Joe, Kai and Ranger all drove in a caravan to Lindsay's estate. Her house was more modern than the castle, but it was equally as stunning. She was incredibly artistic and it showed in her interior.
She came to the door and welcomed us, grinned as the kids gave her hugs, and after I'd gotten a chance to hug her as well, we all walked into the living room. It was a room surrounded by windows, and I thought that Lindsay must like sunlight as much as I did.
I looked out the window. "Your view is stunning", I said.
Lindsay smiled. "Hopefully you'll still be here when the heather blooms. Then the fields are filled with purple and white. I look forward to it every year."
She took our drink orders, and Ranger popped up to help her distribute the glasses. I sat down and waited. The inability to carry things was getting old.
Angus arrived just as Lindsay was sitting down, and he gave everybody hugs and kisses. Just like Lindsay, he glowed when the four little ones gave him a hug. I could tell that both of them greatly enjoyed children.
"I have something for you", I said. I reached into my bag and pulled out the two copies of the report. I handed one each to Angus and Lindsay and sat back as they scanned them.
When they finished, they looked up at me in shock. "You found all that out?"
I sighed. "I believed Colin when he said he wasn't her father. However, at some point I plan on giving that report to Heather and because of that, I had to consider Colin being her father as an option. As you can see, it is quickly and easily refuted. Being in different countries is probably a pretty good indication that her mother is lying.
"However, that brought up the question as to who her father is. I checked out all the Colin Stewarts that had been in Inverness around the time of conception. None of them were a good fit. The logical conclusion, therefore, is that her father was a john and her mother had no clue as to who he was, and was just making up fairy tales to make herself feel better, to make her daughter feel better, and that has created this mess."
"Oh boy", said Angus. "She's going to be furious that we checked into her."
"I have generally found the people that are trying to hide something are the most unwilling to be investigated. If you think your history is clean, you really don't care."
"Did you check into us?" said Lindsay.
"No. But one of my team did check into Colin way back before I met him. They also checked into the fake Colin in the States. That research allowed us to identify who was the true owner of Castle Force."
"If you had some extra time, do you think that you could check into me?" said Lindsay.
"And me?" said Angus. "I think it would be fascinating."
I laughed. "I often check into myself to learn things about me."
Angus and Lindsay laughed. "So this is what you do?" said Lindsay. "That would have been so helpful for Colin's special teams."
"That's what we were thinking", said Ranger. "I know that Steph's work helps my special teams. A lot. We have found that, for undercover cops, it can make the difference between getting out of their assignment alive or not. Through the work of Steph's teams, police cases are closed in half the time with a higher rate of accuracy. Her team last night was responding to an Amber Alert. The last Steph talked to them, they thought they had found the kidnapper and they were waiting to hear whether the person had been picked up and arrested. Steph, I forgot to tell you – you were having your nap when I talked to Tank. He said the kidnapper had been found but, unfortunately, the kidnapper killed the baby and shot herself when the team was entering the building and getting into place. The kidnapper was the surrogate mother, and she stole the baby from the parents. The baby was found within three hours because of your team and the ERT, but it ended badly, and your team is devastated. There will be fallout from that, and you'll have to support your team through it. Hal gave them each two days off and ordered them to see their therapists."
"ERT?" said Angus.
"Emergency Response Team. I have four tactical military teams that work for Rangeman. Two focus on national emergencies and the other two focus on local emergencies. They can do anything that a Special Forces team can do in the military and are, in fact, staffed by former Special Forces-trained team members. We are a good unit."
"What kinds of things have you done?"
"Retrieved kidnapped victims, hostage negotiation, target elimination, disarmed bombs, search and rescues, serving high-risk warrants, and so on. We do whatever a SWAT team does, plus more."
"So you have special teams as well", said Lindsay with a smile. "I know that was something that Colin was concerned about. His special teams aren't military in nature, but they do provide a secret function in society. He didn't want his company to lose that function since it helped so many people. However, he also didn't know who he could sell his company to that would be respectful of what his team could do."
"I'm surprised that he didn't give his company to his spymaster that he has in charge."
Angus laughed. "Jock didn't want it. He said that he likes the spy stuff, but he finds security guards boring and wouldn't want the company for that reason. Like Uncle Colin, Jock had worked at MI6 for many years. However, even though he is excellent at what he does, he wanted a job with a slower pace and he wanted to return to Scotland. He said this job was perfect for him."
"I look forward to meeting him", said Ranger.
"So how will that work?" said Angus. "Are you hoping to teach Uncle Colin's researchers how to research?"
I smiled. "We have been sharing abilities. We have some great proprietary programs that we use, and Colin had some great programs as well. Lilias sent those programs to me, and I have been playing with them for the last month. I have developed protocols based on the array of research capabilities that we all have now, and when I get into the company I will be training the trainers how to use them all and the protocols that I have created for using them. I think we are going to develop a killer research department that will be able to find out just about anything. I'm quite looking forward to it."
Ranger sighed. "Two weeks, babe."
"Two weeks?" said Lindsay.
"When I had my hysterectomy, I got a very bad case of pneumonia. Yesterday, I got a scare because I felt like the symptoms were coming back. Kai examined me and told me that it was exhaustion and he wants me to take the next two weeks off, and then go back to work for half-days. He also wants me to sleep every afternoon and longer at night. As he said, cases of pneumonia that are as bad as the one that I had can take a long time to recover from, and I am only six weeks in. Add in that I am still recovering from the surgery as well. I don't like babying myself though, so Ranger is in that horrible spot of having to force me to."
"We'll all help force you, Steph", said Tracy with a grin. I groaned, and she laughed.
"Do you have special medical training, Kai?" said Lindsay.
Kai grinned. "I'm actually an emergency physician. However, I have just started at Rangeman as a doctor, and I work one day a week in the hospital emergency room and four days at Rangeman."
"Have you been doing it long?"
"I was the doctor on a Special Ops team for five years before coming Stateside. I wanted to settle down and have a family, and I didn't want to be in the field any longer. Ranger offered me a job, and I haven't looked back since."
"No offense, but you don't look old enough to have been a doctor that long."
"That's what Steph said when she met me. In fact, that's what everyone says when they meet me."
"Young genes", said Julie.
Kai laughed as he wrapped his arm around Julie and pulled her into him. "I started university when I was twelve, which means that I graduated early, and went to med school early and so on. I'm actually twenty-six."
"Oh God. You're going to have more of a career before the age of thirty than most people have by the time they retire", said Angus. Kai laughed hard.
Lindsay turned to me. "If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. Even if it is just to come and babysit for a while so that you can sleep while Ranger is at the Castle Force offices."
"Thank you. We may take you up on that. I know that Tracy and Joe and Eli are going to have to go back to Trenton in a couple of weeks. Joe is a police officer, and he only can take so many holidays. In the meantime, we are encouraging the three of them to investigate the area during the days. While we can do that later when I have more energy, Joe's family won't be here and I want them to use the time they have, rather than just prowling around the house while I sleep. Julie and Kai are staying longer. Julie is on summer break from university and is, in fact, one of our top researchers. She is also a natural instructor, and she has promised to help work with Colin's team. Kai is here because we thought he'd like the holiday, because we didn't know how long we'd be and we didn't want to keep Julie and Kai apart that long – we didn't think that was fair. Besides, he is a very handy person to have around."
"And he is giving me incredible peace of mind to know he is there for medical reasons as well", said Ranger. "I still haven't come down from the danger we've been through in the last few months."
"Danger?" said Angus.
"Three and a half months ago, someone we knew came to us", I said. "His daughter had been kidnapped by a drug lord in Costa Rica and he was desperate to find someone who believed him and would help him. We did. Ranger went down to South America and joined a retrieval team. That was how we met Kai. He was the doctor on the team. They found her, but Ranger was shot during the retrieval. It wasn't a bad injury, but I'm his wife and I freaked. We all went down to Costa Rica to join up with the retrieval team and the retrieved girl."
"Hannah", said Grace.
"Yes. Hannah was her name. She was twenty-two and became Grace's best friend. Julie came down to help, and that's when she met Kai. A lot of good came of it, but I still wake up with nightmares over Ranger getting shot. And then two months later having the hysterectomy and pneumonia, and now six weeks later again we are here." I turned to Ranger. "Apparently the betting books are open."
"What are people betting on? Or do I want to know?"
"When I was going to collapse again. Miguel said that now that he heard that I was taking the next two weeks off, he would change his prediction."
Ranger laughed. "So that's why Tank said that it was good to know when I told him that you were taking two weeks off."
I laughed.
"You have betting books?" said Lindsay.
"Think of the betting books they had at White's in the Georgian Era. Same sort of idea, and the staff really get into it. They bet about all sorts of things, but it seems that nobody is a more interesting person to bet about than me. When Ranger and I were dating, our wedding date was a popular thing to bet on. When I had the flu, it became when we were going to announce the pregnancy. They had a lot of fun when I was pregnant. I joined the Rangeman staff when it was much smaller. We only had two locations then. We now have over sixty. I was also the only person on staff who was female other than the housekeeper. I became all the guys' little sister, and they all liked to tease me like a little sister. Of course, they were all like big brothers as well, and whenever I needed help they were all there for me. When I had a guy sexually harassing me, they followed me home for work for a month just to make sure my apartment was clear of danger."
"They did?" said Joe.
"Yup."
"I know", said Ranger. "If I had arranged it, Steph would have been spitting and swearing. When Miguel told her a few months ago, she gave him a hug." He shook his head in disbelief.
I laughed. "Anyway, when there was a guy bothering me at work and I didn't want to tell Ranger because I felt bad that he would be fired, the guys all banded together and watched me on the surveillance feed to make sure that I was okay in the building. The people on staff are amazing people. I have a lot of respect for them, and I know that they would be there in a flash if I ever needed help."
"Me too, right, Mommy?" said Tia.
"That's right. You're a Rangebaby, and the guys would be there for you as well."
"Me, Mommy?" said Alix.
"Yes, you and Grace and Tia and Julie are all Rangebabies."
"Yeah!" said Alix with a grin.
