Standard issue disclaimer: This is not mine except for the original bits that are, and written purely for the enjoyment of myself and others. The thought that I'd make money of it is just laughable.

Those who are easily offended should refrain from reading. These characters talk, think and behave like adults.

Have you seen the Rangeday EXTRA chapters? They're other point-of-view supplements to this story. As RD progresses they'll play more and more of a role in the plot. To see it, click on my name and got to 'Rangeday Extra' in my story list.

RangeDay

Chapter 9

"—if you're gonna wake me in the middle of the night, the least you could do is talk to me for a while."

She let out a nervous chuckle.

"Sorry, I called before I could stop myself, maybe I should wipe the speed dial," she blathered, trying to give some sort of explanation as to why she'd woken him. Not that she actually knew herself. "Far too easy to—"

"Babe, I don't want you to stop yourself when you want to call me," he interrupted before she could dig herself in deeper. His words calmed her nerves. He didn't mind. He didn't mind.

"Sorry, I… I just feel bad 'cause I woke you up."

"Will you stop apologising every other word?" he sounded drowsy and just a touch exasperated. "I like it when you call. I like it best when you call and you're not in some sort of trouble."

Whoa. Did Batman just say that he liked it when she called socially?

"I thought the handcuffed-in-the-shower call was the best kind of call."

He rumbled a sleepy laugh and she couldn't help smiling along.

"You might never eclipse that call, Babe."

I could try… she thought, then thought the better of it.

"Thought you didn't do social calls."

"I don't. You are, as usual, the exception."

They were silent for a little while, comfortably. It was a bit strange; she'd never thought she'd enjoy being quiet on the phone with someone. He didn't seem to mind at all. Finally she remembered what had prompted her to call in the first place.

"Do you have image of the future?"

He was silent for a long moment, probably wondered what prompted this.

"You mean like a plan? How I think things will turn out?"

"Yeah."

"I don't. I never look that far into the future."

"Really?"

"Well… maybe for the business. And I have some things I'd like to see happening. But if you're asking what I expect life to be like in ten years, I have no idea."

Somehow that surprised her. She'd always thought he planned his life to the nines. Everything according to schedule.

"I used to…" she said after a long moment. "I had this whole plan for my life."

"Not anymore?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "It's all different. I'm not even sure I like the plan anymore."

"So ditch it," he suggested. "You're good at improvising."

"I'm not sure I like it better without a plan."

"Babe, you aren't following it anyway."

"But at least I had it, you know?" she wasn't making sense and she knew it.

"So you don't have it anymore?" there was a smile in his voice, and she realised she'd just talked about the plan in past tense.

"I guess not," she admitted finally.

"Scary, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

More silence. She wondered if he'd just admitted that he'd been in a similar situation himself. Maybe after he separated from the mother of his daughter. Then she wondered if she'd just told him that she and Joe had ended it for good. Maybe he already knew.

"See it as an opportunity," he said after a while. "You could do anything. Without guilt."

"Like jumping off a bridge."

"And finding you can fly."

Huh.

"I'll stick with short-term plans for now. Like training, and RangeDay."

She could hear him chuckle.

"About that…" sounding serious again now. "speaking as your boss here, just for a moment…"

Uh-oh.

"Yeah?"

"You will tell me if you need help with that, right? I'm not trying to win a bet here. I get the feeling that the whole betting thing has put a lot of pressure on what was already a difficult assignment."

She sighed, feeling kind of relieved that he wasn't so fanatic that he couldn't put himself out of the situation for a moment.

"I had something perfect, but they laughed when I told them the date."

Ranger sucked in a breath.
"I was afraid of that."

"I have some more leads to run down, but I'm running out of ideas. Can you tell me some things you think would be cool?"

She could hear him shift as he thought about it, maybe running his hand through his hair.

"Hell, you could organise a barbeque and a game of football and nobody would be disappointed. There's no need to make it complicated."

"Yeah, but I wanna join in. See me playing football along with your guys?"

She'd get squashed. Literally.

"Maybe not," he conceded after a moment. She wondered if he was having the same mental image as her. Little Stephanie clutching the ball, running for her life as a flock of Merry Men closed in.

"Still, think simple. We don't get to wind down and play around much. Especially as a group. Just a whole day of downtime will be great."

"'kay," she said, oddly touched by his reassurance. "I just want it to be cool, you know? Especially when everybody is all excited and spying and betting."

"I could order it to stop, if you like. If it would make organising easier for you."

"Would they?"

He chuckled.
"Probably not completely, but at least you wouldn't hear about it anymore."

"If it comes to that I could always just announce what we're going to do."

"That would do the trick."

"Umm, okay. How about this. I run down what I'm currently working on, and if I don't have something by Wednesday or so, I'll come to you for help."

"If that's what you want, Babe," he smiled. She couldn't help smiling as well. It felt good that he was willing to follow her lead on this.

"Hey, when do you need the Explorer back?"

"When you no longer need it, Babe. I'm just glad you didn't get hurt worse."

She didn't want to think about yesterday, so she continued,

"So is it bugged?"

He gave a burst of laughter.

"I haven't done it, but I can't guarantee some of the guys haven't grown overly enthusiastic."

Okay, that was good to remember. No important conversations in that car. She yawned wide. What time was it anyway? Felt horribly late.

He chuckled and seemed to yawn also.
"You're making me yawn, Babe. You ready to sleep now?"

"Yeah… thanks. For listening."

"Anytime, Babe. Sleep well."

"Hey Miss Thing, ready to do some serious shopping?"

She smiled at her friend. She was feeling a little down about her life, and nobody distracted her from her troubles better than Lula. Lula was in red today. Clothes, nails, hair, beads in the hair – stunning was the word Stephanie would have chosen to describe it. Nobody had the personality to carry off an outfit like this. Nobody except Lula.

"Hey girl! Love the outfit," she smiled at her friend.

"Let's get going girl, I need me some Victory's Secret goodies."

"So it's really over with supercop this time?"

"Yeah. Really really."

"You sorry 'bout it?"

She took a deep breath, held it for a long moment, and then slowly let it out. Was she sorry?

"In a way…"

Lula took a bite of her donut and watched her thoughtfully from across the table.

"In a sorry-it's-over way or in a sorry-it-didn't-work-out way?"

Straight to the heart of the matter, as always.

"I think the second."

Lula took a sip of her coffee.

"That's good. Better than the first."

"Yeah. I feel bad though. And I feel bad that he feels bad."

Lula watched her, quietly.

"…and I keep thinking… this decision makes two people feel bad. How can it be a good decision?"

"Girl, if you're going to tell me that you were blissfully happy with Morelli and that you broke up with him in a delirium-induced brainfart—"

Stephanie almost choked on her own coffee.

"—then I'd be sending you back to him right now. But I know it wasn't like that, and you do too."

She nodded slowly.
"It's just weird to realise that everything I always imagined about the future is off."

Lula shrugged.
"It's okay to feel weird about that. Or sad. But don't go back because it's easier than having to make new plans for the future."

She nodded at her friend. It was true. Just hard to remember when the future opened in front of her like a gaping black hole.

"I just worry that…" she stopped and tried again. "If I go back… It's almost a habit. You'll…"

"I'll drag you away by the hair," Lula promised, understanding what she meant. "You gotta get through this point, find different things to look forward to. It gets easier after a while. Hell, I'm the queen of starting over."

That she was. God, she really did have some amazing friends. Lula who believed she could be whatever she wanted to be, and went right ahead to get there. Sally whose new band was gaining popularity hand over hand. Connie who ruled over skips, family members and Vinnie with Burg-minded authority. Mary Lou who was doing the Burg mother thing and still managed to give it her own wild-headed spin. Tsuy with her quiet ability to accept only what was offered and support change without forcing it. And Ranger, always at her back with his confidence and his encouragement.

She spent most of her Sunday tracking down activities that didn't require booking a year in advance. The backup plan formed itself – if no great activity presented itself she could always take them camping and organise a kick-ass barbeque. It wouldn't be that exciting, but she trusted Ranger when he said that nobody would be disappointed.

Except her. But she'd have to live with that.

By dinnertime her list contained an African percussion session, wheelchair-sports, a fencing class, skiing in an indoor hall, a juggling clinic and dinghy sailing. Not all of it ideal, but a good list to track down on monday.

It was nearing lunchtime on Monday when Tsuy rang on her cellphone. Stephanie was in Ranger's office, making the calls for the shortlist she had made the day before. The dinghy sailing and the percussion class weren't possible, but the other things could still be booked. Good news, though she'd have to find a way to make the other activities day-filling.

"Heya Stephanie, do you want to go for lunch?"

"Hey Tsuy! Sure, where do you want to meet?"

"I'll pick you up at the office in ten minutes."

Seven minutes later she was down in the lobby, wondering why this was happening. It was a strange way to meet her friend. The receptionist seemed to think so too, judging by the look he was giving her. She never ventured into the ground-level lobby.

A dark blue Toyota RAV4 stopped at the curb, the tinted window lowering to reveal Tsuy. Stephanie got in and was greeted by muted doggy howls. There was a large wire bench on the turned-down backseats with two dogs in it. They looked a bit like husky's, but with dark eyes and brown-tipped fur.

"Ah, your part-time dogs?"

Tsuy smiled.
"The big loud one is called Miyo—" the dog in question barked in reaction to his name. "—the other one is Iseki. She's shy, so it's best to ignore her for now."

Stephanie was still sitting turned around in her seat, holding her hand out to Miyo. He sniffed at it and then gave her a tiny lick, as if he approved of her and the matter was now settled.

"I thought we might get some lunch to go and take a walk in the park."

"Okay," she simply said, wondering if there was a specific reason Tsuy wanted to have lunch with her. Ah well, she'd find out – or not.

Fifteen minutes later they were on a bench on the park, Stephanie savouring her meatball sub, Tsuy working on a large salad. The dogs were wandering around them, Miyo dragging around a huge stick, Iseki always with an eye on Tsuy.

"I spoke to Joan and did some digging," Tsuy said after a while. "Found something about that company I was talking about."

She fished about in her messenger bag, drew out a note and passed it to Stephanie. It had a cellphone number on it and a little list of activities.

Very cool activities.

Make that extremely cool activities.

"They don't have brochures yet, but apparently they can arrange those things, or a combination."

"This would be perfect. Amazing. Wow." Especially in combination with a barbeque and a night in tents on location. The merry men were going to go nuts. "How did you find these guys?"

Tsuy smiled a little.
"They were the reason I… what did Thomas call it? Used the ejection seat of my horse, last week. It saw them coming and panicked."

"Thanks for finding them. Jeez, you've done a lot of work for me…"

"Don't mention it. I don't have much work going on at the moment, I'm bored."

The gave her pause for thought. She knew her friend lived above the dojo, in a family-owned apartment. No rent to pay seemed like a luxury to Stephanie, but she didn't envy her friend's isolation. It was a very closed community. Maybe she could help her make some more contact with the outside world. Something to consider, anyway.

"This is so cool. You think they'll be free to do it?"

"They're upstarts. A company day would be new to them, I think they'd be very happy to do it. And quite willing to organise the day just how you want it."

"I'm going to call them." Better get this confirmed before she did the snoopy dance. It would be such a disappointment if it turned out this thing couldn't happen for some reason. She suddenly understood why Tsuy had picked her up – not a lot of chances for the guys to spy on her here.

"I'm going to try to teach the dog that retrieving a ball is fun."

She felt like dancing. She felt like whooping. She felt like doing the Snoopy dance while shouting 'YEAH!' on the top of her voice.

She did none of those things, because some of the joggers in the distance would probably know someone who knew someone… and before she knew it everybody and their Aunt Rosalia would talk about how she'd broken up with poor Joe Morelli and was now celebrating in the park.

She did, however, smile so wide it felt like her face might split.

Tsuy was a little way over, throwing tennisballs for the largest dog and encouraging the smaller dog to also fetch. Stephanie approached from the side, not wanting to startle either one of them.

"You look you have good news," Tsuy said.

"They can do it. It sounds really good."

"I'm glad. It must be a relief." She didn't sound very enthusiastic, but Stephanie knew her well enough by now that didn't have to mean she wasn't happy for her. Tsuy just didn't usually show much emotion. Apparently it was a cultural thing.

Miyo dropped the ball in front of them and it was promptly picked up with the plastic throwing-stick and thrown again. Miyo shot off after it. Iseki looked anxiously from ball to woman and then seemed to decide to stay with Tsuy.

"She doesn't understand that fetching is fun?"

"She's a rescue, I brought her with me when I moved here. Nobody ever taught her to play..."

They were silent for a while, Tsuy still throwing the ball as the dog retrieved it.

"Want to come with me on a road trip tomorrow?" Stephanie finally asked. Tsuy gave her a questioning look.

"I am going to see that company tomorrow to hammer out the details of the day, and then have a look at the location they suggested. If you have the time, I'd be glad of the company."

Tsuy nodded her head to the dogs.
"I have these two with me all week. My cousin is getting married on Friday, everybody is busy."

"You could bring them… let them have a run at the beach."

Tsuy considered that a moment, and nodded.

"Very well. In that case I'll provide the car, or Ranger will have dog hair all over his shiny black car," she smiled. "Besides, all those cars have a tracking system, am I right?"

"Yeah. I hadn't even thought of that. We'll have to think of a way to shake off any over-enthusiastic Merry Men."

"Should be easy… we just avoid anyone who looks like he should play in a rugby team."

"Rugby?"

"Every time I meet any of the people that work at RangeMan I am reminded of the All Blacks.. they're the New Zealand rugby team." She glanced to Stephanie and continued, "Look them up on the internet sometime, you'll understand what I mean."

"I might. The RangeMen will not be as easy to avoid as the New Zealand rugby team though…" Stephanie mused. "Hey, here's an idea. Sometimes I go to Tasty Pastry in the morning for a kickstart donut-and-coffee. They'll let me use the back way out if I ask. You could pick me up at the back alley…"

Tsuy looked like she thought this might be a bit over the top, but nodded. They walked in silence for a while, Stephanie trying to reign in the part of her that wanted to sing and dance with joy. It wouldn't do to get back to the office like this. They'd read her like a book. They strolled on, beginning to return to the car.

"I have a problem," Tsuy said after a long silence.

Stephanie looked at her, wondering what kind of problem would cause Tsuy to come to her.

"Thomas asked me out."

To be continued

Comments, questions, hopes, predictions, niggles, corrections.. it's all welcome.