Sorry for the delay! I'm feeling much better, and appreciate everyone's kind words on the last chapter. I think I was able to go back through all the reviews, but if I missed you, know I appreciate your time reading and leaving reviews.

Rating for language; don't own them, make no profit…

…

"I want a divorce," she said.

Ranger stared at her, careful to leave his face blank. He supposed he should have known it was coming. Rachel was right - he was quickly approaching a point with Stephanie where he wasn't going to be able to undo the pain he had caused her. A point where forgiving him would simply no longer be an option.

Maybe he'd never be able to let her into his life entirely, but maybe - just maybe - it would be enough. But either way, no way in hell was she just walking away. Not without a fight.

He reached for the stack of papers and flipped through them. A few months ago, he had had his lawyers draw up papers that were remarkably similar in some instances – trust funds for education, medical insurance, security measures. But in everything else, they differed entirely. She wanted no child support, no alimony, and no settlement.

"There's nothing here for you," he said. "It's all for the baby."

"Olivia," she said.

He glanced up at her over the top of the papers. "Okay," he said. "It's all for Olivia. There's nothing in this settlement for you."

"I'm pretty sure that having an accidental baby doesn't entitle me to your money. It is quite generous for Livy and if you're not okay with that–"

He snapped the papers shut, cutting her off. "I'm fine with that. Why isn't there child support here?"

"Because I don't need it."

He kept his tone measure and his choice of words logical, even though all he really wanted to do was reach over and throttle her. "You don't have a legal right to waive child support."

Her eyes got wider. "What?"

He picked up a pen from the table and started scratching through things. "Because of the income disparity," he said, not looking up from the papers, "the court will award significant child support, probably in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars a month."

At her gasp, he looked up and stared at her. "That's Livy's money, not yours, and no judge will give you the right to waive that. If you're uncomfortable spending it on her, then put it in a trust fund. With interest, it would be several million by the time she's ready to start college."

He wanted to smile at the dismayed look on her face, but he had a suspicion that there was something deeper going on here that he wasn't understanding. Most women would be grabbing at the cash, and while Steph had never been materialistic, she wasn't stupid. Children were expensive. "What about a settlement? Why isn't that in here."

She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. "I told you. I don't want your money."

He sighed and started writing in the margins again. He had acquired two pieces of property during the course of the marriage. Jersey was an equitable distribution state, meaning that of what he had acquired since the wedding, half went to her. He wrote the address of a house about ten minutes outside the Burg, in a good neighborhood, and made a mental note to change over the deed.

"What are you doing?" she said. She jabbed her finger at the paper. "What is that?"

"It's an address, Stephanie."

She glared at him. "I'm not taking your money."

"You're starting to sound like a broken record. It's not money, it's property. And according to state law, it's your property."

"Well, I don't want it." Her lips were pursed and she looked dangerously close to stopping her foot.

"You're entitled to a settlement of your own, Stephanie. You're my wife."

She flinched. "I'm pretty sure that term doesn't apply to our situation."

It will, he thought. He raised an eyebrow, waiting to see if she would continue, but she kept quiet, that mulish look on her face. "I'm not okay with the custody and visitation," he said.

She nodded.

"I want joint legal custody."

Her head snapped up. "What?"

"All decisions about the ba–Olivia," he corrected himself when she glared. "All decisions have to be made jointly. Visitation can wait until she's no longer nursing, but I want it to steadily increase so that by the time she's in school, it's split evenly."

"Why?"

"She's my daughter, Stephanie. Do you need more of a reason?"

"No." She stood up. "Have your lawyers make whatever changes you want and send it back to me. I'm going back to bed. You can leave now."

He waited until the he heard the bedroom door shut. The locked clicked into place, causing him to smile. Like that would stop him. He finished making notes on the paperwork and then walked over to the couch and lay down to get a couple hours sleep. Whether Steph liked it or not, he was sticking around until he wore her down. Hopefully that could be accomplished before Livy went to college.

…

Ranger woke an hour later to the sound of the baby fussing. Instantly alert, he used his pocketknife to get into Steph's bedroom. It only took a second to pop the lock. Steph was out cold, and hadn't heard the baby yet. He wondered how much sleep she had been managing to get. Probably not much.

He scooped Livy out of the bassinet and cuddled her close. She wasn't crying yet, so he walked her around the apartment for a few minutes, trying to buy some extra sleep for Steph. But within moments, the baby's face was scrunched up and he knew the screaming was imminent. He sat down on the edge of Steph's bed.

She mumbled something and reached for the baby, again barely awake enough to nurse Livy, let alone realize who he was. She didn't react when Livy stopping sucking and fell asleep. He touched Steph's shoulder. "She's done."

She sat up and shifted the baby before she noticed him. "I thought I told you to leave."

He didn't reply. She kept glaring for a minute, but then she tilted her head back against the pillows and closed her eyes, as if fighting him took more energy than she could muster at the moment. He reached for the baby.

Steph glared and didn't relinquish her. "I don't need your help."

He ignored her and took Livy from her arms, and headed back toward the changing table in the dining room. He could hear Steph grumbling and following him, but he didn't acknowledge her. Steph was stubborn, but he was worse. And she had a short attention span - if he stuck around long enough, she'd get fired up about something else and forget to keep telling him to leave.

He got Livy changed and turned around to face Steph, settling the baby against his left shoulder. She was still so little that even with the heel of his hand under her bottom, his fingers supported her head. Her mouth opened in a yawn, and then she made some more sucking motions as she settled against his shoulder.

Steph had her arms crossed. "Can you at least give me a time frame for when you're going back to Miami?"

"I'm not."

She sighed. "Okay. Then how long are you planning on staying here?" she said, waving her arms around the apartment.

"As long as you need help." He kissed her on the cheek as he walked past to lie Livy down. "Get over it, babe. You're not getting rid of me that easy."

He heard her stifled gasp behind him and turned around.

"You, um," she swallowed hard and put a hand out against the wall. "You called me babe."

He hadn't realized he had stopped, or that it had bothered her. He walked back to her and, holding Livy with one hand, he used the other to loop around her waist and pull her to him. His lips brushed across her temple, then lingered, as he spoke. "No matter what," he said softly, "you'll always be my babe."

She sagged against him, and he cursed himself in his head for doing this to her. He rubbed her back and held her tight. After a minute, she stiffened, as if realizing she was still angry. She pulled back from him and crossed her arms over her chest.

He closed a gentle hand around her forearm pushed her toward the bedroom. He made sure she was curled back in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, before lying Livy in her bassinet. He pulled off his boots and moved toward the other side of Steph's bed.

She eyed him suspiciously over the edge of the blanket. "What are you doing?"

"Your mother is going to be here in an hour. We both need all the sleep we can get before that happens, and your couch sucks."

"You're not sleeping here."

He ignored her and crawled in beside her. But he stayed on his side of the bed and within a few minutes, she relaxed.

"Why are you doing this?"

He tired to decide how much he should say. Finally, he just said, "Because Julie said she hates me and I'm a bad father."

"She's a teenager. I'm sure she didn't mean it."

"I know. But she was right." He turned to face her. "Rachel said I needed to either be a dad to both girls, or step back entirely. So here I am."

She regarded him seriously and for a second, he thought she was going to tell him to get out again. But then she said, "Good. I want you to have a good relationship with Livy. I want us to do the joint custody thing."

"Me too."

She studied him for another minute. Her eyes were shuttered, and her body was held stiff, as if she were bracing herself for something. "That explains about Livy, but what do you want from me?"

That was a question he wasn't willing to answer, knowing she wasn't ready to hear it. "I don't know, Steph. What do you want from me?"

…

She knew what she wanted - she wanted a divorce. What she didn't know is what the hell Ranger wanted. And why the hell had he shown up all of a sudden and decided to pick up parenting duties?

Her life had fallen into something that she loved. She had decorated her apartment and turned the dining room into a nursery, making the little space feel like home. Her job was good - the pay and benefits more than she needed, along with an environment she loved and just enough excitement to keep her from going stir crazy. And she had Livy.

For years she had put off making decisions about her life, terrified of making the wrong one. Joe or Ranger? Bounty hunting or the button factory? Burg housewife or Wonder Woman? But now those questions were moot. The cards had all been dealt. And while she might not have made the same decisions had she been forced to decide, she liked the hand she was holding right now. For the first time in her adult life, she was living a life that she loved.

And she'd be damned before she let Ranger or anyone else take that away from her. She'd give him visitation, she'd even give him joint custody, but she'd give him nothing of herself.

She looked up at him without flinching. "I want you to sign the divorce papers."

He stared at her for a minute with no expression before finally dipping his head in agreement.

Rolling over, she moved away from him and tried to get some sleep. But no matter how long she lay there, her mind wouldn't turn off. He had called her babe. It was a ridiculous endearment, but it was hers. For years, that word had warmed her, identified her, and comforted her. To hear it now, in his low, deep voice, after functioning for so long with only his indifference, pierced her heart.

And for one brief, traitorous moment, she had been desperate to hear it again. She had leaned against his hard body, taking all the strength and comfort she could get.

But no more of that, she thought as she tried again, unsuccessfully, to get comfortable. She had control of her life now. She wasn't handing that over to anyone, especially someone she couldn't trust to stick around.

…

Thanks so much for reading! I'll go straight through now, one chapter each night from now until the last chapter on Saturday night.