A/N:

Includes two dialogue prompts from the Janet Evanovich Fan Fiction Facebook group January 2022 Writing Challenge:

I mean, you can literally feel when it's time to move into your life's next chapter.

Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it."

Activity: New Beginnings

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Chapter Four

Stephanie pulled into the parking lot of her apartment building. It was a three-story dark red brick construction that lacked any character whatsoever. Square and utilitarian, built in the seventies and never renovated. What it lacked in charm and amenities it made up for in other ways. The walls were thick; the rent was cheap, and most of her neighbors were senior citizens, so it was pretty quiet. Maybe the best part, it was located just outside the Burg, which meant fewer spies to tattle on her. Not that there was much to tattle about. No parade of men spending the night, no loud parties, no overflowing trash. Now that she thought about it. No men at all, and that was downright depressing.

It also meant there were never any parking spots, since most of the residents used the senior citizen shuttle service and didn't drive, but stubbornly refused to give up their cars. Stephanie cruised around the lot looking for an open space, not expecting to find one. Turned out, her expectations were met. Maybe that was the key to happiness, expect nothing, and you were never disappointed. Problem solved.

Stephanie squeezed into the spot next to the dumpster and turned off the ignition, waiting for the Nova to wheeze and cough itself off as gray smoke billowed around her, curling into the air. Her nose wrinkled as the acrid, bitter smell irritated her nostrils and made her eyes burn.

She looked around. Seats with unidentified stains, holes from cigarette burns, and ripped upholstery. Those things she couldn't do anything about, but the discarded fast-food wrappers she could.

Stephanie gathered them up and pitched them in the dumpster before heading inside, wondering if Ranger was rubbing off on her. She stopped and grabbed her mail in the lobby and shuffled through it. Bills, bills, and more bills. All those envelopes stamped with Final Notice depressed her. Her mother discouraged her from being a bounty hunter, but she didn't have many choices. The stack of cutoff notices was testament to that. Just once, she wished for a little support. Barring a lottery win or being swept away by a billionaire, this was it. Stephanie was still holding out for the lottery win, but in the meantime, she'd work for Vinnie. And Ranger. Her gut cramped at that thought. Vinnie might be a boil on the butt of humanity, but Ranger was worse. At least for her sanity. Vinnie, she understood how to deal with, but when it came to Ranger, she was at a loss. He confused her, infuriated her, and made her feel things she shouldn't.

Stephanie's mind drifted back to the conversation with her mother. She'd been twelve minutes late for dinner and her mother had been convinced the sky was falling or she'd been in an accident. The pot roast was ruined, the gravy had to be re-heated, and the world was off its axis. Her mother's eagle eyes had landed on her new messenger bag in between shooting her looks that said she couldn't believe she'd given birth to such an ingrate.

"When did you get a new pocketbook?"

"Today. I need to carry some things around with me for this job. I had to get a bigger bag."

"What things do you need? I thought you were doing filing for Vinnie."

"I didn't get that job. I got another job."

"Where?"

"With Vinnie." Stephanie hoped her mother would let the vague answer go. After all, the pot roast was getting drier by the minute. With her luck, she should have known she wasn't getting off the hook that easily.

"What job did you get?" her mother asked, instantly suspicious. Her maternal radar going off.

Stephanie barely restrained a sigh. "Recovery agent."

"A recovery agent," her mother repeated. "Frank, do you know what a recovery agent is?"

"Yeah," he said. "Bounty hunter." Her father was sitting at the table with a fork in one hand, a knife in the other, looking at the empty plate, wondering what had gone wrong. Stephanie knew he was only participating in the conversation because he had a vague notion it would get the pot roast on the table faster.

Her mother slapped her forehead and rolled her eyes. "Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie, what are you thinking? This is no kind of work for a nice young lady."

Thinking might be optimistic. This was an act of sheer desperation. Work for Vinnie or move in with her parents. Oddly, Vinnie won, hands down. Stephanie figured nice young lady might be pushing it a little too, but she didn't point that out. Stephanie had been known to drink, smoke the occasional cigarette, and take the lord's name in vain with surprising regularity, and she and her battery-operated boyfriend were in the on-again phase. None of those things put her on Father John's good list.

"It's a legitimate, respectable job. It's like being a cop or a private investigator." Neither one of which she had ever considered especially respectable, but she kept that to herself.

"But you don't know anything about this." Her mother had practically shrieked.

Well, her mother had been right about one thing. She knew nothing about it, which is why she was going to buck up and deal with Ranger, even if he made her want to run him over with her POS car. But in all fairness, at least he was helping her get some quick cash. Maybe she could cut him a little slack, even if he drank black coffee and ate dry toast like a weirdo. There were worse things. She scrunched up her nose and thought about it. Not many, but a few. Serial killers, global warming, and wearing white after Labor Day made the list.

Stephanie opted for the stairs, feeling righteous. At least now she could tell Ranger she exercised. She stopped short and gave a snort. When had she decided to care what Ranger thought about her? That had gone right out the window when he'd decided she was a hooker, after giving her a couple of world-class orgasms. Stephanie gave her head a shake, hoping the movement might rattle her brain out of neutral, but not counting on it. Her decision making lately had been even more suspect than usual. She'd just blame that on her overwrought Hungarian hormones and do what she did best. Ignore it in hopes the problem would go away.

She'd met the man less than twenty-four hours earlier, and he already dominated her thoughts, and that gave her pause. She'd done a lot of firsts with Ranger in the precious few hours she'd known him, and that made her uneasy. He'd become important in a way that wouldn't end well. She certainly didn't understand this weird pull she had to him, hell she didn't even like the man. He was judgmental, arrogant, controlling, and a damn good kisser. Stephanie whacked herself on the forehead.

"Snap out of it." She hissed.

Stephanie let herself in and surveyed her apartment. She liked to call it minimalist, but the truth was it was just poor person chic. Her apartment was a one bedroom, one bath with a combined living and eating area. A bar separated her kitchen from the rest of the living space. Her furniture was an eclectic mix inherited from dead relatives or purchased from the thrift store. A couch, chair, coffee table, and TV made up the living room. A scarred kitchen table with mismatched chairs and two bar stools rounded out the rest.

Stephanie flopped her messenger bag and the files from Vinnie down on her kitchen table and went over to the counter, and tapped on Rex's aquarium.

"Hey buddy. I'm home."

There was a faint rustling of pine shavings and then silence. Rex was asleep in his soup can. Clearly, he was as thrilled that she was home as she was. Stephanie sighed. Rex and Ranger had a few things in common. Neither were big on small talk, and both had cute butts.

"What do you think?" She asked Rex. "About this whole bounty hunter thing? I think it's time for a change. I mean, you can literally feel when it's time to move into your life's next chapter. Right?"

So what if the impetus had been impending eviction and starvation? Sometimes the universe needed to give a person a little shove, she assured herself.

Stephanie nodded. "You're right." She told Rex. "It was a solid decision." The knot in the pit of her stomach disagreed with that assessment, but she staunchly ignored it. The one thing she was fantastic at was denial.

Stephanie walked over and opened the refrigerator, disappointed to find the food fairies hadn't come while she was gone. She dropped a couple of hamster crunchies in Rex's food dish. A moment passed, and then Rex poked his nose out, whiskers twitching, beady little black eyes scanning. He raced over to the food dish, crammed the crunchies in his cheek, and scurried back to his soup can. His little hamster butt vibrated with excitement as he nestled into the shavings with a flourish.

"Good talk." Stephanie told him and rolled her eyes.

Stephanie's phone rang, and she checked the display, groaning loudly when her mother's name came up. Stephanie's finger hovered over the reject button. She grimaced. May as well get it over with now, and round out the fabulous first day of the new year.

"Hi mom." Stephanie tried to sound enthused and failed miserably. Tension coiled up her spine to her neck.

A beat of silence went by. "You ditched Harold at the party." Her mother's voice held just a hint of disapproval.

Stephanie scrunched up her nose and took a deep breath. "Something um came up."

A flash of Ranger went through her mind, and heat flooded through her. Something had come up all right, and it had been impressive. She quickly pushed the thought out of her head. There was something fundamentally wrong with having impure thoughts about her one-night stand while talking to her mother. Her mother had a sixth sense about these sorts of things.

"You missed your chance," her mother chastised. "Harold met another woman."

Well, now things were looking up, Stephanie thought, but made a non-committal noise instead.

"Dee Dee Winston." Her mother huffed like losing out to Dee Dee was a bad thing.

Stephanie filed through her memory. Oh, she remembered Dee Dee. The blonde with the ginormous fake tits that looked like basketballs sitting on her chest and fingernails that looked like daggers. Go Harold.

Her mother sighed and Stephanie heard ice clink in her glass. No doubt her mother's special iced tea. But hey, it couldn't be too bad; her mother wasn't ironing.

"I hear Loretta Buzick's boy is separated from his wife," her mother said. "You remember him? Ronald Buzick?"

Her mother, ever the optimist, but Stephanie knew where she was heading, and she didn't want to go there. "I'm not going out with Ronald Buzick. Don't even think about it."

Stephanie's eye twitched, and she reached up and pressed on the corner.

"So what's wrong with Ronald Buzick?"

To start with, Ronald Buzick was a butcher. He stuffed giblets up chicken butts. It was hard to think about him in romantic terms when she thought about where his hands had been. Stephanie remained stubbornly silent and just waited her mother out. She was not taking the bait.

Her mother plunged on. "All right, then how about Bernie Kuntz? I saw Bernie Kuntz in the dry cleaners, and he made a point about asking for you. I think he's interested. I could invite him over for coffee and cake."

"I don't want a man. I had one, and I didn't like it." Stephanie bit out. Irritation rippled through her as her eye started doing the Macarena.

Stephanie knew even as she said it, that wasn't entirely true. She'd wanted Ranger and badly. Unfortunately, he was a shade too far left of normal, even for her taste. Right, who was she kidding? Her little voice laughed at her. That wasn't the problem. It was the fact he had made it clear he wasn't interested in a relationship. Not to mention, he was kind of her mentor and part-time employer, and that would make no-strings sex awkward. Well, that and the black coffee thing, which she could probably learn to overlook.

Her last foray into relationship land hadn't turned out so good. Dickie had been a lawyer and a spineless weasel. Now that she thought about it, that was probably redundant. She'd come home to find him shagging her high school nemesis, Joyce Barnhardt, on the dining room table. Joyce's bare ass polishing the wood as he slammed into her, oblivious to his new audience. That image forever burned in her brain, but in retrospect, finding Dickie and Joyce had been a good thing. Her divorce took longer than her marriage lasted, and had provided some prime entertainment for the Burg gossip tree, but at least Stephanie wasn't stuck in a bad marriage.

"Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it." She mumbled. At least that was her philosophy.

In hindsight, she wasn't really sure what she'd seen in Dickie or why she'd gone along with getting married. She hadn't really wanted to. She just felt obligated. Dickie was a good catch her mother had harped. He was a lawyer and had a good job. It didn't matter that he lacked any type of moral compass, which had been painfully obvious even before the wedding. The only thing Stephanie really regretted about the Dickie thing was not being able to keep the wedding presents. Her eyes scanned to her broken toaster. Those would have come in handy.

Now her mother was trying to foist her off on the butcher. Clearly, things had tinged into the territory of desperate as far as her mother was concerned, and desperate times called for desperate measures. Apparently, just about any man would do as long as they were breathing, because being single was far worse than being married to a lying, cheating sack of crap like Dickie.

Stephanie squared her shoulders. This was a new year and a new Stephanie. She'd let her family push her into an awful marriage, and she wasn't about to let her mother set her up on another terrible date. At least not until the next time.

Her mother gave a dramatic sigh. "Stephanie, of course you want a man. I know this Harold thing has thrown you for a loop, but think about Bernie."

"Sure." Stephanie replied, just to end the conversation.

"Dinner is at six. We are having meatloaf." Her mother chirped brightly like she wasn't disappointed her youngest daughter was a screw-up.

"I can't. I have dinner plans."

"With a man?" Her mother's radar was clearly picking up vibes.

"Just work." Stephanie hedged.

Until that moment, she hadn't really thought twice about the fact Ranger was coming to her apartment and bringing dinner. Her stomach flip-flopped, and she looked around and wondered what Ranger would think of her barren apartment. She'd hocked most of her things, including her framed Ansel Adams prints and table lamps, trying to stay afloat until she found a new job. Her walls were bare and her furnishings were sparse. Stephanie had even pawned the pearl earrings she wore at her wedding. She'd liked the earrings a lot better than she'd liked the husband, and now she had neither.

"Tell dad and grandma hi for me." Stephanie said and rang off, reaching her limit for discussion about her non-existent dating life, and the virtues of Ronald Buzick.

She knew from experience where the conversation would lead next. To her sister Saint Valerie. Married for twelve years with two children. Really, why couldn't Stephanie be more like Valerie. Probably because Valerie's life made Stephanie want to stab herself in the eyeball. The thought of being a stay-at-home mom, having dinner on the table every night at six, and losing your own identity didn't hold much appeal. Stephanie had wanted to be a lot of things in her life. Wonder woman, rockstar, intergalactic princess, but never once a stay-at-home mom. Given her dating prospects at the moment, the odds were higher she'd be a rockstar, anyway.

All in, the conversation with her mother hadn't gone too bad. Except for the Ronald part. She gave an involuntary shiver when the image of Ronald with his hand up a chicken's ass came to mind.

"Why me?" she said. Rex remained silent, and there was no one else around to answer.

Stephanie wandered into her bedroom and flopped down on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She thought about what it would be like to be a bounty hunter. She could make her own hours, and she wouldn't have to wear skirts or panty hose. Those were all good things about her new job. No steady paycheck, if she didn't bring in a skip, she didn't get paid and people might shoot at her. That would be a definite downside. She thought about it for a second. Yep, she'd rather be shot at than work at the personal products factory.

Maybe Ranger would let her continue to do occasional jobs for his company RangeMan. Searches didn't sound the most exciting, but it was steady work. As long as she didn't have to be around his insufferable ass, how hard could it be?

Her late night and fitful sleep made her eyes droop. She looked over at the clock. Ranger wasn't coming until six, so she had a few hours. Stephanie decided to close her eyes for just a few minutes. Then she would get up and clean her apartment. Get rid of all the clutter and wipe down the dust before Ranger got here. The last thing he needed to see was a moldy sponge next to the sink, or dog-eared cosmopolitan magazines scattered about.

Stephanie must have dozed off, because she jerked awake with a start, all her senses on alert as she tried to shake off the fog of sleep and listen. She heard the door to her apartment open. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest, and her breath came in gulping pants. She'd locked the front door, and now someone was in her apartment.

Until this moment, Stephanie had never truly been frightened. The occasional near heart attack from spiders or gross multi-footed insects aside, she had always felt safe, and never fearful of living alone. Sure, there had been a few times she had woken up with her heart pounding convinced an invasion of mystical horrors was imminent … ghosts, bogeymen, vampire bats, extraterrestrials, held prisoner by her imagination gone berserk, but this was not her imagination.

Someone was in her apartment, even if they were soundlessly moving about. She could feel them, and she had distinctly heard the door. Now all she could hear was the blood rushing through her head and her panting. She clapped a hand to her mouth to squelch a hysterical whine. Do not panic, she told herself. Too bad she'd never been good at listening to her own advice.

Stephanie scrambled out of bed and looked around the room for a weapon. Her eyes landed on the stiletto-heeled pump from last night's party. Not ideal, but it was the best she could do. She brandished the shoe like a weapon and crept out of her bedroom and down the short hall towards the living room. Her heart raced, and she steeled herself, expecting to come face to face with her worst nightmare.

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