See Prologue for Disclaimer

A/N: The website has been giving me trouble, so I apologize for the delay in responding to feedback and in posting, hopefully it will behave now :) Thanks for all of you have given me feedback. It is greatly appreciated. Please let me know what y'all think!

Chapter 5

By the time I had gotten to my apartment and looked out the window, Ranger was gone. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what he'd been doing there in the first place. The only explanation that I could come up with was that he was spying on me. He knew I'd had a date and if he really needed to talk to me that urgently, he wouldn't have taken off after I spotted him.

I slipped into bed, still trying to figure it out and trying to dislodge the guilt that was sitting on my chest. I'd kissed Lester and danced and flirted and I'd been attracted to him. Well, okay, you'd have to be blind not to be attracted to him, but I was like seriously attracted to him. My Hungarian hormones were gravitating toward Lester in a major way. And you know what? My hormones deserved some gratification after all this time. So what's with the guilt? Ranger's had ample opportunity to warm my bed since Morelli left it. It's not my fault if he decided to wait until he had some competition. Men… aargh!

I tossed and turned until it was close to two before finally dropping off to sleep.

In the morning, I awoke to the smell of coffee in my apartment. Grabbing my bathrobe and I warily made my way to the living room to see who the coffee fairy was.

Turns out that I'd had a visit from the donut fairy, too. Next to the Tasty Pastry bag and Starbucks coffee cup was a note:

Good Morning Stephanie,

Please excuse the note, but I didn't want to wake you. I would be honored if you would accompany me to a Yankee's game this evening. If that suits you, please bring everything you'll need to the office because we will have to leave directly from there to make the game in NYC. I am looking forward to seeing you at the office and spending the evening with you tonight.

Until then, Vince

P.S. I hope the donuts are as sweet as you.

I giggled like a twelve year old. This was so much fun! Opening the pastry bag I sighed. So, I guess Vince knew that the way to my heart was through a dozen Boston Cream donuts. Yum!

I got ready for work and packed a change of clothes for tonight, deciding to leave my guilt at home.

When I arrived at the office I sort of dreaded going up to the command floor. I was afraid to run into Ranger. Plus, I didn't know if Lester and I could get past the morning after awkwardness, we'd come as close to having sex as polite society allowed while vertical and fully clothed and in a crowd.

I took a deep breath and figured that I should just get it over with quickly, like taking off a Band-Aid. When I got to the fifth the floor I tried to act like it was just any other day. Then I saw Vince and smiled. He looked uncomfortable at the prospect of talking to me in front of the rest of the crew, so I motioned for him to follow me to the relative privacy of my cubicle. That is if you ignore the video camera, microphone and phone tap.

"Thanks for breakfast. My favorite," I smiled at him.

"My pleasure. So what do you think about the baseball game? It's a big game, Yankees versus the Red Sox. Boston is just a half game behind." Vince's brown eyes were lit up with excitement.

"I'd love it. What time do we leave?" I replied with actual enthusiasm. Hey, Johnny Damon's hot, even with short hair.

"I cleared it with Tank for us to leave at 4:30, so we should be able to make the 6:05 game even if there's traffic."

"Great. I'll be ready."

"Well, I'd better get back to work. I don't want to piss off Tank, he might change his mind. And," he lowered his voice so it wouldn't be picked up on the monitors, "Ranger's in a hellish mood."

I just nodded and he turned to go. Wonder what caused Ranger's bad mood? Maybe he hadn't liked what he witnessed last night. Jealous much? Or maybe he'd had a fight with his girlfriend.

Alright, now who's jealous, Steph? Maybe I'll just get to work.

I worked straight through to eleven when I decided it was time to hit the gym. It looked like I was going to miss this week's yoga classes after work since I was suddenly Miss Popularity, so I'd better get in some kind of exercise.

I'd been running on the treadmill for about five minutes when Lester strolled into the gym and approached me. Thankfully I hadn't gotten too sweaty yet. I surreptitiously checked my hair in the floor to ceiling mirror the covered the wall in front of me as he came near. I slowed my treadmill down to a walk.

"Hi there, Sweetheart. How are you this fine day?" He smiled at me leaning causally against the console of my treadmill. God he smelled good.

"Sweaty," I grinned.

"Sexy," he replied. Was I panting from the workout or from the look in his eyes? Probably both. He added, "And thoroughly kissable."

Yup, definitely having a hard time breathing. With a glance at the video camera in the corner, I said ruefully, "Too many eyes."

"Not allowed, either."

I raised an eyebrow and he explained, "One of the rules, Sweetheart. I could only initiate physical contact when we were on our date."

Humph. How disappointing.

"Doesn't mean I don't want to, though," he said mischievously, "or that you can't."

I smiled and turned my treadmill back up to a run. "I'll keep that in mind, Lester."

"Bye, Sweetheart."

"Bye, Les."

oooooooooooo

I added an extra ten minutes to my run to try to exhaust my raging hormones and headed up to Ranger's apartment to get a shower.

I hesitated before entering. This was the first time I'd been up here since knowing that he'd shared this space with another woman. I felt uncomfortable. What if she had left some of her things here? What if she was in there with him now? Had they slept together on his luscious 1000 thread-count sheets? Shit.

Hell, the guy's locker room downstairs couldn't be that bad. Maybe no one would notice me if I was quick about it. It would probably be less mortifying to stand naked in front of all the Rangemen in the building than to run into Miss Pouty Lips in Ranger's apartment.

Swallowing my apprehension, I knocked on the door. I waited a long moment so that if there had been any funny business going on, they had time to end it. I cracked the door open and listened. Silence. I entered and blew out a sigh of relief. No one was here. Even better, there was no evidence that the woman had been living here, either. Whew.

I dropped my keys in the bowl on the side table and made my way to the bathroom. I had to physically restrain myself from snooping. Come on, Steph. You can't justify opening his drawers looking for women's clothing. Or laying in his bed. Or caressing the clothes in his closet. But, I could lather up in Bulgari and imagine he was there with his hand on the back of my neck, his body pressed behind mine, his heat seeping into me. Holy hormone overload. And me without my shower massager.

Turns out I took a rather cool shower.

When I was dressed and ready, I let myself out of the bathroom, again fearing what I might run into. I poked my head out. Still alone.

I made a beeline for the door and retrieved my keys from the side table. It was then that I noticed an object had been added to the table since the last time I'd been here. It was a 5x7 picture frame. My hands picked it up as if controlled by someone separate from myself. I looked down to see three faces smiling back at me. One had been in my dreams for three years, the second had been in my nightmares for the past three nights and the third belonged to a little girl, maybe 9 or 10 years old. Ranger's daughter. There was no mistaking it.

I brought the picture closer to my face, so I could see it through the mist of my tears. They were all smiling, sitting on a wrought-iron bench. Ranger was on the left, the woman was on the right and Ranger's daughter was in the middle. He was wearing his typical black, but the woman and his daughter were in shorts and tank tops. They were holding plates filled with food. A family barbeque, maybe? They looked happy.

I set the picture down where I'd found it and walked out of the apartment, numb. I went straight to my car. I think I need to eat out for lunch today.

I kept my head averted so the guys on monitor duty wouldn't see my eyes swimming with unshed tears.