Chapter 3

Lexi pouted the whole way home from Emma's house, disappointed that she wasn't going to get to have a sleepover.

"I'll make you a deal," Amy said as she backed out of the Hoffman's driveway. "If you stop pouting, I'll ask Emma's mom if you can sleep over Friday night."

Lexi's pouting frown immediately turned into an ear-to-ear smile, "Really?! You promise?!"

Amy nodded. "Yup."

"Okay!" Lexi was practically bouncing in her seat the rest of the drive home. She didn't have to know that Amy had already asked Barb about Friday night and sleepover was happening.

After a bath and a quick bedtime story, Lexi was asleep. Amy looked at her watch surprised that it was only nine o'clock. Her next thought was Ranger. She kind of wanted to call him, how crazy was that? Should she call him? She tried to shake the thoughts out of her head as she sat on the chaise lounge in her room with a cup of hot tea. She was daydreaming about what exactly Ranger's body looked like under his habitual black cargo pants and tight black Rangeman shirt when her cell phone started vibrating on the table next to her. She checked her caller ID before answering and smiled, her heart literally skipped a beat when she saw Ranger's name on the screen.

"Hello," she answered softly.

"Hi."

Pause.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"I," there was a long pause. "I don't know."

Amy's smile spread as she leaned back on the chaise. "How many cat calls did you get when you went by the control room?" She swore she heard a short chuckle before he answered.

"None. But I did get the smug smiles. And right before the elevator doors closed I heard whistling, so I'm waiting for the footage to show up on YouTube."

Amy gasped, "Are you serious?"

"No," he really did chuckle at her response. "They all know that any and all security footage is private and cannot be posted online."

"Well that's good."

"But that probably won't stop Tank from emailing me a remix of it."

Amy burst out laughing at that. "You have to forward it to me if he does."

"I will."

Amy smiled during the short silence. "So why did you call?" She finally asked.

"I'm not really sure. I know it's corny, but I just wanted to hear your voice." He sighed, "And now I should probably go so I can kick my own ass. I sound so lame."

"No," Amy answered before he could beat himself up anymore, sitting up on the chaise as she spoke. "Don't go. Or you don't have to go if you really don't want to. I was actually thinking about you when you called."

"Oh really? Anything good?"

"A lady never tells." She teased.

"That's mean."

Amy decided to change the subject. "Lexi is staying at her friend's house Friday night. And I don't have to pick her up until Saturday afternoon." She got up and wandered around her room.

"That's great. I guess I'd better up my dating game for Friday then, and hope I can convince you to come back to my place."

"If you can guess what my idea of a perfect date is and execute it, I will definitely go back to your place with you." She knew that he couldn't back away from a challenge.

"Oh really?" His smile was actually evident from the change in the tone of his voice. "You should know me well enough to know that I don't get scared off easily, I love a challenge."

"I do know that."

"I probably should go now, I need to make sure our date meets your criteria of the perfect date. I've got some work to do."

"Okay," Amy didn't think any date with Ranger could be bad, but she was certainly hoping he figured out her perfect date. "Oh, before you go. I have kind of a strange question."

"Okay."

"Do you prefer to always be called Ranger? Or is that just a professional name? I mean, since we're now dating should I call you Ricardo? Carlos? Ricky? Okay, definitely not Ricky that sounded weird just saying it."

"I suppose that's up to you. My family calls me Carlos, my Grandma is the only one who calls me Ricardo. I've never really dated in the traditional sense so I've never really thought about it before. You can call me Carlos if you wish, or Ranger is fine."

"I'll have to think about it I guess."

"Okay. See you in the morning then."

"Yeah, bye."

Amy held her phone in both hands after ending the call. It seemed strange to call him Carlos, but calling the guy she was dating by his badass Army nickname also seemed a little weird. Maybe she would have to come up with her own name to call him. With that thought she started her usual night-time wind down routine. Friday couldn't get there fast enough.

The alarm at five-fifteen am shot Amy out of her dream. She was disappointed when she rolled over to turn it off and found that she really was alone, her dream of Ranger in her bed had seemed so real. She got out of bed and changed into workout clothes, Wednesday mornings were 30 minutes of yoga and 30 minutes of cardio. After a quick shower she went into her closet and chose a sexy black lace push-up bra and matching lace boy short underwear. She blew out her light brown hair instead of letting it air dry like she normally would. Her usual makeup routine was a little eye-liner and some barely tinted chapstick but today called for a little more. A quick swipe of mascara on her lashes, carefully applied eye-liner, light shimmery nude eye shadow, and some pale pink lip gloss completed her primping.

The standard uniform for Amy was usually pants-jeans, khakis, or black dress pants-and a coordinating style black Ranger shirt-v-neck tee, button-down dress shirt, or polo shirt. Wednesday morning however, she was in the mood for a little change. She put on a black pencil skirt and a fitted button-down black Rangeman shirt then stepped into the only pair of black skyscraper heels she owned. Her feet would probably be killing her by the time she finished her work day, but it would probably be worth every single sexy look she would get from Ranger. Or Carlos. She was definitely going to have to give serious thought to that and figure out something.

Lexi seemed surprised to see her mom dressed so nicely, as she kept mentioning it throughout their usual morning routine.

"Mom, why are you wearing a skirt today?" Lexi asked as Amy French braided her hair.

"We have a meeting today honey, so I decided to dress up a little for it."

"Oh. Like teachers dress nice for conferences?"

"Yeah, just like that." Amy tied off the braid and they headed to the kitched for breakfast. "Tonight is girls night baby, what do you want to do?"

"Can we get our nail painted?"

"Absolutely, I'll call and make us an appointment on my way to work."

"Can I get purple this time?"

"You can pick whatever color you want honey."

They sat down at the kitchen table for a quick breakfast of yogurt with fresh fruit and granola and orange juice. By 7:30 they were getting in Amy's black Jeep Grand Cherokee. They only lived a few blocks from the Elementary school but Amy liked to drop Lexi off on her way to work, which was thankfully also close. After a quick kiss and a hug Lexi excitedly bounced up the stairs and into the building, Amy never pulled away until she had seen Lexi walk through the doors.

Amy pulled into the garage at Rangeman at twelve 'til 8, leaving her plenty of time to get her notes for the software updates and be in the conference room before eight. She took the elevator up to the third floor and made sure to walk quickly by the control room to the break room to grab a bottle of water. She could have sworn she heard some suspicious whispers as she walked by, but she wasn't stopping to find out. After a quick pit stop by her office for her notes she was in the conference room hooking her laptop up to the projector.

Ranger watched Amy strut into the conference room for the weekly meeting. She knew exactly how to push his buttons. Instead of her habitual meeting attire of khaki pants and black Rangeman polo, she was wearing a fitted button-down Rangeman shirt and a tight black skirt with sexy as hell heels. He was surprised that he hadn't known she had a tattoo of a pink and white star-gazer lily on the outside of her left foot.

Amy could feel his eyes on her the second she walked in the conference room door. Her plan was working. She knew he'd notice her change from her usual attire, and could feel him watching her. She pointedly ignored him and continued with setting her computer up to play her power point presentation for the meeting. People trickled in slowly and Amy made polite conversation with some as they all waited for the meeting to start. She was sitting just to Ranger's right attempting to ignore his occasional but obvious glances. Until finally she turned toward him.

"Good morning Amy." He gave her his 'I'm too badass to actually smile' half smiles.

"Morning Ranger. I saw the morning paper ran a little blurb on Vinnie."

"Yeah. He was a little upset that I wouldn't re-bond him."

"Oh well." She paused and winked at him. "Are you ready to start the meeting? It looks like everyone's here now."

The little wink had surprised him. He was actually fighting off the urge to pull her off to his office so he could wipe that smug little smile off of her face. That revelation was also surprising because he'd never had someone test his patience and professionalism like that.

The meeting started with Ranger congratulating the team on capturing Vinnie the night before. It cleared a large outstanding bond off their list and you could tell that everyone felt better knowing their number one most wanted had been caught. Ranger moved on to the business for the week, checking in with the head of the installations department. Chad gave a brief overview of the number of new clients they'd picked up since the previous week and which packages were their most popular.

Amy usually paid attention intently at the weekly meetings. But this week was a little bit different. All she could think about was the time she'd spent with Ranger the night before and their make-out session by her car. She found herself daydreaming about what it would be like to finally be with him, to finally break her five years of celibacy. Thankfully she broke out of her happy thoughts just as Chad was done talking. She stood and started her short slideshow on the software upgrades and what new features were now available.

Ranger closed out the meeting talking about a couple of job openings in the company. The number of new clients they'd accepted over the last six months meant they had to hire on a few more people to keep up with the demands. Never a bad problem to have. Once he was done everyone started filing out the door to head off to their respective offices or desks. Tank followed Ranger to his office and didn't say a word until the door closed behind him, then he suddenly started laughing.

"What's so funny?" Ranger stared at him curiously.

Tank took a moment to compose himself. "You went home with her didn't you?"

"No," Ranger answered quickly. "We came back here and talked for a few minutes in the garage before she had to go pick up her daughter."

"What kind of conversation in the garage? The knuckleheads on the overnight shift in the control room were suspiciously quiet when I walked in this morning."

"I didn't fuck her on the hood of my car Tank."

"Well I know that. If you had they would've called me last night." He couldn't help but tease him. He knew exactly what Ranger and Amy had been up to, he was just enjoying watching him squirm a little for once. He'd never seen Ranger quite so hung up on a woman before.

"Did you follow up with Lester on the Briggs account? That account is too big to lose because of an equipment or software problem." Ranger knew that changing the subject wouldn't make Tank give up but it would get him to drop it for now.

"Lester is taking Pete with him so they can physically check every single foot of wire and the connections, all of the cameras and sensors, and the security room. It's going to take them all of today for sure and possibly into tomorrow. If they can't find anything Amy is going to go over herself to go through their computers to see if something went wrong with the software."

"Good." Ranger finally sat down at his desk and turned on his computer. "Any other major issues?"

Tank smiled and backed toward the office door, "No boss. I'm going to hit the gym, you want to join me for a few rounds of boxing?"

"No, I've already hit the gym this morning."

"Okay. Later." Tank was still smiling as he walked out of Ranger's office.

As soon as Tank walked out Ranger picked up the phone to make a call. He was in so much trouble with Amy already, but he just couldn't seem to help himself. He just hoped that she liked the first part of his date, well this would be a warm up for the date. He just hoped she liked it.

Amy went straight to her office after the meeting. She had to get the finished software program down to installations, then she had to stop by Ranger's office to drop off some paperwork. Chad was thankful for the updated software, they had some clients anxious for the new updates. She detoured to the break room for a snack, grabbing an apple and a pre-measured baggie of almonds. There wasn't anything but healthy foods in the Rangeman breakroom, which was why she kept a secret stash of fun size york peppermint patties in her desk.

With the file for Ranger under her arm Amy was chewing a bite of apple as she knocked on Ranger's open door. She wasn't sure if they were bringing their relationship to work or not so she decided to be cool and act normal.

"Hey boss, I've got a copy of the software upgrade for you. I also have the latest reports on what software packages and features are most popular. I'm guessing the new package and features are going to shoot up to the top of these lists next month." She put the file on his desk and sat on the edge of one of the chairs in front of his desk. "And I might have to go over to the Brigg's security room tomorrow or Friday depending on how long it takes Lester and Pete to go over all of the hardware."

Ranger was giving her his signature barely noticeable smile. He nodded in response to her last statement and watched as she nervously took another bite of her apple. "You wore that on purpose."

Amy kept her face relaxed with her indifferent smile, "What do you mean?"

He shook his head, "All throughout the meeting I kept thinking of what could've happened if you had went up to my apartment with me last night."

Amy blushed a little, "Well that's only a little unprofessional."

"Only a little?" He tilted his head slightly, watching her flush a little but she never took her eyes from his. "Can I get any hints for what your perfect date should entail?"

She shook her head at him and smiled, "That would be cheating." She took another bite of apple and tried not to laugh at him. She was quickly learning all of his previously unknown quirks and nervous tells. She didn't even know he had any. But he had laid both of his hands flat on the top of his desk when he asked for a hint about her perfect date.

"Do you have plans for lunch today?"

Amy considered for about two seconds before answering, "No."

"Come down to my office anytime after eleven and we can have lunch together. Would you rather eat here or go out?"

"I'm going to leave that up to you, it doesn't matter to me either way." Amy was just about to stand up when she heard a knock on Ranger's door.

"Boss are you sure you don't want to…oh, Hi Amy." Tank smiled when he saw Amy sitting in Ranger's office. "I was going to try to talk you into going to the gym, but I can see your obviously busy. You know you should just move Amy's office up here next to yours, it would make this a lot easier. Amy wouldn't have to come up with excuses to visit your office." He winked at Amy when he noticed her blush.

"I didn't have to make up any excuses Tank," Amy was still smiling but she knew he'd seen her blush so she didn't want to seem like she was being defensive. "I had a copy of the software updates and some paperwork for Ranger. And I was just about to leave when you knocked." Amy stood up and turned to Ranger, "I'll be here after eleven for lunch." She turned around and walked out, giving Tank a playful elbow jab on her way by him.

Tank waited until he saw Amy get into the elevator before giving Ranger a knowing smile. "Dinner last night, lunch today, dinner Friday night. You're really going after her huh?"

Ranger furrowed his eyebrows slightly giving Tank a barely noticeable glare. "It's lunch, which we'll most likely be eating in my office, so it's not exactly a date."

"You can't eat lunch in your office. At least take it up to your apartment. Keep the guys from dropping in on you at least."

Ranger nodded. "Go workout. I have actual work to do."

Tank laughed the whole way down the hall to the elevators.

Back in her office, Amy buckled down to finish her to-do list she didn't get done the night before. First on her list was customer calls. She knew she could delegate the calls to the other three programmers under her but she took her fair share of them knowing they were both easy and a pain in the ass. If the client had no problems with the software they were easy. However if the client was having problems or didn't understand the software, they could be downright frustrating.

Halfway through her client call list, and in the middle of one such call, there was a knock on her office door. She looked up, surprised to see a very large arrangement of star-gazer lilies along with white and different shades of pink roses held by a kid who was probably in college. She held up one finger as she finished the call, at least it was an easy one. A few minutes later she hung up the phone and smiled at the obviously nervous delivery boy.

"Can I help you?" She had never had flowers delivered to her, ever.

"I have a flower delivery for a Amaya Kendrick."

Amy tilted her head slightly, "That's me, put them right here." She pointed to her desk.

He shuffled in and tried not to spill any water as he set the obviously heavy arrangement on her desk. "Can you sign here?" He thrust a clipboard at her once the vase was sitting securely on her desk. Amy scribbled her signature on the line and thanked him before he hurried out. Curious, she took the card sticking out of the middle of the large arrangement.

Amaya,

I had a wonderful time on our date, and

I'm looking forward to Friday.

And hopefully many more dates.

Ranger

Carlos

R

The crossed out names made her laugh, knowing that he'd done it to be cute. She really was going to have to try to come up with a good nickname for him. She leaned forward and smelled one of the roses, they smelled even better than they looked.

"Hey Amy, I'm running down to the holy crap that is a huge floral arrangement!" Marcy stood in her office doorway, staring open-mouthed at the flowers.

"Yeah, it is a huge floral arrangement. Of my favorite two flowers." Amy was trying to figure out what to say or if she should even tell her who sent them because that was going to be the next question. She also was wondering if she should call Ranger to thank him for the flowers, or wait until their lunch, or email him.

"Where did those come from?" Marcy leaned down to smell the flowers and smiled at Amy. "Are you dating someone?"

"One date so far, but we've known each other for a while."

Marcy backed toward the door and yelped when she ran into something, or someone rather. Ranger had his hands on Marcy's shoulders to stop her from running into him.

"Oh Ranger, sorry! I was distracted by Amy's beautiful flowers. I wish my husband would send me flowers, or even just a flower." Ranger dropped his hands as Marcy finally stepped past him out the door.

"Thank You for the flowers. They really are beautiful." She was smiling and felt a tingle start at the top of her head and travel all the way down to her toes.

Ranger stepped closer so that only her desk separated them. "You're beautiful. The flowers come in somewhere much farther down the line. After you, my mom, my grandmothers, my sister, my daughter, your daughter, and then maybe the flowers."

Amy blushed, not just a little, but a dark shade of pink.

"So I take it you like the flowers."

She nodded, "They're lovely. I've never gotten flowers delivered to me before."

"I'm glad you like them." He put both hands on her desk and leaned toward her. "Did you tell Marcy who sent them?"

"No, she asked just before you walked in so I hadn't really got a chance to. I also wasn't sure if I should tell her it was you. I mean, are we telling people here we're dating?" Amy found herself leaning toward him.

"After last night in the garage, I'm pretty sure everyone already knows. But even if they didn't, I would say yes we're telling people here. Why wouldn't we?"

"I don't know. Your usually pretty private, and co-workers dating can be weird. So I just didn't know." Ranger closed the distance between them and lightly brushed his lips against hers. He pulled back and Amy was staring intently into his eyes. "I uh…I'll tell Marcy when she rushes in after you leave."

Ranger gave her a quick and quiet laugh, "I'll see you for lunch at say eleven-thirty? I had a client call last minute and he's coming in at 11, but I should definitely be done by then."

"I'll see you then." And he was gone.

As predicted Marcy rushed back in seconds after Ranger walked out.

"So who sent the flowers?!"

"Ranger, actually."

"Wha…but…wait…hunh?" Marcy looked utterly confused. "Like our boss Ranger? Who was just in here?"

Amy smiled and nodded, "One and the same."

"When did you start dating Ranger?"

"Well, technically only since last night. But we're also having lunch today and dinner Friday night. And possibly a thing Saturday."

Marcy's jaw dropped again. "That must've been a helluva date!"

"Well, it was a great date but I'll admit the flowers even surprised me."

"I was going to see what you were doing for lunch, but your busy. So, I'm going to go back out to my desk."

"Later this week maybe."

"You lucky woman."

Amy laughed a little, "Thanks Marcy."