JE created the characters and world below.
Jenny (JenRar) thank you for sticking with me as the beta on this story even though my writing has gotten a lot more sporadic. You are such a gift to keep me going in the right direction.
Chapter 17 - Answering Calls
After dismissing the core team from our weekly meeting, I couldn't help but notice Bobby check his phone, and then quickly exit. He got notification of every injury to any staff person, so I didn't question his hasty exit, knowing he'd let me know if one of the men were seriously injured.
Lester, however, stayed in his seat, which distracted me quickly from whatever had called Bobby away. I waited for him to speak first, knowing he'd give away whatever was on his mind easily.
"You feeling all right?" he began with a smirk, which I knew meant he was about to ride me over something.
"Fine," I tersely replied, not wanting to give anything away.
"You aren't coming down with anything, are you?" he pushed a little more, getting on my nerves.
"What's the point, Santos?" I was tired of his game and needed to know what he was after.
He pointed to the top of my desk at the wrapper of a cough drop I'd used prior to our meeting. "You're sounding a little worse for wear, and I've rarely seen you suck on those things, except when you're sick."
I narrowed my eyes, hoping he'd pick up on the clue to stop before he took this any further. I should have known better; in thirty years, my cousin has never known to stop when he was ahead. "Of course, you're acting just fine, so I figured you must have strained your voice somehow and wondered if you wanted to share what happened."
He seemed so satisfied with himself that I couldn't allow him to sit there thinking he'd bested me in any way. I could have called him to the mats, but I already beat his ass on a near weekly basis for some infraction, so I didn't really see the point. Instead, I decided to try a little shock therapy.
"Not that it's any of your business, but my voice is damn near gone because last night, I used it more than I ever have. Stephanie was determined to try everything she could think of until I made enough noise that I lost my voice, and you know how stubborn she can be when she sets her mind to it."
Then I tightened down all the control I could harness over the muscles in my face in order to be sure I gave nothing away as he processed that I'd basically just admitted to a night of sex so wild, I was reduced to sucking on cough drops to soothe my throat. Lester knew me well enough to know in my wilder years, there were few things that were off the table for me sexually, and to admit to a night beyond anything I'd ever experienced was one hell of an admission.
Lester's mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Finally, Tank spoke up and said, "Man, if you can't come up with anything to say, then shut your mouth." I could see my second in command struggling not to laugh at Santos as well.
It took a few minutes, but Lester finally stood up, although he didn't fully straighten up, as though something near or below his waist was slightly uncomfortable. I decided to let it slide and not call him to the mats over his obvious reaction to the mental image of Stephanie being sexually adventurous. As he walked out – with a slight limp, no less – I tried to rid my own mind of the memory of Stephanie last night in order to keep myself from having to walk out the same way as my cousin.
After he left, Tank looked at me, and then cracked up. I couldn't hold back any longer and joined him laughing over Lester's reaction to my response. As we pulled ourselves together, I noticed Cal standing in the doorway, looking at us as though we'd lost our minds.
"Everything okay, boss?" he asked when I looked at him.
Since when was laughter more cause for alarm than angry outbursts? I know we tended to be more reserved and showed our emotions in subtle ways, but being called out for being happy made Stephanie's point that I probably needed to open up around the guys a little more often.
"It's all good," I told him, lifting my chin slightly to dismiss him.
When he stayed in place, I was on edge that seeing me with my guard down temporarily had given Cal the impression that he didn't have to heed an instruction.
Before I could question his apparent insubordination, he spoke up. "Hector just called and said you probably should go down to three."
My heart literally stopped beating as panic flooded my system. "Who's hurt?"
"He didn't say; he just told me to send you down," Cal reported, doing nothing to assuage my worry that Stephanie's partner wanted me to come down to the medical floor.
I made my way down immediately, focused solely on finding Stephanie and assuring myself that she was okay. As I hit the stairwell, I was trying to calm myself by dwelling on the fact that if she were badly injured, she'd be at St. Francis, and not in Bobby's exam room.
As soon as I opened the door to the third floor, I heard her voice. It was louder than she usually spoke, so I assumed she was arguing over something, which calmed me. If she was worked up enough to argue, then she was most likely okay.
"Will you stop pressing on my head," she demanded with no response from Bobby. Before I made it to his door, she exclaimed, "That hurt! Damn it, Bobby, stop!"
There is a strange disconnect that occurs when your head knows one thing, but your heart refuses to accept it as true. I knew for a fact that Bobby was a fine medic. He's well trained, competent, and exceedingly gentle when it comes to Stephanie. But despite that knowledge, my ears heard my woman complaining that someone was hurting her, and my mouth refused to stay shut.
"Step off, Brown," I commanded as I walked through the doorway.
"Ranger, I just need to feel the knot on the back of her head to be sure there are no cuts that need attention," he explained much more patiently than I deserved for barging in and throwing around orders in the area universally acknowledged as his domain.
Stephanie rolled her eyes, but sat still for him to finish his exam. When he stepped back, he made a few notes in the thick folder that contained details of every time he'd seen Stephanie for one reason or another. After he set down his pen, he turned to his cabinet and started pulling out items and setting them on his rolling tray. I recognized the ice pack and Advil and leaned against the door frame, finally accepting that if that was all she needed then she was fine.
He handed them to her and asked, "You okay?" It might seem strange for a medical professional to ask that question after their exam, but I knew Bobby wouldn't accept her answer until he'd verified for himself that it was true.
"I'm fine," she replied, more from habit than fact.
Bobby placed a quick kiss to the top of her head, before reminding her to text him anytime if she felt differently. I smiled slightly at the fact that most of the men had already begun to adjust the everyday things we said to her to make up for her lack of hearing. The standard line from Bobby would have been "call me with any changes." Steph would have understood what he meant, but he was trying to respect her by telling her to text, since she wouldn't be able to hear to complete a phone conversation. It was subtle, but I saw examples like that every day of how the men were supporting her.
He stopped in front of me and said quickly, "She took a fall off a porch while picking up a skip with Hector. He said she hit her head pretty hard on the sidewalk and there's a goose egg, but I don't think it's severe enough of an injury to worry about." Without further commentary, he walked out and left us alone.
I moved quickly to stand between her legs, where they hung off the exam table. I cupped her face between my hands and looked in her eyes, searching for any indication that Bobby might be understating what happened. The silence stretched on, and the color of her eyes intensified, as the tears that were pooling deepened the shade of blue.
I knew she hated crying, so I pulled her to me and released her from the intense staring I'd been doing, no doubt putting her on edge. As soon as her face rested on my chest, she started talking.
"We were picking up Rodney Johnson in the 'Burg. I've taken him in easily before, so I convinced Hector to stand to the side and let me take the lead. Rodney isn't the most balanced person, and I knew he'd try to run if he saw someone he didn't recognize on his porch. I knocked on the door, and then Hector gave me the signal that he could hear steps coming my way, but Rodney must have looked out his window first and spotted Hector, because he decided to bolt. He shoved the door open, which for some reason on his house, opens out instead of in, like a normal door should. I wasn't expecting the door to swing open, so when it hit me, I fell backwards and off the narrow porch, onto the sidewalk."
I ran my hands up and down her arms to comfort without holding her tightly, giving the impression that I wasn't panicked over her story. I knew it must have hurt, but in the big picture, this type of injury could have happened to her even with her hearing, so there was no point in overreacting.
I heard her sniff a few times and allowed her to continue hiding against my shirt.
"Hector jumped off the porch and took Rodney down so fast, I didn't even see it. I did see his hand slip when he was pulling at the seatbelt to put him in the SUV. At least, I think that's what Hector said happened when he punched Rodney."
I couldn't stop myself from laughing a little at the excuse Hector had given for teaching Rodney a lesson about hurting Stephanie. I hadn't asked what had happened, because I knew there was no way he would've let it go unpunished.
She let me have my moment, and when I stopped moving, she leaned back to look at me. I knew that meant she was going to ask something that would require a response, and I hoped it was a question with an easy answer. After the stress of thinking she'd been more seriously hurt, I was suddenly keen on getting her upstairs to have my own exam of any possible injuries.
"Do you think it's a mistake for me to go after skips?" Her question sounded so uncertain, I wasn't sure how to respond. "Is it too dangerous?"
I took a deep breath, trying to come up with a decent answer to her question that wouldn't make it seem like I was trying to cage her, yet addressed her concerns. "I think it is more dangerous than it used to be with your hearing, but today's incident wouldn't have been prevented if you'd heard him. The door still would have hit you."
She shook her head, as though today wasn't part of her question. "No, I mean in general. Am I being an idiot to go after skips?" She wasn't going to let this go.
I picked up her hand and held it in mine, playing with her slender fingers. "You aren't being an idiot," I stated first, hoping she would believe me. "It is dangerous, but you've agreed to work with Hector, and as far as I've heard, you haven't attempted to lose him once when you're out, so you're being more careful about your safety."
She looked down at our joined hands and let out a sign. Something told me she was beginning to doubt the wisdom of continuing to work in bond enforcement, and I'd be lying if I said the idea of her stopping didn't thrill me. I squeezed her hand to get her to look up once more.
"What do you want to do?" I turned the question around on her and hoped she'd answer so I didn't have to guess.
She shrugged and sat there quietly. I didn't want to ask again, but the longer the silence went on, the more worried I became about the answer. I guess when it came to Steph, I wasn't against breaking nearly every rule I had for myself.
Before I was reduced to begging her to tell me what thoughts were flying through her head, I got a text message and grabbed my phone to look. It was from Papi, asking me to send Hector out to look at their home alarm. It was giving them a silent warning, even though nothing was setting it off.
Stephanie asked what was wrong as I read the message, so I flipped it around for her to read it herself. Her face lifted a little, and she said, "I can fix it. We had a similar problem at a house across town yesterday, and Hector taught me how. It has to be reset. Most likely, there was either a power outage or surge, and the system didn't come back online fully."
I figured she was right and was impressed at how confidently she'd explained the problem. Glancing at my watch, I saw if we left now, we could be there in time to resolve the issue with the alarm and have lunch with my parents, so I suggested just that.
She glanced down at her clothes and said, "Can I have fifteen minutes to change?"
I thought she looked fine as she was but knew better than to say no to her question. "I'll be in the garage when you're ready," I assured her, glad to see her happily jump off the exam table and walk out much more self-assured than she'd been ten minutes before.
I quickly dialed my parents' house and asked about lunch with Stephanie and me. They were thrilled to hear of us coming and promised to have something light for us to share. With that done, I sent Tank a message that I was going to check out an alarm issue at my parents' house, and then made my way to the garage to wait for Stephanie.
When I stepped out of the stairwell, I began to regret the more relaxed interactions of late with the guys. Lester was leaning against my Porsche, smiling at me like he knew a secret I didn't and couldn't wait to tell me.
"Santos," I said both as a greeting and a warning. I didn't want him to think because I joked with him instead of taking him to the mats over his comments this morning that I would approach all his insubordination that way.
"So, I just got a call from Mama," he began, referring to my aunt – his mother. I waited, and he continued talking. "She said her sister called and invited her to lunch at their house."
I gritted my teeth, trying to contain my frustration at my mother for inviting guests over for lunch to interrogate Stephanie. I hadn't specifically told them not to when I called, but I'd assumed after asking them the last time we were there to keep it small that they would understand I wanted that to continue now, as well.
I snapped out of my internal complaining and noticed Lester was still watching me. "So since Mama was invited, she's picking up my sister, too," he added, causing me to growl.
He put his hands up to surrender and backed up. "Hey, man, don't take my head off, I just wanted to warn you so you were prepared before you got there."
For all his flaws, he was still a keeper. "Thanks," I told him as he moved around the car toward the stairwell.
"Oh, yeah, Ranger," he called out to me, getting my attention once more. When I looked up, he threw something through the air, which I easily caught. Glancing down, I realized I was holding a small package of cough drops. "You might want these, because if Tia Maria thinks you're losing your voice, she won't stop questioning you until she gets to the bottom of things. And something tells me you aren't going to want to go all full disclosure with her like you did with me."
"Santos." I used his name as more of a threat than an order, and he quickly ducked behind the door to the stairs, disappearing from view.
Before I could reset my mood, Stephanie stepped out of the elevator in a dress created to bring out the color of her eyes. She was wearing strappy sandals and had braided her hair so that only a few rogue curls were falling around her face and neck. As much as I loved her hair down, it was beautiful this way, as well.
Thirty-six inches from the car, she looked down and ran her hands over her waist, as though checking that everything was pulled together as it should be. I stepped forward to take her hand in mine and stop her from any more adjusting.
When she looked up, I assured her, "You are stunning."
Her eyes narrowed a little, and then she smiled. I knew it wasn't a word she had ever heard me say, so I guessed she was struggling to reconcile what she thought I'd said, since it didn't connect with something she thought I would say.
I decided to change it a little to be sure she'd gotten the right message. "You didn't need to change for my parents, but this is simply beautiful."
That got me a warm smile, as she lifted her fingers to touch my jaw lightly. "I didn't change for your parents," she stated, causing me to question her with a single raised eyebrow. "I changed for you."
With that, she stepped around me and moved to the passenger side of the car, waiting for the door to be unlocked. I didn't know if it was possible for her understand what it did to me when she acted so self confident and assured, but every time she tried to get the best of me, I found myself wanting to draw closer to her, and this was no exception.
I knew I couldn't let her walk into a big family lunch without a little warning, so I followed her to the car under the guise of opening her door, but my hand on her waist stopped her progress.
"My aunt and cousin will be at lunch with my parents today," I warned her.
"Okay," she quickly agreed, not appearing to be put off with that news.
"It's Lester's mother and sister," I added, wanting to be sure she understood the circus that would be waiting for her.
Instead, she surprised me once again by giving me a truly wicked smile and saying, "So I'll have a chance to get the scoop on Lester for embarrassing stories, without him there to defend himself."
"I love the way you think," I told her with a laugh.
When I started the car, there was a CD playing. It was just some background music from the last time I'd driven, but knowing Stephanie couldn't hear it, I reached forward to shut it off.
Stephanie's hand stopped mine, and she told me, "Leave it on."
I was going to object, but she jumped in once more. "You can't put all the sounds in your life on hold because I can't hear them. If you want to hear the music, then leave it playing."
I took my hand back, trying to accept what she was saying, and let the sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club fill the silence between us. Knowing my mother might be calling in more reinforcements, I wanted to get us there as soon as possible so that we didn't enter to a full house. With that thought I began driving as aggressively as I dared to with Stephanie in the car.
There were some risks I no longer considered to be worth taking when it could possibly end with her being hurt. I guess that was just one more way my life had changed since I'd let my guard down with Stephanie. While I always thought I'd resent a change like that, I found that the benefits of having her in my life well outweighed the sacrifice of an occasional bit of fun, like defensively driving at over a hundred and ten miles an hour.
When we pulled up to the house, there were no other cars visible, making me think I'd gotten here in time to tell Mama that I didn't appreciate her springing the family on Stephanie. We walked to the front door hand-in-hand, with Steph carrying the large bag I knew contained her communication devices, as well as a few tools Hector had given her as she learned more about our systems.
Papi opened the door and pulled Stephanie to him in a tight hug. He winked at me as he held my woman to him, and then pulled back to say, "I knew if I set that alarm off, it would get you back to the house."
Steph laughed at his lame attempt at a joke, much too kind to insult him by saying it wasn't funny. Mama came out of the kitchen and moved to pull Stephanie away from my father and draw her into a hug of her own. As she pulled back, she placed her palm against Steph's check, and then kissed her other one to say hello. It struck me that usually when I came home, the warm greeting at the door was for me, but so far, no one had even bothered to say hello to me.
I heard a loud crash in the kitchen, and my mother turned away, reverting to Spanish out of habit to swear loudly that if anybody was touching her food and ruining her lunch, there would be hell to pay. My mother was a loving woman, but from experience, I knew better than to push her when she started talking like that.
My father explained to Steph, "Please excuse my wife. Some of our grandchildren are here today, and she has her hands full in the kitchen, trying to keep them straight."
"How about you show me to the control panel on your security system, and I can take care of that while she is straightening everyone out in the kitchen?" Stephanie suggested.
"Of course, of course," Papi repeated, leading the way to the panel hidden at the side of the door.
We both watched as Stephanie looked at the system and typed in the standard reset code to the keypad. It went through a series of beeps, before it settled back into the silent alarm mode. I was surprised that didn't work, as I had assumed it would. But Stephanie didn't show any disappointment, as she put her bag on the floor and reached in to get a screwdriver to take off the face plate of the panel. There was a small piece of me that wanted to object, but when her nimble fingers made such fast work of removing the covering, I saw she had been well trained by Hector – even down to the way she put the screws in the face plate before setting it on the floor in front of her; she was mirroring the same actions I'd seen Hector perform hundreds of times at other clients.
She dipped into her bag for four other tools, including a circuit tester, but she eventually smiled and whispered, "I've got 'cha," and then pulled out two wires, spliced them, and recapped with the screw on connecter. When she typed in the reset code, the system went through its self check and came up clear and ready to be armed. Smiling with satisfaction that she'd fixed the problem, she quickly replaced the plate to the front, and then turned around.
My father spoke first. "You are so much more than a pretty face, Estephania, I knew that. But where did you learn to do that?"
"Hector taught me," she answered simply.
"You are learning Spanish?" Papi followed up.
Steph seemed confused by the question briefly, and then clarified, "No, Hector knows sign language, and if there is something he needs to tell me that we can't figure out by signing, he will just tell me in English."
Now it was my turn to be surprised. "English?"
She nodded. "He thought you knew. He understands more than he can speak, but he's pretty good at talking, too. He just prefers Spanish and learned early on that if he stayed quiet, people would bend to what he wanted."
I shook my head. Stephanie had once again tamed a savage beast. No one would ever guess that Hector knew English, but no one would be surprised that it was Stephanie that had teased out his little secret first. The longer she was around the guys, the more I was convinced that no secret was safe. People confided in her without a second thought, because they knew whatever they told her would be met with complete acceptance.
Two hours later, after a long and loud lunch and an extended period of Stephanie being hauled away from me into the kitchen, while my mother, aunt, and cousins pounced on her, we finally said our goodbyes.
I stopped at the end of their street to be sure she was all right.
"I'm fine," she assured me, as though my concerns were ridiculous. "I had a great time hearing all about Lester. I can't wait for the right moment to share a little of what I learned."
I ran my finger down her jaw line and smiled at the woman I loved. "I'm so proud of you," I told her, using a more formal statement of my usual tag line, in order to be sure she understood how true the words were.
"Why? All I did was eat lunch," she replied, as though my pride didn't fit in this circumstance.
I raised an eyebrow, but I could see it was going to take more than that to make my point. I leaned over to place a soft kiss on her lips, before pulling back to say, "I'm filled with pride over the woman you are. How you handle my family with such grace, even when they were talking so quickly, you had to struggle to keep up." Then I remembered the beginning of our visit and added, "Plus, you masterfully repaired the issue with their alarm. I'm going to need to talk to Hector about that."
"Why do you need to talk to Hector?" she wondered a little defensively.
"Because Brett has been bugging me to get back in the field, but I couldn't let him switch over full time, because Hector had more work than he could handle, and Brett was the only other person qualified to help him. It seems to me that you are more than qualified to assist, so if Hector agrees, then your newfound skills might make Brett very happy," I told her, loving the way she lit up with my praise.
As we made our way back to Haywood, I found my zone easily. Cuban music was playing in the background, Stephanie was being soothed to sleep in the seat beside me, and I thought I had a new offer to make Stephanie if she wanted to get out of the office, but was worried about picking up skips. Remembering how I'd watched her in action at my parents' house led me to believe my earlier statement about having her replace Brett was an ideal solution.
I suddenly realized I was happy. It might sound like a strange admission, but I'd spent most of my life doing things and not stopping to appreciate what I'd done. In the month I'd spent as Steph's man, I was proud of what we had built together. We were sharing our lives, the hard and the easy parts. That was something I didn't think would ever be possible for me, and yet, I was doing it as naturally as I breathed.
Recognizing that as true put me on edge that now that I had all my dreams realized, I had so much more to lose, but a quick glance at Stephanie eased that fear. The peace I found anytime I was near her when she was sleeping eased me once again. I had done a great deal in my life that I wasn't proud of, but what I had with Stephanie was probably my greatest accomplishment. If I did nothing else, I could say that I had loved a woman with my whole heart and was blessed enough to know she loved me, too.
Moving us down the highway toward our home, I realized there was nothing more important than that.