Chapter Forty-Two

Ranger's phone rang four times, then went to voice mail. Steph called again, and the phone was picked up on the second ring. "What?"

Steph sighed, a little giddy that her ordeal was almost over, and that she had managed to apprehend the stalker herself. "Phone manners, Ranger! Do you have any ?"

Ranger's voice was tight. "Babe, we're a little busy here."

"I caught my stalker," she said, concise and to the point.

"What?" Ranger bit the word off again.

"She's cuffed and waiting for you." Steph started to tell him that she and Tia were alright, but a sound suspiciously like a gunshot distracted her. "Ranger what the hell was that?"

"Little busy, Babe. Call the office." Ranger hung up.

Steph was worried. She was used to Ranger hanging up on her, but the gunshots didn't bode well.

And she had caught her stalker. Who the hell was shooting at Ranger and Lester,then?

She immediately dialed the control room, and filled them in on the gunshots she had heard as well as the body she needed picked up. Bobby assured her that Ranger would be fine and that two other Rangemen should be out in minutes. After trying to contact the two men on duty at Tia's, though, he told Steph to stay inside.

"Why?" she demanded. "What's wrong?"

"Your stalker didn't just sneak past your bodyguards, Bomber. They aren't answering-" Bobby paused. "It may be more than person is there, or she may just have disabled them herself before coming inside."

"Well, I should see if they are hurt, Bobby-" Steph bgean.

Bobby forcefully cut her off. "No. Right now, you are the client, not an employee. Get inside and stay inside, Bomber."

She reluctantly did as she was told, although Tia was not so ready to abandon "those poor boys," as she termed them. Tia went out to find the men, who were stunned and bound with duct tape behind their SUV. They were more embarrassed than hurt. Tia freed them just as the two other Rangeman employees pulled up, guns drawn the minute they alighted from the car. Steph rushed out to meet them, demanding to know what was going on with Lester and Ranger. The blank look and vague answers told her that the two men didn't have a clue.

Ranger and Lester were back at Tia's within thirty minutes of Steph's call. Four other Rangermen, in addition to the first two, had beat them there by fifteen minutes; two of those men were watching the captive in the living room while the other two were patrolling the perimeter of Tia's property. Ric and Lester looked a bit worse for wear and were sporting some serious cuts and bruises. Ranger's truck looked worse than either of them, one bug light smashed, a long dent down the driver's side, and what looked suspiciously like a bullet hole through the windshield, directly over the steering wheel.

Steph beat Tia to the boys. As soon as they pulled into the drive, Steph was running down the porch steps and flung her arms around them both. "Oh, my God, are you two alright?"

The men hugged her back forcefully. Lester was the first to disengage, calling over his shoulder as he headed for Tia, "Shouldn't we be asking you that?"

Ranger's arms tightened around Steph, pulling her close against his trembling body. Steph stayed in his arms. "Was that gunfire I heard when I called?"

"That's the hole in the windshield, Babe." Ranger inhaled the scent of her hair and brushed a kiss against her ear before pulling away and looking Tia in the eye. "Alec wasn't behind all this, at least not by himself."

Tia's eyes crinkled at the corners as she tried to simultaneously smile at Ranger and Stephanie's embrace and cry at the mention of Alec. "Stephanie and I found out that much, at least, Ricardo."

Ranger's eyebrow quirked up. "Babe?"

"There's a present for you tied up in the living room." Steph reached into her pocket. "It came with this," she said as she dropped Olivia's gun into Ranger's hand. "I think my present will make more sense with your story about the bullets."

Palming the gun, Ranger kept one arm wrapped around Steph ad he began walking towards the front door. "Let's do this inside."

A half-hour later, and the bare facts were sketched out for the women and the men were given details of Olivia's capture. It boiled down to luck that any of the four of them were alive. Olivia and Alec were, in fact, married, and as crazy as loons. Olivia had freed Alec from prison and used her family's considerable fortune to hire some serious mercenary muscle to capture Ranger, Lester, and Stephanie. After the failed attempts at taking Stephanie- the easiest target of the three- it had become more difficult, but not impossible, to find competant thugs-for-hire. Short a fewmen, Olivia split her team up and sent the hired muscle after Ranger and Lester, sure that she alone would be enough for Stephanie.

Thank God she had such an exaggerated sense of her own abilities. If the two ex-special forces, world-class mercenaries that had gone after Ranger and Lester had gone after Stephanie instead, she wouldn't have had a chance. She would have been bound, gagged, and gone without a trace. As it was, Lester and Ranger had serious difficulty overcoming their attackers. The mercenaries- assassins, really- had followed Ranger's truck from Tia's, firing on them and trying to force them off the road. One had gotten close enough for hand to hand with Lester; Ranger had shot and injured the other. Ranger was certain, though, that some of Stephanie's luck was rubbing off on them, because it was a freak accident that ended the stand off just as back-up was arriving. A bullet ricocheted off Ranger's vehicle and hit the gas tank of the SUV the mercs were using; their SUV blew up.

"It blew up?" Steph asked, shock evident in her face. "Really?"

Lester laughed. "Yes, Bombshell. You no longer are the only Rangeman employee to blowup a vehicle on company time."

"At least it wasn't one of Ranger's," Steph smiled slyly at Ranger. "I'm still the only employee to blow up more one of Rangeman's own vehicles."

"More than one," Ranger agreed.

Tia smiled at the scene, noting Ranger's arm around Stephanie and the look of concern on their faces for each other, as well as the gentle teasing. "Lester, Ranger- you two look terrible. Come inside, and let's get you cleaned up."

Lester leaned into Steph's ear on the way in. "You're gonna get to meet another cousin, Bomber."

Steph looked puzzled, until Ranger cleared it up. "Emilio, Alec's brother. He's an EMT, and in medical school right now. Tia will call him to come check us out." Ranger tugged on her arm, pulling her towards the door. "This probably means we're staying for dinner. That okay with you?"

Okay, Ranger had made a request, instead of an order. And she was meeting more of his family, and having dinner with Tia. Stalker was down, minimal injuries. Things were definitely looking up, Stephanie decided as she followed Ranger through the big front door.