Ranger helped me ease into the passenger's seat of one of his black Rangeman SUVs a few days later. He slipped behind the wheel, buckled himself in, and effortlessly pulled into traffic. Dead silence lapsed around us.
I thought about saying something to break up the monotony of the moment, but nothing came out. We had talked all night long. About Warner. About the baby. About what came next. Turns out the talking was just as confusing as the silence.
We idled at a stoplight and Ranger rested a hand on my knee. "How are you doing?"
"I'm okay. Tired. Confused." And about a million other things that I couldn't put a name to.
He looked over at me, his expression unreadable. "What do you need from me?"
I thought long and hard before I answered. What did I need from Ranger?
My relationship with Morelli, while comfortable and familiar, had been fraught with miscommunication and mistrust. There hadn't been enough room for us both. Every time the pressure of trying to fit into the plastic mold of Burg domesticity became too much, it fell apart.
I didn't that to happen with Ranger.
Honesty, I decided. That was what I needed more than anything. Fortunately, honesty was something he was very good at.
"You're not the most forthcoming person," I told him. "I never know where I stand with you. Where we stand. If it's just sex or if it's…" I shrugged. "I need to know how you feel about all of this."
"You mean, the baby?"
"Not just the baby." I swallowed, needing to catch my breath before I swung head fist into clingy girlfriend mode. "Me, too. Us. As in, you and me us."
A small, tired smile lifted the corner's of Range's mouth. I'd never seen such levity in his expression before, a lightness that had the same analgesic effect on my worries as the hydrocodone had on my broken arm. He moved the hand that had been on my knee and with it clasped one of mine. "I feel good about it," he said. "All of it."
"Good? That's it?"
"You would prefer a different adjective?"
"We're having a baby. You and I. Me and you. Us. We are having a baby. A baby."
Ranger laughed. "Babe."
"Stop laughing! This isn't funny. It's terrifying! I don't know the first thing about having a baby. And I don't know anything about you. I've never met your parents, your sisters. I don't even know where you live."
He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed it lightly. "All in due time," he said. "We still have a few months to sort things out. Right now my only focus is getting you home. When you're feeling better, we'll tackle some of the bigger things."
Home sounded good. It felt like months had passed since I'd been in my own apartment. Sure, it didn't have near the amenities as Ranger's Rangeman penthouse, but it was familiar and warm. And mine.
By the time we had pulled into the small lot behind my apartment building, the pain medication I had been given before leaving the hospital had begun doing its thing, lulling me into la la land. I vaguely remembered Ranger helping me out of the SUV, half-carrying me to the elevator, and then placing a soft kiss on my forehead as he tucked me in. And then it was lights out.
It was dark when I woke up. Groggily, I turned onto my side and squinted, trying to make sense of the numbers on my cell phone. Thanks to daylight savings time, it wasn't nearly as late as the lack of sunlight had originally led me to believe.
A cold emptiness washed over me. The door to my bedroom was open, but there were no lights. No sounds. I was alone.
Pregnant. Unemployed. Scared. And alone.
It cut through me, deactivating the bravado I'd had cocooned around myself in the days since I'd first been given Warner's file.
Ranger had always been clear about the fact that he wasn't the safe option. It had been the main reason I had hesitated to get involved with him. No doubt Ranger loved me, in whatever sense of the word he chose to acknowledge at any given point in time, but we had a bad habit of making each other want things we couldn't have. I couldn't help but wonder how that would work out now that a baby had been thrown into the mix.
I stood before the tears that were building could crest, and made my way through my darkened apartment to the kitchen, where, if there was a God, the three-layer German chocolate cake my mother had promised me was waiting.
I needed cake like I needed air. It had been a cake kind of week.
I was almost to the refrigerator when I caught my foot on something and had to steady myself against the wall to keep from going splat on the kitchen floor. I could tell by the feel of it that it was an electrical cord.
Dread bloomed in my chest.
You have got to be freaking kidding me.
I went compiled a mental list of sociopaths who might want to blow me up this week. It was a short list, with my mother and Morelli at the top, which dialed the dread back to easily digestible annoyance.
Annoyance that was directed toward Ranger more than anything else. It didn't surprise me that he hadn't stayed. He had a job to get back to, a company to run. That wasn't the problem. His dedication and ambition was one of the things I liked most about him.
But I hated how okay he was with things, how willing he was to wait around for things to work themselves out.
I wasn't okay. I was afraid the only thing that would eventually work itself out would be a baby working itself out of my…
Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope.
Stephanie, you are not going there!
Frustrated, and in need of more cake now than ever before, I flicked on the lights.
And stood frozen to the spot.
The cord on my foot hadn't been a bomb. Not even close.
It was a string of Christmas lights.
They were everywhere. Snowflakes dancing on the walls. LED icicles dripping from the ceiling. Sparkling red and white candy canes. I counted one, two, three Christmas trees, lit up and loaded with shiny ornaments.
And tinsel! Oh my god, the tinsel!
It was an explosion of Christmas, complete with a six-foot-tall cardboard cut-out ofJack Skellington dressed as Sandy Claws.
The tears that had threatened to spill over flowed freely as I clasped my hands shakily against my mouth.
And then I saw it-the tip of a black steel-toed boot sticking out from one side of my couch. Ranger was sleeping.
I pounced on him before I could think better of it, landing with such force it knocked the air out of both of us. Ranger jerked awake, and I kissed him before he could say a word.
It didn't take long for him to come to his senses and reciprocate.
"Thank you," I said, barely taking my lips off his. "Thank you for…You didn't have to…"
Ranger brushed my hair away from my face, wiping the tears away with his thumb. "I wanted to do something special for you. To show you that I meant what I said. I'm in. I'm all in. For now and forever."
I kissed him again, more passionately this time, and when we'd used up all of our oxygen, he helped me ease into a sitting position. He crossed the room, bent beneath the tree, and retrieved a small box wrapped in red foil.
He laughed when he saw my face. "It's not a ring," he said, handing me the box.
My face tinged brighter than the foil. I toyed with the edges of the ribbon while I collected my thoughts, then dug in. Inside was a small, silver pendant curved into a teardrop shape. There was room enough for three stones. Two had already been set with peridot and opal. The third was empty.
Ranger helped me fasten the necklace while I fingered the pendant with my good hand.
"Yours and mine. And ours," he said.
"Thank you. It's beautiful." The most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I swallowed, unsure of where to begin. Then I remembered-honesty. I had asked Ranger to be honest with me. It only made sense that I offered him the same.
"I don't want to get married just because I'm pregnant," I said quietly. "But I do want to get married. Someday."
Ranger studied me for a long while, not saying anything. Then he took my hand in his and held it, and I didn't need him to say anything. Everything I needed to hear was in the warmth of his touch.
"I love you," he said. "I have for a long time. I would be lying if I said I knew what that meant, what to do about it. But I would like to find out. Together."
A heady lightness, almost like relief, spread through me. "You've always seemed so opposed to the idea of marriage. To commitment in general, really."
"It's hard to commit yourself to someone who's committed to someone else," Ranger said. "If I admitted, even for a moment, that I loved you, that I couldn't stand the idea of life without you, and you chose someone else?" He shook his head. "I've been in many life-or-death situations before. None of them have ever been as terrifying as that."
"I was never choosing Morelli over you," I said. "Not actively, anyway. I just thought…if I could learn to be happy with the life I thought I should want, maybe I could convince myself I didn't want to be with you. Because I did want to be with you. I do. I love you. So much that I feel weak just saying it."
Ranger pulled me to him and held me close, enveloping me in his warmth. "You are anything but weak," he said. "You are the strongest person I know."
"I'm not strong. But I feel like I am when I'm with you. When I'm with you, I feel like I can take on the world."
"You are my world," Ranger said. "And one day, when we're both ready, there will be a ring."
"And when there is," I said, pulling back to look at him. The best man I had ever known. The man I loved. "My answer will be yes."
Ranger smiled. "Fuckin' A."
Sorry if that was rushed. I wrote it on my lunch hour. Hope that helped clear things up! Merry Christmas, kat!