Thank you all, I'm so overwhelmed by everyone who commented, favorite, and followed. I wasn't sure if anyone would like it because of it not being the normal story line. I'm going to update once a week on Thursday but if I'm able to get a few chapters ahead then I will try and post 2 in one week. It will probably be about 10 chapters before Ranger makes his appearance but I do promise that this is a Babe HEA.

All italicized words are them speaking Spanish. I don't speak it and I don't even want to pretend to, so I figured I would save you all from the disaster that could come from any translator app I could use.

Continuing the Search Back in Trenton

They went out and searched for as long as they could but it was getting late and really dark. Some of the neighbors that were helping with the search started to give their apologies and wishing them luck while saying they had to go inside and take care of their own families. Frank and Joe understood and because it was dark and they pretty much had covered everywhere they thought she could be and searched every nook and cranny at least 5 times. Joe looked at those who were left, including any cops that were there and said "It's getting late and dark outside making it difficult for us to continue looking tonight, I'd like to thank you all for your help and we will be out here bright and early in the morning to resume the search, but in the meantime if by some chance you remember seeing anything or hear of anything please let us know immediately."

As they walked into the house they went straight into the den so they could talk in private, Joe looked over at Frank and said "I hate to tell you this but I really think that we need to stop thinking that she just simply ran away. I'm starting to think that she was kidnapped", when Frank looked at him like he had just grown another head, Joe continued saying "You and I both know that with the things that you still do and the stuff that I used to do, that if someone was looking to get back at either one of us that she would be the perfect target. It wouldn't take much for someone to find out that she's your daughter and my God daughter and how much we love her and would do anything for her. I hate to think that someone did this on purpose but you and I both know that it could come to that, and the fact that it could be because of one of us will crush us both. I'm going to the office to make a few calls and see if I can get the ball rolling, see what we can do. We should be able to get out an APB on her, maybe alert the airport, bus station, and train station. Frank, because we don't know the exact time this happened, we are looking at the one of the worst case scenarios here. We may not be able to find her as quickly as we'd been able to had we been alerted when this first happened."

Frank said "I know and I'm sure this is just as rough on Helen as it is us and since there isn't anything we can do about it now and only move forward, I'll talk to her again and see if she can remember anything to get a better idea but I really think she has no clue. She was so focused on the fact that I was coming home and finally done with these missions and all she wanted was to have the perfect family dinner to celebrate, that that she didn't see or hear anything other than what was going on in the kitchen. She was consumed by trying to be the best wife she could, that she forgot to be a mother. I'm not trying to make excuses for her but I know that she's been having a rough time while I've been gone, not sure about this time, but the last time was bad. When I got home all she talked about was how she couldn't handle being a single mother anymore and couldn't wait until all this was over because it was getting to hard. I felt so guilty, that I didn't know what to say." Joe looked at him and nodded his head and Frank said "While you're at the office I'll make some calls and see if my contacts have heard any grumblings about certain people already here that we need to keep our eyes on or someone heading this way that we need to be aware of. We both just need to concentrate on finding her as quickly as possible." With that being said Joe walked through the house without stopping to talk to anyone and out the front door straight to his car and drove away.

Frank headed into the living room watched his wife sitting on the couch holding Valerie in her lap, who was clinging to her as she slept. Since he'd been home he hadn't been able to greet his wife properly or even say anything to his oldest daughter. As he was watching them he noticed the tear stains down his daughter's face then he looked up at Helen face and saw the tears in her eyes. She tried to talk to him but he could only shake his head no, as if to tell her no here. She carefully laid Valerie down on the couch and got up to walk over to Frank. She asked him if anything was new and he told her that there wasn't and that they had called off the search for tonight. When she realized the seriousness of that answer, she could no longer hold back the tears and she started crying. She finally said through her sobs "This is whole thing is my all fault, if I hadn't yelled at her and put her in her room she would still be here and we wouldn't be going through this."

Frank wiped the tears from his wife eyes and said "Helen, this is not your fault and I need to tell you that we are no longer looking at this like Stephanie ran away. We are now going to look at this as she was kidnapped." She quietly screamed "What do you mean by kidnapped?" Frank looked at her and said "You know at this point she would have been hungry enough and would have come home, we've searched every road, house, bush, tree and anywhere else that we can think of and haven't found her. If she was hurt or something else we would have heard her, so Joe went to the station to fill out a missing child report and to talk to some of his people to see if there might be someone that has any answers and I have to make a couple of calls to see if maybe someone is after me because of my missions and would take it out on my family." And with that he walked away and went into the kitchen. She picked her other sleeping daughter up and held on to her for dear life, she knows that she wasn't always easy on Stephanie because she was always a free spirit, but she was still her child and she loved her dearly. She thought to herself how on earth am I going to get through this, at that point Valerie made a noise and Helen thought to herself I have to be strong for her, and keep faith that we'll get Stephanie back. She then thought kidnapped, she didn't even want to think about that, why would anyone want to hurt our family, she just didn't understand it.

Frank walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone, he was having a hard time keeping his thought together but in order to make this call he needed to be clear headed. He took a deep breath and dialed his Commander's number. It rang twice and before anyone could answer on the other line Frank interrupted and said "Commander Franklin, this is Major Plum. I believe we have a situation." He replied "Major, what's the issue?" Frank then proceeded to explain the events that had taken place so far today. After listening to everything that the Major had told him, the Commander finally said "I'll make some calls. I know time is of the essence at the moment so I will try to make it as quick as possible, in the meantime is there anything else I can help you with Frank." Frank replied "Sir, I appreciate that. I'm sure you remember Juniak, he is the one that's working on this case as part TPD and is filing a missing child report and an APB and pushing it out as an emergency to all the media, as well as any of his contacts. He's worried that it might have more to do with him instead of me, but I'm not sure that's the case. I'm really hoping that someone will see the report and knows what happened to Stephanie and will bring her back to us." Commander Franklin simply replied "Agreed, I'll get back to you as soon as possible." He hung up the phone and left Frank listening to dead air.

Frank sat at the kitchen table and did the one thing that he had not yet allowed himself to do, he cried. He doesn't know how long he was sitting there but suddenly he felt his wife by his side and she was hugging him and whispering in his ear "We will find Stephanie and she will be fine, you'll see. I know I get on her but she is a strong little girl and is a fighter like her Daddy." He just nodded his head and they cried together both secretly fearing they will never see her again.

Somewhere Over the Ocean on a Plane

They'd been on the plane for a couple of hours and knew that the little girl should be waking up soon. Not many words had been spoken between the two men during the flight so far, so that left a lot of thinking time for Tomas, but there was something that was nagging Tomas. So he looked over at his boss and asked him what he had been thinking about and without realizing slipped into their native tongue and asked "What happens when she wakes up and realizes that we've taken her away from her family? Are we going to drug her again until we land or are you going to let her stay up? What are your plans with her?" His boss looked at him very carefully and said "Why do you all of a sudden care what happens to her or what I'm going to do with her?" Tomas replied "Since I've been watching her for the past few weeks and today when I was speaking to her and was able to convince her to come with me, I could tell that she was a special little girl and I just don't want anything bad to happen to her." His boss laugh loudly, and said "Tomas, you don't even know half the story about this precious little girl. You see she is the heart of the two people in this world that I consider my biggest enemies and that I would stop at nothing to destroy them." Tomas looked at him with an unsure voice said "You aren't going to hurt her are you to get back at them are you?" His boss just smiled and said "My dear boy, I have no intention of hurting her, as a matter of fact I'm going to bring her home and treat her like my own flesh and blood daughter and make sure she grows up to think she's a princess. I know that when they find out that she is missing they will blame themselves and after years of searching for her they will become so heartbroken over never being able to find her that they become nothing shells of the men they used to be and if by chance they ever do find her that she won't even remember them and that will start the whole heartbreak all over again." He continued by saying "However, since you have taken such a shine to her, I am now appointing you to be her personal bodyguard. Never let anything happen to her." Tomas nodded his head and replied "Understood Sir, I will make it my life to guard her with everything that I am."

Little did they know that at that moment Stephanie was starting to toss and turn trying to wake up, when she was finally awake enough to open her eyes, she realized that she wasn't in her room. She looked around a little more and screamed.

The men in the cabin heard her and then looked at each other, Tomas' boss simply nodded at him and he got up thinking that he guessed his bodyguard duties were starting now. He quickly walked back to the bedroom and showed himself to her. By now she had moved down to the edge of the bed, she looked at him and said "I want to go home!" He shook his head thinking about what his boss had told him and figured now was as good as time as any to start the life his boss wanted for her so he said "We are taking you home, that's why we are on a plane." She continued to stare at him trying to decide what to think of him, she appeared to come to a decision and replied angrily "NO! I was home, you took me away. You lied to me. You're a bad man!" He tried to move closer to her but she scooted back further up the bed so he couldn't

reach her. Somehow, he knew that this would be a meeting of the minds, again proving how strong this little girl was. He quietly said "I'm not a bad man. Remember I'm your friend Tomas?" She narrowed her eyes at him "You were going to take me to get hot cocoa and you poked me with something, I fell asleep and you took me away. That's bad." Tomas smiled and said "Yes you're right and I'm sorry I did that to you, but now you just have to trust me and know that I won't do anything else to hurt you." Stephanie just sat there looking at him and then she did the one thing that broke his heart. She put her head down and cried into her pillow.

After what seemed like forever when he noticed her sobs slowing down he walked over to the side of the bed and reached out to her so that he could bring her to sit down on his lap so he could hold and comfort her. She struggled for a little bit not wanting to give in but then after a few minutes she allowed him to pull her up on his lap. She lifted her head and looked up at him with tears in her crystal blue eyes then tucked her head on his chest and let him hold her. After a while she finally lifted her head and looked and smiled. She then said something he wasn't sure he could ever explain, she whispered "Why me?" Tomas said "My dear, I can't explain that to you maybe one day but not right now." Just then her stomach growled letting them know that she was hungry, he smiled and chuckled and said "Before we go feed your beast, I need to tell you something." She nodded her head and he continued "There's a man out in the cabin that's sitting in a chair whose name is Osvaldo Jiménez, he's my boss and is taking you to your new home. Do you understand?" Her lower lip started to tremble like she was going to cry but instead she just nodded her head. He then took her hand and walked her out to the couch that he was previously sitting on. She sat down and looked at the man she didn't know. Osvaldo turned to her and said "Hello." She quietly said "Hi." Then her stomach let out another really loud roar and he chuckled and said "Are you hungry?" When she nodded her head, he reached out and picked up the phone that was beside him on a table and spoke in Spanish, the next thing she knew there was a woman that came out with a cart that had food on it. She watched the cart pull up to her and the woman asked "Do you want something from the cart, dear?" Stephanie looked at the different choices of food and saw that there were donuts on the tray, she loved them but her mom always told her that she wasn't allowed to eat those because they would make her fat, but they looked really good. Her thoughts were broken up by Osvaldo saying "Estefania, what's wrong sweetie?" She made eye contact with him and gave him a questioning look. He smiled at her and said "Estefania is Stephanie in Spanish. Our home is in Venezuela in a town called Puerto Cabello. Spanish is the language of our people. Now, what has you looking so deep in thought?" She looked at the tray and pointed to the donuts. He told her "Do you want to eat the donuts?" She nodded her head and he said "Well if that's what you want then you can eat it." She looked at him like she didn't quite believe him then she said "I'm not allowed to have donuts, my mommy doesn't let me eat them." He said "Just think of it this way since your mommy isn't here and I am I'll giving you my permission to have it, just like if I was your Papi or your daddy. I would like it if you called me that, what do you think?"

Her eyes got wide at what he was saying about him being her Papi or her daddy, she didn't want another daddy she wanted hers, but how would she get him back. After a few minutes she thought that what her real daddy would want her to be strong for him so that she'll be ok when he finds her. In order for her to do that she'd have to go along with what this man said, so she nodded her head and grabbed a couple of donuts and said "Thank you Papi." He smiled at her and said "That's a good girl, is there anything else you want?" She said "Can I have some milk?" The woman with the cart leaned over and opened a door and pulled out a small carton of milk, opened it and handed it to her. While she was drinking it the woman asked "Is there anything else I can get for you?" Stephanie said "No thank you." Osvaldo said "Estefania, Just let me know when you are ready for something else, we have quite a while before we land, okay?" She nodded and the lady took the cart and walked away.

After Stephanie finished off the donuts and the milk, Tomas looked over at her and said "Do you want to sit out here with us or do you want to go lay down for a little bit?" She said "Can I lie down on the couch?" He said "Of course you can, I'll get you a pillow and blanket" and Tomas got up to go get them from the bedroom.

Osvaldo took that moment to get up and sit down on the other side of the couch to give her a little space. He looked at her and said "Do you like Tomas?" She replied "Yes." He said "After we land and we are home, I would like for him to always go with you wherever you go to make sure that you stay safe and never get hurt, do you think you would like that as well?" She nodded her head and he said "Good I'm glad, I know that you probably are scared because you don't know what's going on and you miss your family, but now I would like you to be a part of my family. I want you to be my daughter, my princess and I will give you everything that I possibly can?" He put his arms out to her and she wasn't sure what to do at first but then she decided that it would be OK and crawled over to him and up onto his lap, she thought that he smelled good and was really warm. She then put her head down on his chest and closed her eyes.

Tomas came back with the blanket and pillow and the site that he saw was an encouraging one. Osvaldo who was now stretched out on the couch with Stephanie was laying on him and both appeared to be sleeping. He thought to himself that it was rare thing that Osvaldo was relaxed enough to sleep on the plane. He can only guess that it was just another power of that little girl in his arms. He set the pillow down on the table beside the couch since she no longer needed it but then laid the blanket over them and went over to the chair and sat down. At the same time both Osvaldo and Stephanie in a sleepy voice said "Thank you, Tomas". He looked over at them whispered "Your welcome" and then thought that everything just might work out better than he could hope. He knew his boss says that he was just out for revenge but maybe he just found something else that he needed more and with that realization he leaned the chair back and decided to get some sleep as well.