Author's Notes: Woot! My first Stephanie Plum story, yay! There aren't really any spoilers, and I tried really hard to make it that way. If you find a spoiler I guess tell me. Also tell me if you like the story, or if you don't, or if you think I should just go get myself run over by a horse drawn carriege to put us all out of my (your) misery. Basically just someone please talk to me, I'm lonely...
Told in Steph's Veiw.
And so copyright lawyers don't hunt me down.
Disclaimer: Not Mine. Sad but true.
My greatest goal in life is not to get shoot. Personally I think this is a great goal as I am constantly being shot at. Probably if I sat down and thought about this for a while I'd realize that this was a terrible goal. Luckily I try not to think about anything for too long, which could explain my current situation.
I was standing shin deep in what I was really hoping was just your average everyday mud, but with my luck it could also be bio-chemical runoff and I was about to turn into something with seven arms. I'd just tackled Johnny Scoresone after running a mile to catch him. He was 5'10", certifiably ugly (just the way I like them), not incredibly smart, and my latest FTA (or failure to appear for those of you not hip to bounty hunter lingo). I'd somehow managed to knock him out when I'd brought him down, this was completely by accident I'd actually just tripped and hit him in the head with my purse on the way down. I'd slipped cuffs on him before I stood, just to be on the safe side, but now I couldn't figure out what to do with him.
I'd been riding around in the Buick, or as I like to call it My Divine Punishment, (my own car now resting in car heaven, poor thing), looking for Scoresone but had left it parked a mile away. There was no way I was getting Scoresone all the way to my car. He wasn't a small man, and I wasn't exactly buff. More like I was opposite of buff. I was contemplating calling Lula, we could maybe get him into her Firebird if we both huffed and puffed ourselves out, but Lula wouldn't want him sitting in her car covered with mud. Maybe I could find something plastic to cover him with? I was still turning this over in my mind when a large, shiny black SUV rolled up.
"Yo." I said to Ranger as he came around to the passenger side of the SUV. I'd actually been trying to avoid him lately. And Morelli too. I had some things to work out and being around either of them complicated things. Ranger looked me up and down and I think he might have be contemplating smiling at my muddy state. "Laugh and die." I told him. He smiled for real at that. I gave him a death glare and was dissapointed, but not surprised, when it had no effect.
"Need some help, babe?" Ranger asked me.
"Actually yeah. Could you take him to the station for me? Pretty please?" I batted my eyes for effect. Ranger just raised a single eyebrow. I'd give anything to do that. When I tried to raise one eyebrow I just ended up looking constipated.
"Tank will take him. We have business." Oh shit. Nothing good ever came out of having business with Ranger, at least not for me. I was barely aware of Tank getting out of a second SUV and grabbing Scoresone up. He roughly stuffed Scoresone into the SUV before peeling out, heading towards downtown. In the mean time I was just standing around stupidly. Ranger took my eldow and guided me to his own SUV.
"I'll get it dirty." Manners made me say.
"It'll wash." He said as he opened the passenger door for me, shutting it once I sat down. He walked over to the driver's side and got in. Ranger slipped into his zone as he drove towards my apartment. I was trying not to smell myself. He pulled into my lot and we both got out and headed up to my place. When we got there I opened the door and Ranger went to check for monsters and gunmen hiding under my bed.
"Really need to get a mop under there, babe." He said when he was done. I stuck my tongue out at him and left him in the living room as I went to take a shower.
The shower was great. And when I came out of it I no longer stank or was muddy. I ran a comb through my hair and thought about blow drying it, but I'd already kept Ranger waiting fifteen minutes so I skipped it. I got dressed quickly in my standard uniform of jeans and a T-shirt. I looked over at my sneakers and felt my lip curl up at them. They were coated in mud and smelly, ew. I gingerly picked them up using only two fingers and carried them into my kitchen. I ignored Ranger on my couch as I found a plastic bag to put them in and threw them away.
"Well, you know what this means," I said to no one in particular. "shoe shopping time." Luckily I had some money in my account after catching Scoresone.
"Babe, we need to talk." Ranger had come up behind me. I hadn't seen or heard him do it and I jumped at his nearness.
"Holy Crap! Make some noise or something willya?" Ranger half-smiled at me before leading me to the couch. He sat at one end and I sat all the way on the other. I really didn't want to talk. Any conversation that began like this one was, wasn't a good conversation.
"I need to go up to Boston for a while." He said.
"Yeah okay. What's it got to do with me?" Usually when he left he either just got up and did so or caught me at the office to tell me to call Tank if I had any problems.
"I want you to come with me."
"Huh?" That's me, Ms. Eloquent.
"We're doing guard duty for a man and his family, including his teenage daughter." Apparently this was suppose to explain everything.
"And? Seems simple enough, why can't your Boston team handle it?" Frankly this conversation wasn't doing much for me. I was trying to avoid the men in my life, not go off with one of them to Boston.
"This man is very influential. He could mean a lot of business for Rangeman but he wants me to handle his case personally." Okay, that explained a little, but honestly getting information out of this man was harder than giving birth!
"AND?"
"The man doesn't want his daughter being guarded by a bunch of men." Oh.
"Oh."
"So, if you wouldn't mind, think you could play body guard for awhile?" Now here's the thing; I'm not a particularly good bounty hunter. Somehow I manage to have a good capture rate but it's completely by accident and seems to have nothing to do with me. The idea that I would make a good body guard is, well, laughable. I hate my gun and never carry it, I don't know any martial arts, I can't keep quiet it save my life, and I spend a large chunk of my life covered in someone else's food.
"Um, you really think that's a good idea?" Ranger smiled at me, 200-watts.
"I'll be beside you the entire time. Our employer has been recieving threats against him and his family, focused on his daughter for the most part. He wants me and a female employee to watch her."
"You don't have any female employees do you, and that's why you're asking me." That made sense. "What about Jeanne Ellen?"
"Babe." I guess that was my answer. I sat on the couch and I thought about things. Mostly I thought about the job in Boston, some I thought about dinner, and a little I thought about Ranger naked. After pushing dinner and naked Ranger out of my mind and focused on whether or not to say yes. Probably I wouldn't have to do much. Probably it would almost be like a vacation right? Probably I could handle this.
I hoped.
"Okay, so when do we leave for Boston?"
Yay! First chapter done. Review Please insert puppy dog eyes here I'll try to update soon!
