Chapter 23

Stephanie wondered, but only for a moment, what her neighbors were thinking. She'd been an exemplary property owner in the quiet subdivision, only having the occasional visitor, but that had all changed a few days ago. Now there was another new man standing at the foot of her driveway. While he was checking out her place she was peeking around the edge of the curtain, checking him out. She felt movement behind her and turned to see Tank gathering up his phone and jacket.

"You're leaving?" she asked.

"Yeah. I'll go out and meet Santos and give him a report. He was up to date on things when he left Trenton, and I'll just let him know there's been no new development. I guess I shouldn't be surprised Lester chose to drive down. He never did like to fly."

"Lester is afraid of flying?" Stephanie asked.

"I wouldn't say afraid," Tank replied. "It goes back to an incident in airborne training. He pushed through his fear, and we all respected that, but other than jumping out of a plane there's nothing he hates more than being in a plane. Good thing I don't have that problem. I've got a flight to Puerto Rico scheduled. I've got to get moving, too."

He came close and gave her a quick hug. "This is going to be okay, Stephanie. I know you've been thrown for a loop, but you're not the only one. I was the one who told Ranger you were dead, and I was there the night Cally told him you were alive. He's had some rough days in there, too."

"I understand that," Stephanie said. "I don't know what's ahead for us. I can't even think about it until I know what the outcome of this WITSEC mess is." She watched as the big man walked to her door. As he opened the door she called out to him, "Tank! Thanks for everything you've done. And for what you're doing now."

He nodded and gave her a casual salute as he turned and went through the door. She turned back to the window and watched him walk to Lester. He punched Lester on the arm and Lester jabbed back at him, and Stephanie laughed softly. These were mature men, but there were still remnants of the young men she once knew so well.

She hadn't been self-conscious about her appearance when she'd first seen Ranger. The shock of him standing in front of her robbed her of any thought other than to go to him. When Tank had come back into her world, he'd caught her in a compromising position and once again there hadn't been any time to worry about her appearance.

Now as Lester walked toward her door, she found she was a little nervous. Would he be shocked at how life had aged her? She could tell that he'd aged, but she would have recognized him anywhere. His hair was salt and pepper, but he still had all of it. There were lines in his face, but his body was still hard. What was it about these RangeMen, she wondered? Maybe there was something to regular physical training and healthy eating. And then she laughed out loud, because she'd spent the majority of her new life doing just those things.

They faced each other, Lester just inside her door and halfway down the hall, where she'd been coming to welcome him. He'd let himself in. His eyes were as green as they'd ever been, and she realized her memory hadn't fooled her when she'd looked at his son for the first time a few days ago. He held out his arms and without thinking she moved down the hall toward him.

Later, as they sat on the sofa talking, Stephanie realized she was calm. It was the first time since she'd seen Ranger standing in her doorway at the gym that her stomach wasn't roiling. Having Lester here was good. It had only been minutes, but she couldn't picture the old Lester. This new mature version seemed like someone she had always known.

"Ya know, Beautiful," he said with a grin. "We're gonna be living together. There was a time when that would have been hazardous to my health."

"You mean Ranger?" she asked.

"Hell, yes! If one of us even looked sideways at you Ranger had us on the mats, carefully reminding us you were his."

She sobered. "I wasn't though. He never asked."

"He had plenty of things to work through, back then," Lester said. "We all did. Hell, I still do. I'll tell you though, when we heard you were gone, we all saw the man of steel crumble. Tank and the grace of God got him through it. Those were bad days."

It was eerily reminiscent of what Tank had told her minutes before, and she knew she'd have to process it at some point, just as Ranger would have to understand what her life had been like. They'd both thought one another dead. They'd both thought they were the only victim, when in truth, they'd both been suffering the same grief, miles apart, at the same time. She knew Ranger would make the responsible party pay, and with a sudden insight, she knew she'd do whatever was asked of her to make that happen. Tank had said he'd make sure she wouldn't have to give up her new persona by testifying, but if that were the only way, she'd find the courage to do it.

"Earth to Stephanie," Lester said.

"Oh, gosh!" she replied. "I'm sorry. I've had a lot to take in these last days and I tend to get overwhelmed and then my mind wanders." She stood from the sofa and began to pace the same confines of the sitting area. Her initial calmness in his presence had vanished at his mention of Ranger.

"I get that," Lester said. His eyes followed her movements as she continued to pace. "Finding out you were alive was a lot for me to process. I didn't think of much else on the way down. What I was asking is what do you think a good cover would be for me at your gym?"

"I've been thinking about it," Stephanie said. "I think I'm going to tell the staff that you're a potential investor. They all know I'm considering expanding. Alan, my…uh former accountant was against it, but I'm pretty committed to opening another site."

"Yeah, Tank told me about that…your former accountant, I mean."

She hesitated in her stride to look into green eyes that were crinkled with humor.

"And they say women are gossips!" she exclaimed. "For your information, there's nothing funny about it. Ranger came back from the dead and turned my life upside down. Alan was an important part of my life and now he's gone."

Lester sobered immediately. "You're right. It's not funny when you lose someone important." She watched frown lines intensify across his brow and knew he was hurting. She remembered Ranger telling her Lester had lost his wife less than two years before.

"Lester, I'm sorry," she said. "Ranger told me…"

"Not a problem, Beautiful," he said interrupting her. He patted the sofa next to him. "Quit pacing. You'll wear out your carpet, Come sit here. I have something to show you, if you want to see it."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I need to burn off some of this nervous energy. Maybe I should go for a run."

Lester stood with a pseudo-shocked expression on his face. "I'm sorry, I think I'm in the wrong place. I was looking for Stephanie, the doughnut lover. Instead I've found Stephanie the runner?" His voice raised in a question.

She stopped pacing and poked him in the chest. "Very funny, Lester. Life changes us all. It was the doughnut loving that made me run."

Lester patted his flat belly. "I get ya! Now come sit down and let me show you something." She did as he asked.

"You said Ranger gave you some details of my life. Did he also tell you I've been doing some work for Connie?"

"No!" she said. "You mean bounty hunting?"

"Yeah," he said. "When RangeMan sold, I could have stayed on. We were all offered positions, but no one stayed. At least none of the original crew did. We got a pretty good buy-out and Ranger was always generous. None of us needed the work. But I didn't want to sit around doing nothing, so I offered my services to Connie. When Ranger asked me to come, I thought maybe you'd like to see some pictures of some of the old places, so I took some." He held up his phone.

"Pictures?" she asked hesitantly. "Of Trenton? You didn't tell anyone?"

"Of course not!" Lester said. "I was knocked sideways when I heard the story. Ranger's not the only one who grieved you, Beautiful. I'm honored to be entrusted with the truth. I'm committed to keeping you safe and catching the son of a bitch responsible. I took some pictures, because I thought you might want to see things now. But maybe you've kept up via Google."

"No. I haven't. When I left I had to make a clean break. Partly it was to retain my sanity, but also, I've been afraid to look in case somehow my location could be traced, or my identity compromised. I did look recently, but only when I suspected Ranger might still be alive. I've never looked at pictures of Trenton."

"You suspected Ranger was alive?" Lester asked.

"He left me some clues," she said. "So I wouldn't be so gob-smacked when I saw him. It didn't work."

Lester laughed. "C'mon. Let me show you Trenton and it's people in the 21st century."

"People?"

"Yeah, just some faces that might be familiar. Like this dude." He held up his phone and Stephanie leaned in to look.

"Is that Woody?" she asked.

"Yeah," Lester said, a grin splitting his face. "He's holding his grandson."

"Woody's a grandpa? That's amazing!" she said.

"What's amazing is the baby he's holding is hiding the fact that he's also carrying around an extra twenty pounds. That six-pack he used to have is hiding under a big ole beer belly!"

"I don't believe it," she said.

"Believe it!" Lester said. "He's embraced retirement fully. Would you like to see some pictures of the bonds office?"

"Uh, sure, "she said hesitating only slightly.

"Connie owns the place," Lester said. "She does a good job with it, too. Did Ranger tell you about Vinnie?"

"I know he's in jail," Stephanie said. "But I don't know why."

"He got picked up on a sting operation with an underage prostitute. He swears he didn't know her age, but in the end it didn't matter. It went bad for him. Rumor is that Lucille had enough, and Harry influenced the judge. Vinnie went to jail. Lucille took over control of the bonds office and she sold it to Connie. And Lula became the new Connie. It all works. Here…" He held out his phone and Stephanie looked.

There was silence for a moment while she thumbed through the pictures, and when she looked up at him, her eyes were full of tears.

"Ah, shit, Stephanie. I should have known better. I didn't mean to upset you."

"No," she said. "I'm happy to be seeing these. I've wondered for all these years, and knowing and seeing is good, but it's emotional."

There were more tears when she saw the pictures of her old apartment building, her parents' house and Joe's house, where they were living when the accident occurred. Lester left his phone in her hands. He went to the kitchen and returned with two beers. He held one out to her.

"It's your beer, so I feel kind of silly offering it to you, but you might need it," he said.

Stephanie took the bottle from him. "It's not my beer," she said. "It's your son's. He left it here when he visited with my daughter. And you're right. I do need it."

They sat side-by-side for more than an hour, while Stephanie looked at photos and Lester gave her brief synopses of people who had once been central in her life.

"This is something I thought I'd never be able to do," she said. "You've given me a safe way to look back. It brings a closure to my Trenton life that I've needed for many years. Thank you, Lester."

"You're welcome," he said. "I didn't think of it as closure, but more as a safe way for you to see how others' lives have played out. I thought, maybe once this was over, you'd want to come back to Trenton, but Tank said that wasn't likely."

"I don't think it is likely," she said. "My life here is one I've built with hard work and, to be honest, with strength of character. I didn't know I was that strong, but when I was faced with no other choice, I did what I had to do. To go back to Trenton would be a step back. I wasn't exactly a tower of strength when I lived there, and I don't want to revert to that person again."

"We all loved that person," Lester said. "From where I'm sitting you look and seem like pretty much the same person. You were always strong, and one thing we all knew, when you said, 'It wasn't my fault', it usually wasn't. I'm not here to talk you into going back. I'm here to make sure you stay safe. I'm taking my role seriously."

She reached out, took his hand and intertwined their fingers together. "Thank you," she said. "When Ranger said he wanted to bring another person in I was worried. Now I'm just grateful you're here." She looked at their hands and saw a small tattoo on his inner wrist. "What's this?" she asked. She raised his hand closer to her face and she saw that it was a teal cancer ribbon image, with the word survivor written across the ribbon.

"You had cancer?" she asked.

"No, not me," he said. "It was Barbara, my wife. She was diagnosed eight years ago with Stage III ovarian cancer. She was determined to beat it and she did. She had surgery, then chemo and radiation. She made it five years cancer free and we celebrated with a cruise. Then on her sixth anniversary she said she wanted us to get matching tattoos. She said I was a survivor as well, because I'd been with her every step of the way. So, we got tattoos."

"But…" Stephanie hesitated. Ranger had told her Lester lost his wife a couple of years earlier. She didn't know how to phrase the question.

"Within a month of this fucking tattoo, her markers went up. The cancer was back and there was nothing that would stop it. She tried, but all the therapies that worked the first time didn't work the second. She was gone before her seventh anniversary date rolled around."

"Lester, I'm so sorry."

He pulled his hand from hers and wrapped his arms around her in a big hug. "It's okay, Beautiful. I wish you could have known her. She was one of a kind. I threw away my black book the day we met and in all these years I've never looked at another woman. She was it for me."

Stephanie was silent. She wasn't sure what to say that would comfort him. She knew from her time of loss that sometimes there were just no words.

"Cancer screws with the whole family," Lester said. "Luke was always going to be an Army Ranger, like his old man. When his mother got sick, he decided to become a doctor. He said if there was anything he could do to keep some other kid from going through what he'd gone through he was going to do it. And he was serious. He plans to become a gynecologist. I'm proud of him."

"He's a great young man," Stephanie said. "He's watching over Cally which eases my mind. He's smart, personable, and…almost as handsome as his daddy."

That drew a smile from Lester. "It's really good to be here with you," he told her.