to an end," he mused, which had me curious and surprised.

"Why? What happened?" I asked alert. This was sounding not very good.

God, please don't let him tell me he was about to get shipped off to some warzone.

"Your mother called me," he finished and I was about to start with usual 'it will all be okay and I'll be here when you get back' reply when his words registered. What?

"My mother called you?" I asked confused. I wasn't even aware she had his number.

"Babe RangeMen might be in security and we might be experts on all things off the grid and being undetected, but the company is in the phone book. We aren't that hard to find," he said and I could see the smile he was probably displaying.

"What did she want?" asked, holding my breath.

"To talk about you," he offered unhelpful. Of course she'd talk to him about me. My mother wouldn't call Ranger for his advice on culinary skills now, would she?

"What about this time? Was it to tell you how I threatened her to not show up for dinner regularly if she didn't start showing you a little respect?"

There was silence for a moment until Carlos spoke again.

"No, but that sounds interesting as well. She actually called me to tell me about your other activity this afternoon, after you had left and decided on purchasing a little shop of a very interesting branch of the retail business. A sex shop, Babe? Really? Anyway she mentioned rather lengthy why it was as much in my interest that you'd give up this venture than it was in hers. "

"First off all, it is referred to as Adult entertainment and not a sex shop," I corrected dumbly. "And I know that probably wasn't what you had in mind when we talked about my options in regards of what I'd do now with my life and you said that I could do whatever I want. I… I hope you aren't mad?"

"Am I mad?" he asked surprised. "Why do you think I would be mad?"

"Well," I started off slowly. "After I had signed the sales contract and gotten the key from Vinnie I realized that this might not reflect too well on your business."

"What does your venture have to do with RangeMen?"

"Well… I… I'm your partner romantically speaking and maybe being associated with someone who is starting a business in a rather… unconventional line of retail would have some of your clients question your… respectability," I answered.

"First off all, if any of my clients have problems with what my girlfriend is doing I will gladly show them the door for them to find a new security company to annoy. Not that I would really care, Babe. Whether you open a hotel, a bakery or a sex shop doesn't matter to me either way. What matters to me is that you are happy. And if this is what you want to do and what makes you happy you'll have my full and unconditional support."

"Thank you," I said, making my way towards the front of the store. I had seen enough to get an idea and when Ranger had called I was finished with my walk through anyway and ready to leave.

"Anytime," he reassured me. I heard background noise from Ranger's end of the line and a moment later heard a muffled sound which I assumed were voices and a hand being placed over the microphone of his phone.

"What's going on?" I asked curious, looking up the store and making my way to the conveniently parked Porsche

"Lester just came in and demanded me to tell you he'd better get the 'friends and family discount'."

I couldn't but laughed. "You can tell him no. But he gets the RangeMen discount."

At that Ranger laughed.

"Only you, Babe." And then the line went dead and I started my back to RangeMen. I had a lot of planning to do.