Disclaimer: Sorry I forgot to do this. I thought maybe if I didn't remind you thatI owned nothing except Jamie, you would forget. Silly me.
Here is the fourth chapter (hurrraaay!) I will proceed to wrack my brain for more ideas. Hope it doens't hurt too much grin. ENJOY!
We all went inside and sat down at the table. Jamie grinned and said hi to Joe, who smiled back. My dad shuffled into the dining room and stopped and stared when he saw Jamie.
"Daddy!" Jamie yelled and almost tackled him.
"Welcome home, Jamie," he said simply. That man never ceases to amaze me.
"Where's Valerie?" I asked, "isn't she suppose to come too?"
"The girls were sick tonight so they couldn't make it," said my mother, "she'll be here next week with Albert."
"I thought she was married to whats'iz face in California?" said Jamie. I wondered how she knew that. She hadn't been here for Val's wedding.
"He left her for the babysitter," said Grandma, "so she moved here and married a Kloughn."
Jamie sat back down and everyone dug into the food. Then the questions started. Usually the only noise during dinner was chewing and the occasional 'Grandma set the table cloth on fire again!' but now everyone was asking Jamie where the hell she'd been. Jamie told us about hitchhiking down the coast to Florida, meeting Ranger, getting arrested in the Keys, stealing a boat, driving it up and down the coast and then flying to Europe. She told us about traveling around France, Spain, Italy, Germany, England, Ireland where she had her first legal drink at 18 in an Irish pub, and sailing to Australia.
"Why did you run away?" my mother asked once she processed all this new information.
Jamie was barely able to answer before Grandma piped up, "Did you meet anysexy French lovers?"
Jamie laughed, "Oh you don't know the half of it, Grandma," I wasn't sure if she was kidding or not.
After 45 minutes of lots more questions, Jamie and I excused ourselves and went upstairs to change. Joe had to relieve somebody on surveillance so I said goodbye to him before following Jamie up the stairs.
"When do you get to go home? I could come by when you're done," I said hopefully. I really wanted to see him.
"Sorry Cupcake, I can't tonight. How about tomorrow? I could get us a pizza."
"That would be cool. I'll see you tomorrow," I said.
Joe pulled me into a bone melting I-can't-live-without-you kiss and then he left.
"Hey Stephy are ya coming?" Jamie yelled from the top of the stairs.
I found her in her old bedroom. "It hasn't changed a bit," she said. My mother had left it exaclty as it was when she ran away. Posters on the walls, a giant lego castle in one corner, a deck piled high with random papers in another. The bookshelf was full of books, notebooks, cds, and more. There was an old empty aquarium on the desk. Even the blue and red striped bed spread hadn't changed and you could see her old bb gun sticking out from under the bed. I knew there would be assorted sports equitment in the closet and a distarous array of clothes in the chest of drawers. My sister wasn't the most organized person in the world. Jamie was staring at the wall above her bed. There hung a huge map of the world, with different colored dotted lines drawn on to mark her course and pins sticking out. She had spent hours pouring over that thing just weeks before she ran away, plotting her route around the world.
Jamie finally turned around and brushed passed me into the bathroom.
"So what are you wearing tonight?" I asked her, pulling my own tight black skirt out of my shoulder bag.
Jamie reached into her own messenger bag and pulled out a gorgeous red, strapless dress that kind of flared out at the bottom. (sorry, I suck at describing clothes)
"I got this in France," she said.
We did the make up, hair, finishing-touches thing together in the bathroom. I was wearing a tight black skirt that ended a few inches above my knees, a slightly see-through white halter top, and black strappy four inch FMPs. Jamie had on the red dress, beautiful red heels, and she had taken her hair out of braids and fluffed it up. We both looked pretty damn good.
We had a few minutes left so I decided to ask Jamie the question that had been nagging at me all day, "When you said pulling pranks was most of your relationship, what was the other part?" she knew who I was talking about.
Jamie looked at me for a while before answering, "I dunno. Friends, I guess. We spent a lot of time together. He never really talked much when we were working or something, and that was most of the time. The only times we were alone together was at a hotel after a job or something. There was once when we were stranded in the middle of the ocean on a broken motor boat for a while. But besides that, we were never alone much."
I had a feeling there was more to it than just 'friends', but I didn't press the issue. "Why were you stranded in the middle of the ocean?"
"We were working undercover on this big time crime boss's yaught and were discovered. The boss guy, instead of killing us, drugged our drinks one night and dumped us on a motor boat. I got it working after a while, and we motored to land, which turned out to be a little deserted island."
"Wow."
The doorbell rang as Jamie and I were coming down the stairs. I heard the door open and Ranger ask for us.
"They're just upstairs getting ready," I heard Grandma say, "Why don't you come in? We have pie and ice cream."
Ranger looked past Grandma at me and mentally begged for help. I felt Jamie snickering next me and decided to come to Ranger's rescue.
"Sorry Grandma, we have to go," I said, sliding past her.
"Well don't you two look nice," Grandma said, "are you going to go and lure some poor hottie out of a bar?"
"Yup," said Jamie, "see ya later."
I closed the door behind us and looked at Ranger, "You owe me one. I just saved your ass."
The corners of Ranger's mouth tipped up a fraction of a centimeter. "Don't try to make me forget about the Apusenja incident by saving me from your grandmother," he said, "I'm still going to get you back for that."
Shit. I thought he would forget about that. Jamie grinned at me, "You better be careful, sis, Ranger is good at getting revenge. What was the Apusenja incident?"
During the ride to the bar I told her about sending the Apusenja's to harass Ranger. He had slipped into his eye-of-the-tiger-driving-zone so he probably wasn't listening.
"Oooooh you're gonna get it," said Jamie with a grin, "believe me, I've had experience with this kind of thing. He waits until you've pushed it to the back of your mind and stopped being cautious. Then he pounces. Most of the time I couldn't remember what he was getting me back for. It was hard to keep track what with all the stuff I did to him,"
I looked over a Ranger and saw him smiling, his eyes still fixed on the road.
"What kind of stuff?" I asked. This was really interesting. Here I thought Ranger was 'aware of his surroundings'. I couldn't imagine someone pulling a prank on him.
"Well you already know about when I shoved him off the boat. And the time I dumped a bucket of ice water on him. One time I paid him to let me curl his hair. THAT was fun. I put a bunch of chili peppers in his food once. Oh and then that one time we were on a really long flight and Ranger was sound asleep and I drew all over his face with permanent marker."
My mouth was hanging open. Again, why the HELL wasn't this girl dead? I looked at Ranger, who was still smiling, and tried to imagine him with curly hair. The picture in my mind made me burst out laughing. This was hilarious, but still really confusing. I was totally lost. What the hell went on between these two? I knew there was more to it besides pulling pranks. She followed him around the world helping him do random jobs. Who knows how much time they spent together. Doing what, though? I've spent time with Ranger but it was mostly in silence. I shook my head. I'd find out sometime.
We pulled up in front of Harry's bar and Ranger turned towards me, handing me a file.
"The mark's name is Jeff Montelli. He's 43, and wanted for second degree murder and possession. I'm going to wire you two. I don't want one of you being snuffed in a coat closet. I'll be coming in in about ten minutes, so keep him occupied for a while." Ranger said as he slid his hands up my shirt. I inhaled sharply. Damn hormones. It was a good thing I had caved and started eating sugar again, or I would be drooling at this point. Jamie attached her own wire, and she and I got out of the Mercedes and sashayed into the bar.
The big room was crowded, people standing around tables, drinking and laughing. Montelli was easy to spot though. He was sitting at the bar, drink in hand. He was wearing a rumpled suit and tie and Italian loafers. His dark hair was thinning, he wore glasses, and he had a BIG potbelly.
"Yuk," said Jamie. Amen to that.
Jamie and I sat on opposite ends of the bar. I saw the bartender card her before he served her a drink. She did look pretty young. It was hard to believe she was twenty one. I watched as Montelli spotted Jamie. He didn't just check her out with his eyes, his whole head bobbed up and down. I narrowed my eyes. Stephanie Plum, protective sister. Montelli signaled the bartender and ordered another drink, gesturing towards Jamie. Omigod he was buying her a drink. Stupid creep.
Jamie excepted the drink enthusiastically and threw Montelli a sexy look. She eased of her seat and sat next to him, smiling. Damn she was good. She had him hooked like a fish. I watched them talk for a minute, and then saw Jamie gesture toward me. Say what? Why did she need me? She was doing just fine on her own. But I forced a smile and moved closer anyway. Ranger said this guy needed to be very distracted.
"This is your sister?" asked Montelli, doing a full body scan. I swear if I had a gun he would be dead right now.
"Yep, this is Stephanie—," said Jamie, suddenly shifting her gaze to the door, "aw fruck."
I turned around and looked. A man had just entered, wearing jeans and boots and a leather jacket. He looked angry and mean. He scanned the bar, looking for someone…or something. His eyes fell on Jamie and he smiled a wicked smile and started making his way through the crowd, towards us.
Jamie bent down and started unfastening the buckles on her heels.
"What are you doing? Who is that?" I asked, suddenly worried.
"I never got the hang of running in heels," said Jamie, handing her shoes to me. She got off the stool and stood four inches shorter. She looked at me and grinned, "Stop looking so worried, Steph, I'll be fine. See ya at home," And she was gone, sliding as easily as Ranger did barefootthrough the crowd.
Shit.
heehee cliffhanger...