Standard disclaimers, blah, blah, blah. Visible scaring has been kept to a minimum but emotional scaring is going to be significant, for a while.

Thanks to Jaime, Kate Manoso, Luisa and Melody (yes, you are all in alpha order) – Your insight has meant more to me than you'll ever know. I idolize each of you.

Stephanie's Gamble

By Alfonsina

Chapter 16 ♣ At Home Alone?

After Hector left, I realized I hadn't touched my bags. They were sitting in my bedroom where Lester had put them. I hadn't been gone but a couple of days and I felt like a lifetime had passed. I had been outside of my own environment and survived in one piece. I saw sides of each of the Merry Men I wouldn't have expected and still liked them, for the most part.

I walked over to the backpack and duffle, put them on the bed and opened them. I extracted my shoes, clothes and toiletries. I proceeded to put away what I could put away and the rest went into the laundry hamper.

I double checked the pockets on the outside of the bags to make sure I hadn't missed anything and that's when I found them in various pockets around the bag, cards.

I pulled the first one out of the bag, a plain envelope with my name neatly written on the front. The card was a simple white affair and there was a business card type thing inserted with the card.

Steph,

Sorry I was clueless this weekend.

But now I have something else I can plan for!

Thanks for coming.

Bobby

PS here's your Red Cross Babysitting card, you earned it

It was a sweet card, but if my mother or Valerie ever found out about the Red Cross I'd get stuck with Val's kids on a regular basis.

The next one had 'Babe' scrawled on the envelope, also simple, it was a kind of linen and of the best quality.

Babe,

I promise your horizons will be gentle this month.

No pressure and no expectations.

R

Well that was different. Wonder what he had in mind, exactly what does 'no pressure and no expectations' really mean? Was it time to worry? If it was time to worry, how worried should I be?

Next I found a small folded piece of paper that had chicken scratch on it.

Steph,

I was an ass this weekend. Sorry.

My mouth overrides my brains sometimes.

Lester

PS. If you forgive me, I'll make it worth your time!

I guessed I could forgive him, he had broken some bad news to me. I could cut him a break, this time. I really wasn't so sure I wanted to find out just 'how he would make it worth my time'; I'd deal with him later.

There was a small bluish envelope with just the letter 'S' on it. On a piece of printer paper was neatly written:

Steph,

Glad you came with us. Come by whenever you need a chocolate hit.

Think of me as your 'dealer'.

Tank

Cute. Very cute. Tank had some really nice qualities and he was a lifesaver this weekend. I was glad he and Lula had found each other.

The final envelope had a single piece of notebook paper in it. It read:

Querida

Quiero que no estas enojada conmigo.

No quiero perderte.

Eres alguien tan especial a mi.

Te doy un beso y todo de mi carino.

Siempre,

C

Well that's just lovely. Not only did I not speak Spanish, I didn't read it either. I was going to have to get to a bookstore or a library and get a dictionary. I knew I could ask Ranger or Lester to read it to me and tell me what it meant, but I thought that this might be private. I mean the guys know most of what goes on in my life, but I needed a few things I could keep just for me. I figured since it was written in Spanish, he didn't want the whole wide world knowing whatever it was that it said.

The cards were touching and sweet, the ones I could read anyway. And they were all over my bag? What the hell? Was this a group project or did they each stick their own envelope in when no one was looking? Were they all practicing their 'Secret Squirrel' stuff on my bags? Couldn't they have just left these in my inbox at work?

I put them at the bottom of my underwear drawer for the time being. Anything I left out on an open surface would be easily accessible to a Merry Man who 'needed' to break in. I didn't think they'd have the guts to check out my dresser drawers on a 'search and destroy' mission. OK they wouldn't be afraid of invading my privacy, and they probably wouldn't tell me about it if they did. To any of the Merry Men if they didn't get caught in the act it was considered no harm no foul.

I decided then and there that what was past was past. I wasn't going to dwell on any thing that happened this weekend or even this afternoon. Sure I was going back to Denial Land but my passport was in good order and I was racking up the frequent 'denier' miles. Besides I'd always admired Scarlett O'Hara, the one time queen and czarina of Denial Land. Scarlett was my one true role model, I considered her to be my idol for her ability to deny everything and keep on moving forward.

I was getting hungry and it was past my regular dinner time. There were a lot of things I could deny, but not my stomach. I decided to call the Thai place down the street. I placed an order that was big enough to save me from my own cooking for at least a couple of days.

I had just put the bags back in the closet when there was a knock on the door. The guy from the Thai place was early. I grabbed the wallet from my purse as I headed toward to door.

I called out, "Be right there."

I opened the door without checking the peephole first. It was Ranger looking tired. He was carrying my take out and another bag. What the?

"Babe, expecting company tonight?" he asked. His voice sounded a little tight, it seemed like he was still in borderline territorial mode this evening. It also looked like he had beaten the delivery boy to the door.

"Nope, it's just for me," I said. I was treated to the raised eyebrow so I continued, "I wanted to have the freedom not to cook for a couple of days. This stuff is great leftover. Why?"

"I was in the neighborhood and wanted to see if you would join me for dinner," he said.

"That'd be great. Do you want to share this or do you want to go out? Do you mind if I change?" I was starting to get in touch with my inner Albert Kloughn and didn't want to ruin a potentially nice evening.

"You look fine just like you are," he said. "The company is what's important, not the food."

Would tonight be about love and romance? It might have been under other circumstances, but not now. Nope, tonight is about 'love and romance', in my dreams. More likely tonight would be a 'review' of being more aware of my surroundings and things I could have done to avoid being put in compromising positions or why 'planning' was such a good idea. Planning was highly overrated in my world.

I was distracted by the smells coming from the bags. My stomach won out over the possibility of dinner someplace else, so I simply went into the kitchen and pulled out plates, utensils and a couple of glasses. "We have bottled water, beer, Coke or wine from a box. Sir, do you have a preference?" I asked.

"Did you drink the wine I brought over last week?" he asked.

"Of course not. I'm not used to keeping the good stuff around, so it didn't cross my mind that I even had it. Do you want that with dinner?" I asked.

"No, but put it in the fridge, we'll have some later," he said.

OK, he was planning to stay for a while. If it is just to visit, good; if it was another of his famous 'talks', I wasn't so sure. I decided to hope it was just for the company. I grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the fridge and brought them to the table.

Ranger ate what I ordered without complaint and a fair amount of gusto. I made a mistake and ordered a couple of veggie items, lucky for him. I guessed he hadn't eaten much on the trip in addition to the not sleeping much. Guess the temple was going to need to be overhauled if this stuff kept up.

Dinner was pretty quiet until he brought up the subject of Hector and Lester. Just what I was needing. Not.

"So," he said a little too casually, "is there a reason why both Hector and Lester came by to see you today?"

I thought for a minute and prayed my eye wouldn't twitch. I decided to go for part of the truth. Right now I didn't want to play "Truth or Consequences" but I didn't want to lie either.

"Well Lester brought me my bags. I'm not sure who brought the car; I haven't been down yet, but I assume it's in the parking lot. And Hector wanted to talk," I said. It was the truth as far as it went.

"Talk about what?" Ranger asked. Suddenly he wasn't looking tired anymore and it didn't look like he was going to give up the subject.

"I don't know. The usual stuff friends talk about. You know, what made him move here, what he wants from life, stuff like that," I said, again this was true but not detailed.

"Did you learn anything?" he asked.

"Yes, but that's between us. Hey wait a minute, if we're friends, I should have that talk with you. You never talk about yourself. What do you want from life?" I asked feeling very proud that I had taken the spotlight off of myself.

"Can I think about that and get back to you?" he asked.

I wasn't sure if he was kidding. Did he need a game plan or a strategy to answer a simple question like that? Jeez.

"Sure," I said. I rose and cleared the table. "Wine now or later?"

"Later," he said. He helped put the dinner stuff away and clean up the kitchen. We finished the work in silence.

"Hey, I noticed you had a sack in your hands that wasn't from the Thai place. Is it for anyone I know or did you bring it so you could take leftovers home?" I teased.

"I just brought you a little something. I hope you don't mind," he said. Funny he seemed to go into bashful mode at the idea of what was in the bag. Probably it wasn't from Pleasure Treasures, so it was most likely OK and my ears wouldn't turn red.

"Well, can I have it?" I asked.

He handed me the bag and it had several of his old black t-shirts in it. What?

Before I could form the question, he said, "I like to see you in something I gave you. This way, you'll have enough shirts of your own to wear if you go on Bobby's camping trip this summer. Plus if you decide to wear any of them, they're longer than Hector's shirt was. Even though I always find you tempting, I don't like other men looking at you that way. I know I have no right to feel that way, but I do."

"I've been invited to this summer's Boy Scout camp? You've got to be kidding. I was pretty much a wet blanket and moody," I said.

I decided to ignore the comment on Hector's shirt and the apparent confession of jealousy. Talking with Ranger about jealousy was kind of like opening Pandora's box; not something I wanted to do, there might be things there I really didn't either want or need to know about. It was safer to ignore that subject altogether.

"Bobby thought it was good for the kids to have some diversity this weekend, and thinks that an afternoon session on good manners might not be out of place this summer," he said in all seriousness.

"I don't really know what I think about that. I mean I will probably get my period again and then it will be a re-run of the weekend except longer with lots of bugs and too much humidity. I don't think he really wants to be alone with me where he can't get away, you know?" I said.

"He won't be alone with you. It'll most likely be the same group of adults as before, more or less. You can even have your own tent. Lester has even promised to make sure to respect your privacy," he said. "Besides, Tank figures Tastykakes will work instead of Hershey's because of the heat and he wants to test his theory. He was planning to stock up so he'd be ready for you."

"Wow. What do you say to that?" I asked.

"Say 'yes', if you want to come. Say 'Ranger, sleep in my tent and protect me from the things that go bump in the night' and I will," he said, his voice was husky and wistful at the same time, there was nothing false in the way he was saying it.

Then he bent down and kissed me. He was holding on for dear life. It was like he was a drowning man and I was a life preserver. This kiss was wild and thorough. When it ended I could barely catch my breath, neither could he.

During the kiss he started walking us backward towards the bedroom. I hadn't realized what was happening until we were almost to the bed and he'd untucked my shirt and his hands were moving rapidly up my ribcage. I moved my hand to the front of his shirt and I said, "No. Not this, not tonight."

"Is it because of, you know? It doesn't bother me if it doesn't bother you, Babe," he said, I knew he was referring to my period. "A woman's body should be worshipped at all times; it shouldn't be restricted because it is functioning normally."

The last time he'd made an offer it sounded cheesy, this time it sounded sincere, honest and was very tempting. But there was still no indication of a future relationship or if this was a one time deal. I knew I was going to have to turn him down.

"Actually, I appreciate the offer, but it really does bother me. Sorry," I said.

Ok. I have had invitations from two perfectly functional men, who might or might not be Mr. Right, for a romp in my bed on the same day, not a few hours apart. Here I was, I had turned them both down. What was wrong with me? Oh yeah, I still didn't want to deal with a bad morning after.

"I've been desperate to hold you for days, will you give me that? Sleep with me. Dream with me. Be next to me. All night. Tonight. Please?" he asked and then he started the whole kissing thing again.

"OK, but it's a little too early to go to bed. We need to do something for at least an hour," I said as I started walking us away from the bed and back into the living room.

The slightly haunted look was immediately gone, Ranger's regular 'wolf' persona was back, "Oh I can think of a lot of things to do with an hour."

"Not those kinds of things. We need to do something that will turn the internal temperature down a little so we can sleep when we go to bed," I said.

He looked disappointed, but he had been expecting the answer.

I started to look in the cupboard in the living room. I didn't have a lot of games but I had a couple. I hated to babysit Mary Alice and Angie by myself, so I got the games so we could do something together other than just sit around and watch TV. Actually they were the same games that Val and I had played as kids, I borrowed them from Mom's attic.

I said, "Alright, here are your choices: Scrabble, Battleship or Clue. If you don't like those I've got a deck of cards and we can play Black Jack."

"Battleship."

I had never been all that good at memory games before my time with Tank. I hadn't played Battleship in years and I had forgotten that it was as much a memory game as the one Tank and I played. I did pretty well. We had each won a game and were in the middle of a third when Ranger started to yawn.

"Go clean up for bed, all the towels are clean in the bathroom. There's a new toothbrush in the drawer in the usual place. I'll be in after you," I said to him.

For a while Ranger was breaking in on a regular basis to 'sleep' with me. I got in the habit of picking up new toothbrushes and razor blades when they went on sale. I guess I was living up to the Boy Scout motto of 'being prepared' even if was just in razors and toothbrushes.

I cleared the game pieces and put it away. The place looked pretty straight for once. My mother had a habit of doing an industrial cleaning if she ever went on vacation. If someone broke in, she didn't want them to think she lived like a slob. It was one of her habits that rubbed off on me.

I was done with the evening tidy and turned off the lights in the living room. The nightlight was on in the bedroom. Ranger was already on 'his' side of the bed fluffing the pillows and adjusting the blankets.

I took one of the shirts that he had just given me in with me to the bathroom so I could do my bedtime routine. I climbed in next to him.

"Thank you, Babe," he said.

"For what?" I asked.

"Wearing the shirt. Like I said, I like seeing you in something I gave you," he said as he reached over and turned off the light.

I put my head on his chest and one leg between his and promptly fell asleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night and Ranger was still next to me. He was breathing evenly. I didn't want to disturb him, but Mother Nature had called and it was time to answer. I shifted and started to get out of the bed when I heard him mumble, "No te vayas. Quedate, please Babe." (Don't go. Stay.)

The words, such as they were, sounded vaguely like Hector's the other night. Lovely, looked like I was going to have learn some Spanish.

I figured what he was meaning and so I said in a low voice, "Be right back."

A grunt came by way of reply. I did my business as quickly as I could and went back into the bedroom. I seldom got to look at Ranger when he wasn't guarded, he looked peaceful and relaxed. He still looked tired, like he needed some extra sleep.

I got back in next to him and resumed my previous position. What? My pillow was broken in and positioned just right. Besides, I didn't have much snuggle time available with Ranger, best to make the most use of it now while it was available. I placed a couple of kisses on his chest and nuzzled his neck before I put my head back down. His arm automatically went around my body and held me tightly to him.

I woke up later to look at him looking at me.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," came the reply, followed by a kiss on the top of my head.

Obviously an infusion of coffee was going to be needed if we were actually going to talk to each other.

"Hungry?" asked my pillow.

"Always. I don't have any breakfast stuff here unless you want leftovers from last night. Have you been awake long?"

"A while. I enjoy holding you. And I think we should go out for something if all you have is leftover food from the Thai place. Don't want to make you have to cook unnecessarily later this week," he said.

Smartass.

He'd been looking at me for a couple of days without all of the make up in place; so I took the ultimate risk and decided to go without it again today. The weather was almost back to normal, still a little cool but nowhere as cold as it had just been. I opted for a denim skirt and a button down with a pair of flats. Ranger had left some shirts and things here in the past. Fortunately they were all hanging in the closet so he didn't need to rummage through the drawers. I was going to need to find another place for Hector's note until I could find out what it meant.

We ate breakfast at a little diner. Looked like the temple was back in full effect today, probably making up for last night and the weekend. He had some kind of fruit and yogurt with his coffee and I had the high fat, high cholesterol special also with coffee.

"So is there anything in particular you want to do today?" I asked him.

"Why don't I make something up as we go long?" he responded.

"Sure. But this is your month, your horizons. I found the note you left in my bag. It said something about 'gentle horizons' and 'no pressure, no expectations'. Did you have something in mind when you wrote that?"

He didn't answer me as he directed me to the car. He started it and began to drive.

I decided that since my 'horizons' had previously been stretched pretty far, I wasn't going to push him.

Maybe Batman needed a day away from the rest of the world himself.

A/N: In case you don't read Spanish, Hector's note will be read to her by Ranger in the last chapter.

I know there are those of you out there that have been waiting patiently for Ranger's time to come, it officially 'begins' in the next chapter.

Thanks for reading! Alf