Thanks for your patience. I'm up to the events of Twelve Sharp and not quite sure where to take it, so updates might be slow over the next few weeks while I work it out. Thank you for reading!

I was in trouble. My husband might be involved with a money laundering law firm – or at the very least working for a money laundering law firm, unaware of it and about to be aware of it. I had a very attractive mercenary declaring he was respecting my boundaries, but if I gave him an opening, he was taking it. The problem here was that my boundaries might be redefined in a weak moment, especially one involving a great smelling mercenary combined with a few glasses of wine and a lack of sugar.

I wasn't sure which problem was concerning me more, actually.

I was distracted at work. My relationship with Ranger wasn't cheating exactly, but I was hiding it from Dickie. I'd arranged to have dinner with him again. It was okay to have male friends, I told myself. After all, look at Morelli – we managed to be friends without issue, and he was the first man that I'd ever slept with. Dickie was a bit weird over that though, now that I thought about it, and that was without knowing my history with Morelli. Was feeling like I needed to hide my friendship with Ranger from Dickie something that I should be concerned about? If he was a female friend, I'd feel perfectly fine scheduling a dinner in while my husband was out of town. But Ranger definitely wasn't a female friend.

"Mary Lou. When does something cross over the line into an emotional affair?" I asked her. She looked up from the computer in concern.

"Why, Steph? Are you okay?"

"It's Ranger. I'm not sure. I think I might have a crush on him. How do I know if I'm stepping over a line or not?"

"If you're asking me that question, then you're probably stepping over a line."

Damn it. That's what I had concluded too. I sighed. I'd better cancel dinner with the hot mercenary and resign myself to eating a TV dinner alone. Or worse, having dinner with my parents.

Before I could ring and make an excuse to cancel dinner, Ranger rang me.

"Steph, I have to cancel dinner. I have to go out of town."

"Is it for business?" I asked him.

"Bad business, babe. I'm not sure when I'll be back. Let Tank know if you need anything. Lester will be with me," Ranger said.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

"No."

"Can I help?"

"No, but I appreciate the offer. Bye Steph," he said, and hung up. I felt a little unsettled. Ranger was often away on business, just like Dickie was, but this felt a little different. Ranger was often out of town on very little notice, but Lester didn't usually go with him. I hoped that they were okay.

Well, now I had no reason not to go to dinner with my family, I guess.

"Was that Ranger?" Mary Lou asked me.

"Yes, we were going to catch up this week but he has to go out of town."

"Steph?" Mary Lou asked. She was looking at me with concern on her face. I had a feeling that I wasn't going to like this conversation. "You're asking me about emotional affairs. You seem more upset that Ranger is cancelling dinner than you do when Dickie tells you he'll be away for a week. I just… want you to think about what you're doing," she said.

"I am thinking about what I'm doing," I said defensively. "I'm catching up with a friend."

"I'm not saying that you're doing anything wrong, Steph. I'm just worried that you're unhappy, you have a lot going right now, and you might to take a step back and think about what's going on in your life," Mary Lou said.

I sighed. "You actually sound a lot like Ranger right now."

"I do?"

"Yeah. He asked why I was unhappy lately and said that I hadn't seemed like myself."

Mary Lou looked over at me. "Right, I'm getting out the emergency tastykakes," she said, reading into her bottom drawer.

"You have emergency tastykakes?"

"Yes, I do. And we're going to sit down, ignore work, and you're going to tell me everything that's going. Now spill," she said.

So I did. I told her everything. It took the entire stash of tastykakes to get through the story. I told her about Dickie expecting Plum Lingerie to fail, about him calling me after I'd been to RangeMan, about my suspicions of what Dickie might be involved in, about Ranger telling me to talk to Dickie about it. I told her about Dickie's dislike of Ranger, and how I suspected that Ranger knew more about what was going on than he would tell me. And lastely, I told her about Ranger's declaration that he respected my boundaries, but would move if I gave him an opening.

"Omigod Stephanie, you had your hand down that man's pants!" Mary Lou squealed.

"I tell you that I think my husband might be involved in money laundering, but that's the part of the story that sticks in your mind?"

"Well it is a mighty fine backside. But you're right. Dickie does sound he's hiding something. But also Stephanie – he's not supportive of what you want, and if he is tracking where you go, then he doesn't trust you. That's also a really big issue."

"Do you think so?"

"Well, duh. Do you think that's how Lenny treats me? Or Joe treats Val?"

I thought about it. I suspected that Morelli wouldn't be happy about Val hanging out with Ranger, but I don't think that he'd put a tracker on her to track her movements. Or he'd at least be up front about it, with lots of yelling and hand gestures. Lenny trusted Mary Lou completely and worshipped the ground she walked on – he'd probably just ask if he could come too.

"Thanks Lou, you've given me a lot to think about," I told her.

"And I also think you need a serious talk with Dickie. If you can't trust him, you need to work it out. And get it worked out now, before a baby comes along. Because life is hard when you're running on a lack of sleep, you need to be a team and be sure that he has your back," she told me.

I sighed. Dickie and I didn't feel like a team at the moment. We barely felt like we were playing the same game. He was due home Friday night, I'd try to get up the courage to talk about it with him then.

This was my second dinner with my family this week, since I'd gone mid-week when my dinner with Ranger was cancelled and I couldn't be bothered cooking. I'd reached a new low. I'd met Dickie at home and he'd reminded me that we'd already agreed to go to dinner. Well I guess I could put off The Talk for another night then.

Plum Family dinners were always chaotic now, with the Plum-Morelli clan, Grandma telling us about her latest date, my mother wishing she could drink spirits instead of modest amounts of red wine, my father wishing we would all go home, and then there was Dickie, probably wondering why he married into this family.

Grandma was bouncing when I got to dinner.

"The new funeral home is open! Polly Maguire is going first, lucky duck, her viewing is tonight. I'm going to go along and check it all out," Grandma said. The fact that Polly Maguire had to die in order to have the first viewing at the new funeral home didn't seem to make her lucky, in my opinion, but who was I to dampen Grandma's enthusiasm. Dickie looked at me and rolled his eyes. My mother dragged us into the kitchen.

"Please go with her," she begged. "Please. I'll have a chocolate pudding waiting for you when you get back."

"Gee I don't know, I have a lot on at the moment," I said. I looked at Dickie for help. He shrugged. Disloyal husband.

"I don't really want to go to a viewing," he said.

"Frank will drive Stephanie home afterwards, you don't have to stay," my mother told him. What? He gets out of it, but I don't? I sighed. So much for being a team.

The funeral home was packed. I dropped Grandma at the door, then drove around the block trying to find a park. At one point I considered abandoning the idea and just driving back to my parents' house, but then I found a park.

I went and found Grandma inside. She was chatting to the new owners of the funeral home, and didn't look like she'd tried to prise any coffins open.

"They're both open casket!" Grandma said, as soon as I reached her side. Well that explained that, then. "This is Dave, and this is Scooter," Grandma introduced me.

"This looks like a great success, congratulations," I told them. They looked happy with the crowds.

"Thank you, we're so pleased with such a good turn out for the families," Dave said.

"Not much happens in Trenton now the mob isn't as active," Grandma said.

"Now that isn't true. Trenton is a very active place," Dave said.

"And it was on the news earlier!" said Scooter. "A little girl has been kidnapped in Florida and her biological father lives in Trenton, they think he might try and take her here."

"Florida?" I asked. Ranger had gone to Florida.

"Yes! Goodness, we'll all have to keep an eye out for them," said Dave. "The little girls name is Julie, and her father is Ricardo Carlos Manoso. They showed a photo of them, she's a cute little girl, and her father is very handsome. He was in his army uniform. It must be a custody thing."

I felt like I'd gone ice cold. Not many people knew, but that was Ranger's full legal name. And Julie was his daughter's name. Ranger and his daughter were missing.

It had taken me so long to find a carpark that Grandma was ready to leave soon after. We drove back. The pudding was nearly ready, so I excused myself to make a quick phone call while I waited.

I rang Morelli. I'd seen him earlier in the night at dinner with Val and the girls, but he didn't sound surprised to hear from me, so I guessed that he knew why I was calling.

"Joe, did you hear about Ranger?" I asked.

"I just got a call from someone on the force who saw the news. But I don't know anything officially."

"Do you think it's true?"

"I don't know. But I know that Ranger, although he's got a few screws loose, is honourable, and he wouldn't hurt a child. If he has that little girl, it's for a very good reason," Joe said.