"Ranger should be home soon. We're right behind you. I'll order takeout," Lester replied, then hung up. He dialled the number for the restaurant a few buildings away from Stephanie's apartment. Bobby pulled into the lot, close to the door. Lester hopped out to grab the food. He loved the Chinese restaurant. They never took more than ten minutes to provide your order. At least, that was Lester's experience on a Friday night.

Stephanie headed directly to the shower, disposing of her clothes on the way. She went into the bathroom to do the vaginal swabs. Stephanie had used a few long Q-tips to get a sample before using the douche. She turned on the water as hot as she could tolerate and scrubbed her skin raw. After using douche and washing her privates, she exited the shower. Stephanie waited inside her bedroom, peeking outside the window for the Rangeman SUV to arrive. She wore Ranger's shirt, boxers and track pants. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she thought about Joe's actions.

Bobby waited for Lester to return before he asked, "Why does Stephanie need company?" He knew Stephanie was at Morelli's house. Bobby wanted to know what happened between the time Stephanie had arrived, then left Joe's house. Nobody liked to see Stephanie cry.

"I suspect it has to do with ending her relationship with Morelli. Ranger better pull his head from his ass and claim her before someone else does," Lester replied. Lester was head over heels in love with his best friend, Stephanie Michelle Plum. As far as he was concerned, no other woman would measure up to Stephanie. He only maintained his distance in deference to his cousin, Ranger.

"There's a long line of men at Rangeman vying for that position." Bobby was high on that list. Lester grinned at his partner. Bobby didn't know he had given himself away with that statement.

"I always knew you were in love with her too." Lester laughed when Bobby's eyes opened wide in surprise. Bobby thought he kept his feelings well hidden. Lester blew that assumption out of the water. "Bobby, most of the men are in love with Stephanie. Me included. She only has eyes for Ranger."

"I know, but I would love to have the chance to date her," Bobby confessed. Bobby thought about the day he met Stephanie. Ranger brought her on a redecorating job. It was a funny way to describe removing squatters from apartment buildings. His annoyance of having a white-bread Burg woman on the job shifted quickly to amusement. The expression on Stephanie's face was priceless. Stephanie thought they would select colour swatches to repaint and refurnish the unit. He laughed when Stephanie reacted to Tank tossing a man through the window. Bobby was shocked that Stephanie didn't run away screaming. Most typical women would, but Stephanie would never get confused with a typical woman. Her attitude, determination and resilience were unmatched by any woman Bobby had met. No matter what happened to Stephanie, she'd rise above the incident. Bobby wondered when she would hit her breaking point. Everybody had one.

Lester used his key to unlock Stephanie's apartment. He placed the takeaway bags on the coffee table, then went into the kitchen to grab plates and utensils. Bobby watched as Lester made himself at home. He wondered when his friend's relationship with Stephanie had shifted. "Three months ago," Lester said, answering Bobby's thoughts. "Ranger went into the wind. She had a bad feeling about the mission. Stephanie wouldn't relax until I contacted his handler."

"Why would she get uptight over his deployment? It never bothered her before." Bobby heard the shower turn off. He pulled the food from the bags, then opened the containers. A few minutes later, Stephanie entered the living room. Lester never had the chance to answer the question.

The men noticed Stephanie wore Ranger's clothes. Lester patted the couch between him and Bobby for her to sit on. She sat between the men and leaned into Lester. Bobby felt slightly jealous until Stephanie grabbed his hand. "Thank you for coming over. I don't want to be alone tonight."

"It's not a hardship, Beautiful," Lester replied. "Does Hector need to change the locks?"

"Probably," she replied. "Joe hurt me tonight." Lester felt his anger surface. He never liked Morelli. But learning he deliberately hurt her made Lester want to kill the cop. "Not physically, Lester. Stop twitching to fight. Joe never hit me." Stephanie kissed his cheek before kissing Bobby's cheek. She leaned forward to grab some food.

When her plate was full, Lester and Bobby divided the remaining food. They left the empty containers on the coffee table until they finished eating. Stephanie's stomach loudly growled, making her shovel food into her mouth. Bobby was always amazed by how much Stephanie could eat without gaining a ton of weight.

Lester waited until Stephanie finished eating. "Bobby wants to know why I had to call Ranger's handler a few months ago. I didn't want to share your thoughts."

Stephanie leaned forward to deposit her plate on the coffee table. She took a sip of cola before saying, "I felt the intel was off. No, Ranger never discussed mission details. He always visits me before leaving. Ranger thinks I'm asleep every time, but I could feel him inside my bedroom, sitting on the chair. I opened my eyes to look at him and asked what was wrong. Ranger said he was leaving. I could tell something was bothering him, but he refused to tell me. Ranger kissed me." Stephanie and Ranger had sex that night. She was unwilling to share that tidbit. "When he left my apartment, I suddenly felt despair. Ranger wasn't going to come home alive."

She leaned against Lester. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his side. "Ranger received the message to call before his brief. I told him about Stephanie's concerns. He promised to watch his back," Lester said, picking up where she left off.

"Ram, Cal and Bones got called to assist the following day," Bobby added. Ranger was supposed to go on a solo mission. Whatever the top brass told him during the brief got Ranger to recruit a few men. "Is that when you relaxed?"

"Yes," Stephanie replied. Before Bobby or Lester could ask why Stephanie needed them to stay, she told the story.

Lester was shaking from anger. "He did what?"

"Fucked me bareback," she repeated. "We had a condom break once before, but we always used protection. He assumed I wasn't on birth control because he didn't find the evidence in my purse or medicine cabinet. Joe wanted me to get pregnant." And take away her options, she bitterly thought. "He got tested, but the results were a month old.

"Do you want me to run a panel of tests?" Bobby asked. When Stephanie nodded, Bobby went to the SUV to grab his medical bag. He promptly returned to collect the samples from Stephanie. Bobby raised an eyebrow when she passed him the ziplock bag.

"I remembered," she mumbled. She gave Bobby the swabs she took before her shower. He placed them in the biohazard bag with the vials of blood. "You should open a lab at Rangeman. There's enough room in the second-floor conference room. I know Rangeman never uses it. Zero, Zip, Slick and Bones have experience running labs. Do you have the morning after pill in your bag?" Bobby nodded, then gave her the pill to prevent a pregnancy if her birth control failed. "Thanks, Bobby." Stephanie swallowed the pill.

Bobby wondered how Stephanie knew these details about the men. "It would keep the nosy people in Trenton from accessing the results." Bobby thought it was an excellent idea. He'd run it past Tank to determine if the benefits would outweigh the cost.

Lester grinned before answering Bobby. "Remember when those teenage boys tried to ruin Rangeman? Stephanie ran background checks on all the employees, starting with the core team. She knows almost everything about us." Lester couldn't have been more wrong. Stephanie knows about Melanie Collins.

Bobby shook his head. He prayed Stephanie didn't know his secret. There was only one past event which kept Bobby awake at night. The memory resurfaced whenever the Rangeman employees got injured on duty. Guilt would immediately follow. Then the nightmares would haunt him for weeks.

"We all have skeletons in our closet, Bobby." Stephanie had a few even her family didn't know. Except for grandma Mazur. She knows. One day, in the future, everyone would know. Stephanie hoped that it would never become common knowledge. Bobby's interest got piqued by her comment. He hoped Stephanie would share her skeletons.

"True. How deep are your skeletons buried in your closet?" Bobby asked. He couldn't let her comment go.

"So deep that you need an excavation crew with a backhoe and map to show where X marks the spot," Stephanie joked. Lester rubbed Stephanie's arm. He sensed there was some truth to her witty reply. "Guys, do you ever get that feeling where something life-changing is on the horizon?"

"All the time," Lester confessed. "I've learned to listen to whatever message the universe attempts to share." He had only ignored his instincts once. It had changed his life in more ways than he could have imagined. Stephanie touched Lester's face, making him wonder if she knew what affected his life trajectory.

"Listening to our instincts kept us from dying on our missions," Bobby added. Stephanie nodded. She understood the fight or flight instincts her Merry Men possessed. They had learned the hard way to pay attention to their guts.

"Your skills are unmatched by anyone we know." Lester was in awe of Stephanie. She had saved her partner's life more times than he could count on both hands. Stephanie would involuntarily shiver before pulling her partner away from a car or house seconds before it exploded. She often got injured while saving their life. He had never met another woman as brave as she displayed on the job. Lester could wax poetic about her bravery, but Stephanie didn't like the attention.

"Are you an unmentionable?" Bobby asked. Stephanie shook her head. Diesel never mentioned anything to Stephanie about her skill level registering on the unmentionable ability scale. If it had, she would have met with the committee governing the unmentionables throughout the world. He had only mentioned she was able to instinctively locate people. It was merely an extension of her latent ability of intuition.

The connection Stephanie experienced with Ranger was one she couldn't begin to explain. She sensed when he was in the room. Her neck tingled whenever he was near. When they had sex, it was more. Stephanie couldn't think of the adjectives to describe how Ranger loving her felt. She felt Ranger express his love through sex, but his words contradicted his actions. It had her all kinds of confused. Morelli benefitted from the confusion as she kept returning to him. That back-and-forth toxicity ended when he attempted to impregnate her without consent.

"Maybe it doesn't register on their radar," Bobby suggested, interrupting her thoughts regarding Ranger.

"Perhaps." Stephanie didn't want to discuss Diesel or intuition or any of those other things. She wanted to know what would cause her world to get flipped on its axis.

"Is anyone in your family sick?" Lester quietly asked. Stephanie felt her spidey sense hum. "I'm right? Who? You?"

She shook her head. "It's not me. When my cousin Shirley was born, grandma got diagnosed with uterine cancer. The doctor removed her uterus and ovaries. They said it hadn't metastasized anywhere so she didn't need chemotherapy or radiation. Maybe it came back. There was a low chance of reoccurrence."

"But there's still a possibility," Bobby added. Stephanie nodded. "When does she see the oncologist?"

"Grandma has an appointment at a clinic in Princeton. They should have her images from the CT, CAT and PET she got done a few weeks ago," Stephanie replied. "I don't think Dr. Morrison's specialty is oncology." Bobby tapped the name into the search program on his phone.

"Mike Morrison?" Stephanie nodded. "He's a gynecologist. Your grandma should be seeing a cancer specialist."

"Why? I know she would refuse treatment. She trusts Dr. Morrison's opinion," Stephanie replied. "It seems unnecessary to put her through a process she refused to accept." The guys should know by now that her grandmother hated hospitals and doctors as much as Stephanie.

"Are we staying here for the night?" Lester asked.

"If you don't mind. I'm not sure if Joe would drink then visit me," Stephanie confessed. "He's done it before, and his drunken anger always scared me." Stephanie quietly voiced her concern. It made Bobby and Lester worried that Morelli would become physically violent with Stephanie.

"Has Morelli ever hit you?" Bobby thought her concern about Morelli was valid. It wasn't a secret in the Burg that Anthony Morelli Sr. abused his wife and children. Rumours indicated he was a violent drunk. Joe Morelli getting abusive while drunk wasn't much of a stretch. Bobby called Zero to collect the sample to take to a private lab outside of Trenton. None of the employees are associated with or related to Trenton residents.

~~~~~~~~~~

Joe opened his refrigerator to grab another beer. The pizza he shared with Stephanie earlier was long gone. He drank the sixth beer, then smashed the bottle against the wall. How could he have been so stupid? Having sex with Stephanie without using protection was a risky move, but he wanted to have children with her. It would be the only way to force her to get married. Then he could make her stay home to raise children. He expected Stephanie to be compliant after learning what he had done. Joe wanted her to finally agree to marry him.

He couldn't accept the end of their relationship. Joe had to win her back. Manoso winning the girl wasn't in the plan. Stephanie was the ultimate Burg prize. Dickie blew his chance by screwing Joyce Barnhardt on his dining room table. Joyce wasn't that good of a lay. She was game for anything a man secretly wanted to try, but she faked her enjoyment. Stephanie was the most responsive woman to share his bed.

Joe examined the clean lab results he showed Stephanie. He used his phone to check the date on his calendar. "Shit!" Joe screamed. The test results arrived last month. He'd been with Terry and Charlene since he provided that sample. Joe didn't use condoms with either woman. Stephanie would kill him if he gave her a disease or infection. He needed to talk to Stephanie.

After rinsing with mint mouthwash, Joe climbed into his car. He drove to Stephanie's apartment. Joe pulled into the lot and spotted a Rangeman SUV. He glanced at Stephanie's apartment. Her lights were off. Joe grabbed his flashlight to look inside the Rangeman vehicle. It was empty. Stephanie had a male guest spending the night.

Anger filled Morelli. He felt it course through his veins. Stephanie was sleeping with Manoso. He knew she was with him. Joe let his anger guide his actions. Using his key, he unlocked it, then pushed the door open enough to snap the chain. He stepped inside to find Lester pointing a weapon in his face. "What are you doing here, asshole?" Lester demanded.

"Is she fucking all of you?" Joe screamed.

"What the hell, Joe?" Stephanie asked. "Go home. I'm not screwing anyone. Who have you fucked lately, Joe? Joyce? Connie? Terry? The skank Charlene?" Joe involuntarily cringed when she said Charlene and Terry's names. "Ah. Charlene and Terry. I bet it was after you got the test done, wasn't it?"

Joe refused to answer her questions. Stephanie sunk toward the floor. Bobby caught her before she landed. "We'll get the results soon, Steph," Bobby whispered. "He can't hurt you."

Lester called Rangeman for assistance. He wanted a few men to take the very drunk Morelli back home, then keep him under surveillance. Stephanie wanted nothing more than to get out of Trenton for the next year.