See prologue for disclaimers. Thank you for the feedback!
Chapter 17
"What the hell does that mean?" I asked. I was pacing now, "So, did the dog eat your homework? Did the cat eat your gym suit? Is the check in the mail? What kind of fucking lame-ass excuse is that?" I finished, throwing my arms in the air.
I turned to stare at him and I could see that the edges of Ranger's ears had turned pink. Ranger's… blushing?
"Explain," I ordered my arms crossed over my chest, foot tapping. Ranger sat back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. He drew in a deep breath.
"I only met Carmen six months ago, but I'd known of her almost my whole life. Her mother and my mother were best friends since childhood. They remained close through correspondence even though Rosalia, Carmen's mom, lived in Cuba all these years. Until she passed away a year ago. That's when Carmen decided to finally move to America. My mother had sworn to Rosalia that she'd help take care of Carmen if the need ever arose. Well, Carmen needed help. She was facing persecution in Cuba because the man she loves, and is still engaged to, is actively anti-Castro. He sent her away from Cuba to try to keep her alive. His enemies wouldn't hesitate to get to him through her, so Carmen needed to find a way to stay here. My mother, God love her, volunteered me."
Poor Carmen… that took some of the wind out of my sails. "And you just went along with it?"
"You, of all people, should know what it's like to have a maternal guilt trip."
"Sure. My mother tries to marry me off on a weekly basis, but I've never given into it." Okay there was that one time that I almost married Morelli because of my mother, but that's not the point. "I just never pictured you as a Mama's boy."
Ranger snorted. "You haven't met my mother, yet. When you do, you'll see that she tends to get her way by any means necessary, coercion, blackmail, death threats." Hmm. Sounds a little like a Manoso I know. "Luckily she uses her powers for good. And in this situation, even though it really screwed up my life, I didn't see any way around it."
"Of all the people in the whole world, why you?"
"My brother Antonio's already married so he couldn't do it. My cousins are all girls. I was the only choice. See, since Carmen still has a fiancé in Cuba she couldn't just go find anyone. It had to be someone she could trust, who could pull the charade off, and could be believable. And it's not the kind of thing that I felt comfortable delegating to one of my men." He looked down and muttered, "Although I'm now wishing I'd stuck her with Lester."
"So, basically, you married Carmen to help her stay in the country. Isn't that illegal?"
"Morally gray," he shrugged. "I don't know if I would have gone along with it, except the thing had just happened with Stiva, and my thinking was a little upside-down. This seemed like a way for to force myself to keep my distance from you, because I had to appear to the Immigration representatives to be married to Carmen. Trouble is, by the time I realized I didn't really want distance from you, it was already too late."
I stared at him. So, there it was. He had a reason. It was a crazy reason, but it was a reason. When I thought about it I really only had one problem. One big problem.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I... well… I couldn't tell anybody the truth about Carmen and me. We had to put on a good show." Bullshit.
"You told Tank," I pointed out.
"True. I'm used to filling him in on my missions, which is how I approached this. For me this was a deep-cover mission."
"Okay, that explains why Tank knew, but why not tell me? Don't you trust me?" Tears were threatening again, but I ignored them.
"With my life, Babe. And that's not something I do easily." He said gravely, looking me in the eye. Then he blew out a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm not sure why I didn't tell you. I mean at first, I had decided that you were better off without me. I didn't think I'd be able to give you what you needed and I thought we were both better off apart. Before long, though, I realized I was fighting against one of the best things that had ever happened to me.
"By then, I wasn't sure if you'd understand. And I knew I had to stay away from you, because if I didn't, I would blow this, so I was hoping we could get it wrapped up quickly and then I could make things right with you. We filed some form that will let her get a permanent green card sooner because usually you have to wait two years with a conditional marriage green card."
"Two years!"
"Yeah, but there are ways around that. I have good attorneys and they're working at getting Carmen her permanent green card now. But we've been scrutinized by the Immigration office pretty closely. Our case manager said Carmen's petition for a permanent green card was almost through the approval process. I didn't want to risk slipping up when we were so close to getting this finished."
"So, why are you telling me now? Is it because I was finally moving on or is it only because Tank forced you to?"
"Neither, Babe. I decided that I couldn't be away from you anymore and that you had to know the truth after you saw me with Carmen last week. I couldn't let you think that I'd replaced you. I was coming to do that the night I saw you with Lester."
"But, why didn't you stay and tell me that night?"
"I saw you with him…" Ranger closed his eyes, his pain evident, "and you looked happier than I'd seen you in months. I thought I was too late."
I looked away from him, staring blindly out the window.
"Am I?" he asked tentatively. "Am I too late, Babe?"
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A/N: I am bending immigration law to suit my purposes a little, please excuse the artistic license.
Please let me know what you think!