"Babe," Ranger said as he bent his head down and kissed the top of her head. Stephanie mumbled into his chest and Ranger grinned, "Mary Lou is calling on your phone."
Stephanie moved her head up and looked at Ranger, he saw her eyes and how dark blue they looked at the moment. The sleepy mussed up look of her curly hair, and the kissable pout on her lips. Ranger tossed the ringing phone to the floor, "You can call her back."
"What?" Stephanie said in a sleep induced haze.
Ranger's grin broadened. "Exactly." He cupped her face and kissed her, he pulled back enough so his forehead was touching hers. "Let me show you how Mrs. Manoso gets woken up in the mornings."
He saw Stephanie lick her lips. "Is it morning?"
"Yeah, Babe. It is." Ranger captured her lips once again ignoring the cell phone that was ringing on the floor. He rolled them over as the cell phone quit. Ranger nibbled on Stephanie's neck as a new on slot of ringing started again, from his cell as well as Stephanie's cell. Stephanie arched up into Ranger's chest and her hand went out to Ranger's phone. Ranger looked up and saw her pick up his cell phone, he took it from her and saw the readout, Morelli again, Ranger tossed his phone on the floor along with hers. "Let them ring."
"What if it's something important?" Stephanie asked half awake now.
"You are important at the moment." Ranger slid under the covers and he could hear Stephanie's moan as he made his way down her body kissing and grazing his fingers down her sides. He felt the arch of her spine as he reached her center and the wicked grin on his face made the beast inside him roar with delight.
Stephanie stepped out of the bathroom forty minutes later. Ranger was sitting on the edge of the bed with his cell phone pressed to his ear. She smiled at him, waking up like Mrs. Manoso was a dream, a real good wet dream, that she found she could get used too.
"Yes, the meeting is still set for this afternoon." Ranger said and looked over to Stephanie who walked towards him. "No, let Alex know Stephanie isn't going to bring her into any of it."
Stephanie sat down on the bed in the towel and reached down to the floor and picked up her cell phone. She ran through the missed calls and saw she had seventeen of them, four had been Mary Lou, five of them from her mother, and the rest were from people she knew who kept up on the burg gossip. Stephanie dialed Mary Lou. Ranger had picked up a new cell phone for her yesterday and had it in service in a matter of an hour, and given out the new number the next hour to everyone that had mattered.
"About time you called me back," Stephanie heard Mary Lou on the other end.
"What's the burg emergency?" Stephanie asked. She saw Ranger hang up the phone and then felt him move in behind her and wrap his arms around her. She leaned back onto his shoulder as he kissed her neck.
"This is big news, real big news. Joe Morelli has a kid." Mary Lou said.
"WHAT?" Stephanie sat up straight and felt Ranger pull her back to his chest again.
"Calm down Babe." Ranger said silkily.
"I know! I know! I couldn't believe it when Christy called me. She said Evelyn called, Evelyn is the assistant to Beth Peterson, and Joe just left the office when Evelyn called Christy. Evelyn saw the birth certificate and the paternity lawsuit filed against him. Joe is a father. I can't believe this." Mary Lou rambled out quickly.
"Joe's name was actually on the birth certificate?" Stephanie asked. "Whose the kid?"
Ranger kept kissing Stephanie's nape on the back of her neck. He had wondered how long this would take before everyone in the burg knew. He figured it out when Mary Lou called to tell Stephanie what was going on, so he decided to make sure Stephanie had lost all of her tension before she made any calls.
"I don't know, Christy didn't say. Oh, that's the other line. I'll talk to you later." Mary Lou hung up.
Stephanie shut the cell phone off. "Oh my God. Joe can't be a father. This doesn't make sense."
"Whose the kid?" Ranger asked, knowing full well who the kid was.
"Mary Lou doesn't know." Stephanie said as her phone rang again, she answered it.
"Stephanie, why didn't you tell us your boyfriend had a daughter." Mrs. Plum started confronting her daughter.
"Mom, I told you, Joe and I broke up. I didn't know, I just found out from Mary Lou. So the kid is a girl?" Stephanie asked.
"Yes, Laura called Sarah who called Darla who called Evelyn's mother. Evelyn's mother heard it straight from her daughter that Joseph has a fifteen year old daughter. Caitlyn something or other. I thought Joseph was different, he didn't seem like the normal Morelli men. He didn't have any of the wild streaks that the Morelli men had. In his younger day yes, but I thought he would at least recognize his own daughter, even his cousin who had a child when he was a teenager at least recognized his son."
Stephanie could feel Ranger rubbing his hands up and down her side now and circling them towards the front to her own stomach. His lips stayed about the nape of her neck as he kept placing soft kisses there. Stephanie would have already been up and pacing if it hadn't been for Ranger keeping her jealous demons at bay. Jealous over the fact, that someone had more claim to Morelli than she did. She was with Ranger, but she still loved Joe, and it hurt to find out that he had a kid this way.
"He was wild when he was younger, but Joe would recognize his child, if he knew about it. At least I think he would. Mom, the girl is fifteen and was Caitlyn her first name or middle name?" Stephanie could hear Grandma Mazur in the back ground, after her mother asked her.
"First name and Ramono the last. Didn't catch the middle name, sounded like some king's name or something. Wouldn't it be a pip to eat with someone like this."
Stephanie could almost see her mother doing the sign of the cross over the phone. "Ramono? Is Grandma Mazur sure?"
"Yes she is." Her mother said.
Ranger took the skin at the nape of Stephanie's neck into his mouth and nibbled with his teeth as his arms came around her possessively. "Hang up, Babe."
Stephanie said into the phone, "I have to go." She hung up the phone. "Why did I just hang up on my mother? And stop that, I can't think."
Ranger pulled his mouth back chuckling, "Babe. You let Morelli worry about Ramono, she isn't your concern anymore right now. You've done your job, and you'll see the feds this afternoon along with Lula, Tank, and myself. We'll get you two out of this mess. This is one case you need to let Morelli handle on his own."
"But his daughter? His daughter is my skip?" Stephanie turned back to look at Ranger, her deep blue eyes showing full of curious wonder. "Why does stuff like this always happen to me? How do I always end up in the middle of the cases he is working on?"
"Don't know, Babe. You live a charmed life." Ranger smiled and kissed her and then kissed her nose. "He's slept with plenty of women."
"Joe never said he had a kid though. Joe would have told me if he had a child." Stephanie told him.
"Maybe he didn't know, maybe she didn't know." Ranger told her.
"How could she not know? This is her birth certificate for Christ sake."
Ranger took her head in his hands. "Babe, she didn't know. If Alex would have known she had a father other than what she had been told, don't you think she would have gone looking for him. This is Alex, you got to see what that kid is made of first hand. She's a smart kid, too smart at times."
"How do you know she didn't know? How long have you known?" Stephanie asked.
"A couple of days, when Lester and I went to find you and Lula. Alex received a call from her lawyer, trust me Babe. She didn't know. It was a blow to her to find this out. I didn't tell you because I wanted Morelli to find out first. Alex hasn't wanted to talk about it, she didn't tell, so I didn't say anything."
"You could have told me." Stephanie moved and got out of his embrace.
"If I told you, what would you have done? Talk to Alex about him," Ranger watched as she walked over to his closet and started pulling out clothes. "Babe, you had just broken up with Morelli, when you break up with someone you are at war with them. Alex didn't need to hear anything bad about Morelli at that moment." Ranger stood up and walked over to the closet as Stephanie pulled on a pair of cargo pants that were hers. "Alex hates her mother, she doesn't trust men easily. If you think I did something wrong by not telling you then tell me. I was looking out for Alex, she doesn't trust anyone."
Stephanie looked at him as she pulled the shirt over her head. "She told me about that murder."
"But she told you not to tell, didn't she?" Ranger asked her. He knew the answer, he could see it in her eyes. "You aren't telling anyone else about that. I'm not going to let Blade have a reason to go after you. It's bad enough he's after Alex. It's bad enough I can't put her in any safe house where she can't talk and just hide her away. I sent her to my brother, with a reason. Jose will be able to help her, get her to work through things before Morelli comes to claim her."
"You're that sure she's his and Lacy Ramono's? Lacy never slept with him Ranger, Lacy was in my year in school. Lacy was seeing Michael and left school when she started showing. Mary Lou and I caught Lacy with Michael several times. Alex isn't Joe's kid." Stephanie said. "And I wouldn't have said anything bad about Joe to her. She needs to talk to the police, not your brother."
Ranger went over to her in the closet, Stephanie put her hands on his chest which was still bare. "I need to introduce you to Jose," He wrapped his hands around her waist and felt the tension she had in her body and the irritation she had towards him start to leave a little. "I think you'll like him." He captured her lips and pulled back, "He wants to meet you, has for awhile now. Then after you meet him and if you disagree with me sending Alex to him instead of the police, then I'll let you be as pissy with me as you want. Fair warning, my brother is a criminal psychologist. Who'll do everything in his power to help Alex work through that murder she saw and that she feels guilty over."
"When do I get to meet Jose?" Stephanie asked.
"After your meeting with the feds." Ranger told her and smiled at her.
"Don't be so smug, you had a good reason. But that doesn't excuse you to think you'd know how I would talk to Alex about Joe." Stephanie pushed off from his chest. "I have to go check in at the office and pick up skips before Connie comes unglued."
Ranger watched as she walked out of his closet, he reached for a shirt and pulled it on. Went better than what I thought it would. At least she didn't throw anything at me. Sex before talking to Stephanie is a good thing. No war. Ranger thought.
Blade sat in the corner of the room stretched back and relaxed. He had been on the phone for the better part of an hour. The fax machine kept printing page after page of information on one Ricardo Carlos Manoso. He had traced the license plate to a fake name, traced the fake name back to a front company. From the front company he had made a call and put a wizard into decoding the company. The fax had started pouring in once he had the name and with his connections he now knew who had his target. He was reading over his military career at the moment. He didn't mind playing with someone who would be considered an equal in the game. For Alex to find someone who could actually hide her made him want this target more now than ever.
The phone rang and he answered it.
"Has the girl been terminated yet?" He heard Shiropolli's lawyer ask.
"I said leave the girl to me. You worry about your other man." He blew out a billow of smoke he had drawn into his lungs from the cigarette in his mouth.
"With your clearance why can't you take care of the tape?"
"I told you before, it's my way or no way." He sat the cigarette in the ashtray. "Are you rendering my services obsolete now?"
"Not at all, the feds said the girl talked though and has rolled over on him. They said they have testimony that can put Shiropolli behind bars for good."
Blade laughed, "Is he so worried to be behind those bars? What, can he not stand to be gone from his precious dog that long?"
"That's not the point here, she has to be terminated."
"You question my judgment again and I'm gone. You can deal with this on your own." He picked back up the military papers again then sat them back down. "Are you sure the feds aren't lying to you?"
"Yes I'm sure."
"Then quit calling me." Blade hung up the phone. He picked up the picture of Alex that Shiropolli had given him the first time he was called in to pick up this kid. She had given Shiropolli's other men a run for their money to get her. He had been called in when she had bested three of them and got away. The kid was good, she had a way of watching her back, but when she felt out of her element she messed up things, small things, but it gave him an edge. He caressed her face that was on the picture and laid it back down. "Soon my lovely little quarry soon."
He rubbed the scar on his face, looking at the picture and he finished his cigarette. He grinned and thought back to the time he had snatched her, to the time she had woken up from the drug, the hallucinations it gave coming up out of it.
Her eyes had grown wide as they opened up, his face was mere inches from hers. The scream that came throatily up out of her body. "What's wrong baby?" He asked smooth and silkily.
He saw her fight and struggle against the bindings, "Relax," he had said stroking that smooth right cheek. "Everything will wear off in about an hour."
He had watched her fight the bindings, fight the things she saw coming out of the heavy sedative that was laced with another drug. Slowly she had come back to normal and he was there beside her as her eyes truly focused on him for the first time.