Stephanie sat frozen on the couch. She tried to breath, and she tried to respond but her mouth appeared to have quit working. The best she could do was stare into his dark eyes and mutter, "Oh", once more.

Steph In The Right Direction

Chapter Twenty

Ranger tossed cold water on his face as he cursed under his breath. Fuck. How could he have allowed himself to get so out of control. He had barely come to terms with his feelings for Stephanie and now suddenly he was facing the situation he had been dreading. He meant the words, there were no doubts about that. Yet, he wasn't ready to let her know that. But it was too late, now he had to go back out there and face her. What in the world was he going to do now?

When he returned to the living room she hadn't moved a muscle. She was staring blankly at the wall in front of her.

"Stephanie." Ranger said quietly.

Her eyes slowly moved to meet his and once they did they locked into place. Her gaze was too much for him and he quickly took a seat in the chair across from the couch. Don't get too close, he told himself.

When he finally let his eyes turn back to her she was still staring. Suddenly he realized why she always squirmed when he did the same to her. Things weren't nearly as fun when the shoe was on the other foot.

"Stephanie I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier."

"Ok." she said flatly.

He sighed. She obviously was not going to make this easy on him.

"I guess we should talk about this." he said.

"Probably. Although I'm not real sure what there is to talk about."

Ranger stared back at her with confusion. "What do you mean? I figured you would have all kinds of questions."

Stephanie shrugged. "You've told me you loved me once already. Things didn't change after that, why should I expect anything different this time."

"I guess I deserve that."

"What is it that you want me to say Ranger? Are you waiting for a declaration of my love, because if you are you might be waiting awhile."

Her words hit him like a mean skip gone bad. He quickly turned the pain into anger as he began to speak. "Yeah Stephanie, I guess I did expect that."

"You really are a piece of work Manaso."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well first off, I've been throwing myself at you ever since I returned from my vacation and you've been blowing me off. Then I overhear you and your wife exchanging your undying devotion for one another at a restaurant. Then you beg me to come here so you can explain and when I arrive I see her lipstick all over you. I'm not sure why you enjoy hurting me so much, but I really wish you would stop."

Ranger fumed with anger. "First off I haven't been blowing you off. I just wasn't ready to tell you how I felt. Secondly you heard Amanda, my EX-wife speak at the restaurant, not me so don't put words in my mouth. As for the lipstick, she kissed me as I was having her thrown out of the building. I don't ever do anything to hurt you on purpose and it's pretty shitty of you to even imply that."

"Whether it's on purpose or not, it still hurts Ranger." She was no longer able to hide the pain in her voice.

Instinctively, Ranger rose from the chair and joined her on the couch. He reached for her hand as he sat, but she pulled away from him.

He sighed once again. "Let me try and explain, and when I'm done if you still want to leave you can. I won't stop you."

Stephanie nodded her head and shuffled further from him on the couch.

He took a deep breath then he let the words flow naturally. "I think I should start by explaining about Amanda. I guess the best way to describe her is to say that Amanda is to me what Joe is to you. She was my first girlfriend, my first love. We grew up together, she taught me to play doctor and she's had her hooks in me ever since. She was my first kiss, first date, first everything. In high school we were inseparable. I proposed to her on the same day as our high school graduation. She said yes and I assumed blindly that things would end happily ever after for us. But I couldn't have been more wrong.

Amanda came from a poor family, while my family never had a need or want that wasn't met. It took me a long time to figure out that she loved my money a lot more than she loved me. The marriage was in trouble from the beginning and after a year we decided to separate. It was then that I joined the service. When I returned from duty I was determined to make my marriage work. I thought she felt the same way, so when she told me she was pregnant I was ecstatic."

Ranger shifted on the couch to get more comfortable as Stephanie listened to him intently, taking in every word.

"During her fifth month of pregnancy things started slipping back to the way they were. She complained about everything. The house wasn't good enough, the car wasn't good enough, and eventually she decided that I wasn't good enough. Four months after Erica was born things got really bad. I came home one afternoon to find Erica in the nursery all by herself. She was balling her eyes out and from her appearance she had been for awhile. I immediately panicked thinking that something horrible had happened to Amanda. I grabbed Erica and began searching the house. When I reached the kitchen, I heard it. The faint sounds of moans. I thought someone was in pain at first until I heard the familiar sound of my wife's voice. I opened the door leading to the laundry room and that's where I found her being fucked senseless by the mailman."

Ranger tilted his head backed and laughed. "I never realized until now, exactly how cliché that was. God I was so stupid. Anyway, long story short, we divorced. She got our daughter in a nasty custody fight along with a very hefty alimony settlement. She's been living off my money ever since. Any time I tried to get things changed she would use Erica against me. She knew that no judge would grant me custody because of my line of work and she used that to her every advantage.

When Erica turned five, Amanda sent her away to a boarding school and that's where she's been ever since. She comes home for holidays and summer break but that's about it."

Stephanie wanted to reach out and comfort Ranger, but she fought it. She knew she wouldn't be able to stop at just comfort so instead she did nothing but listen.

"For years, Amanda would come back into my life when her dipped too low. She would toss her hair, flutter her eyelashes and I would fall for it every time. She would stick around just long enough to let the ink dry on the check then she would disappear again. It wasn't until you came along that I realized I didn't want to keep playing the same game with her."

Stephanie stiffened at the seriousness in his voice.

"What you overheard at the restaurant was nothing more than one of Amanda's games. She saw you as a threat and did what she does best, she tried to eliminate the problem. And you are right, she did kiss me before she left but trust me, there was nothing sexual about it. She was just getting one last jab in before she left."

Stephanie spoke before she could stop herself, "She left?"

Ranger smiled slightly. "Yup. Hal's taking her to the airport as we speak. And for the first time in my life, I'm positive that I'll never see her again."

"How can you be so sure?" Stephanie asked.

Ranger didn't answer but instead he stood and retrieved the papers from the bar in the kitchen. He handed them to Steph then said, "Here, read for yourself."

While Stephanie read the papers, Ranger grabbed a couple of beers from the refrigerator. After unscrewing the tops he handed one to Steph then rejoined her on the couch.

"You gave her 20 million?

"Yup. It was the best business deal I ever made."

"Well how do you know she won't just go get your daughter and use her against you again?" she asked.

"Because, also as we speak, my sister is on her way to get Erica. I called the school this morning, and effective today she is no longer enrolled. She's going to be living with me."

"Just like that?"

"Yup, just like that babe."

Stephanie paused for a swig of beer and tried to process the overload of information she had just received.

"Deep thoughts babe?"

She smiled. "Very. Just trying to figure out where to go from here."

Ranger laughed. "If you figure it out, let me know because I've been going in circles for years."

Stephanie's smile faded as she became more serious. "What did you mean you love me? Is it still that 'in your own way, no ring attached' kinda love."

Ranger leaned forward and set his beer on the table then placed her hand in his. "Babe, I don't think it ever was that kinda love. It's always been the 'I want to get in your pants and make babies' kinda love."

"So just sex then?"

Ranger smirked. "Babe. You were there remember? Was that night just about sex?"

Stephanie blushed as the thoughts of their one night together flooded through her mind. "They weren't to me Ranger, but I never knew what it meant to you."

Ranger cupped her cheek in his palm as he pulled her face closer to him. "It was everything to me babe, everything." Then he leaned in and their lips met. Barely a touch, a small, brief encounter, nothing more than a light brush. Her mouth parted and when his tongue met hers they both felt as if they had returned home. All their problems ceased to exist, and for the first time since meeting it was just the two of them.

When the fog lifted from her mind she pushed him away. Their contact broke and she spoke, "I don't know about this Ranger."

He didn't budge. He left his palm on her cheek and his lips inches from her face. "What's to know Steph?"

She pushed him further away searching for the distance she needed. "Us for one. We don't even know each other. This is the first real conversation about your life that we've ever really had. And I've changed. I'm not the same simple little girl I was this time last year."

"Babe, you were never simple."

"You know what I mean."

Ranger sighed for the third time of the night. "Yeah babe. I know what you mean. So where does that leave us?"

Stephanie shrugged her shoulders. "Well, the way I see it we have two options. One we can just forget this night ever happened and return to being just friends. Or two you can ask me out on a date and we can get to know each other."

Without skipping a beat, Ranger replied, "Stephanie, would you like to go to dinner with me?"

To be continued…