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What Happens in Vegas…

Chapter 5

After I made it back to my apartment, I took my nap as planned. When the alarm rang an hour later, turning it off and falling back to sleep was not part of the plan. The next time I woke up, the afternoon had disappeared and I had a half an hour to get to my parents for dinner.

Currently I was racing around my apartment in my underwear, with wet hair and makeup half done. It was still twenty of six, which meant I had fifteen minutes to finish getting ready. I dried my hair and added enough styling product that it wasn't out of control and pulled on what I hoped was an acceptable outfit. Glancing at the clock, I saw I was out of time, so I grabbed my makeup bag to apply the rest as I drove.

Despite nearly putting my eye out with my mascara wand, I made it with one minute to spare. As I pulled up, I found my mother and grandmother waiting on me with my mother was watching the clock.

"Sit before the roast gets dry," she ordered as I walked through the door.

Going to the table, I found it was a full Plum family function tonight with Valerie, Albert and the girls present.

The tension at the table was palpable as we started dinner. I could practically see my mother restraining herself from asking the questions that were on her mind. She was trying to wait me out and make me explain myself first. She was going to have to keep on waiting though, because I wasn't starting that conversation.

"Aunt Steph," Mary Alice finally said, "Is it true you got married?"

"Yes, Sweetie," I said, gritting my teeth against what I knew was coming.

"Why wasn't I invited to the wedding?" she asked.

"That's a good question, Mary Alice," Mom said. "Stephanie?"

"Nobody was at the wedding," I said, still addressing Mary Alice. "It was kind of a surprise."

I heard my mother gasp at this. "Kind of?"

"I was surprised," I muttered.

"So it's true?" Grandma piped up. "You got drunk and woke up married to that hottie of a bounty hunter."

"His name's Ranger," I said, wishing the ground would open and swallow me.

"What about Joseph?" Mom asked.

"I haven't talked to him, but I'm sure I'll be hearing from him soon."

"So if you and this Ranger are married, what are you going to do? Where are you going to live? Are you going to bring him for dinner?" Mom fired off.

"Mom, please calm down. We're still working on figuring out what we're going to do about the situation. Neither of us were really planning on marriage. I'm still living at my apartment. And I'll bring him for dinner soon."

"So you and Ranger are shacked up at your place?" Grandma asked.

"No. I'm at my apartment, he's at his. And technically we wouldn't be shacked up because we're married."

"You aren't living together?" Mom asked in a scandalized tone. She really could be a confusing person… She wanted me to marry Joe, but would get upset when I lived with him. Now she was upset that I married Ranger, but sounded scandalized because I'm not living with him.

"No Mom. Like I said, neither of us were planning on getting married. We're friends. We can't just switch from friends to being husband and wife." I knew I was being vague. Partly it was because I hadn't had this talk with Ranger. But partly it was because I had a sinking feeling this was going to end in divorce and that might send my mother over the edge.

"I still want you to bring him for dinner," Mom said.

"I figured as much and I will," I assured her.

I was just cringing, waiting for her next question when Val caught on to my discomfort. Being the perfect daughter, she hadn't had much experience being the target of my mother's inquisition so it took her awhile to figure out it wasn't going to stop. Thankfully, she stepped in and offered a distraction.

"Oh, Mom, I just remembered. Lisa is starting to cut teeth and she's fussing like crazy. Neither Angie nor Mary Alice had so much trouble. What should I do?"

After that, the conversation degraded into baby care and all I had to suffer were a couple of pointed looks from my mother. I suppose they were meant to tell me that since I was married, I should be paying attention as I'd need that information soon. I ignored the looks, not wanting to burst her bubble about me making grandchildren with Ranger. And there go the flutters again. I really needed to get those under control.

Eventually, dinner came to an end with relatively little conversation about my inappropriate marriage or marital status. I did, however, catch a whiff of alcohol when Mom leaned in to give me my dessert, which led me to believe she'd been tippling again.

When I finally escaped, I headed back for my apartment. As soon as I unlocked the door I made for the kitchen to put away my leftovers. It wasn't until I turned towards my room to change that I notice someone sitting on my couch.

"Hey, Cupcake," Joe said, making me jump.

"Joe. Don't do that," I said, trying to regain my breath. "What are you doing here?"

"I just came to congratulate you on your marriage," he said, sounding more than a little bitter.

"Oh." I went into the living room and sat on the couch beside him. "Probably we should talk about that."

"Yeah, Cupcake, we need to talk."

"Alright. Where do you want to start?"

"How about you explain why you felt the need to go to Vegas and marry Manoso, after we had a fight."

"Most of that is unrelated," I stated.

"Then enlighten me."

"We had a fight, and for the record the fight was started when I tried to tell you we weren't going to work out. Anyway, right after the fight, I went to Vegas with the guys to pick up a skip and when we got the skip we went out to celebrate. When I woke up, I was married to Ranger. Happy?"

"Not even close. Let's go back to the part about you telling me we weren't going to work."

"Remember our last fight? That's what I was trying to tell you. I do love you, but I'm sick of the on-again-off-again."

"You could have fixed it by marrying me. You didn't have to go marry Manoso."

"I didn't mean to marry Ranger. I didn't do it to put a stop to our relationship; I'd already decided to do that."

"Then why did you marry him?"

"I don't know. I don't remember anything and I'm not having this conversation with you so change the topic."

"Alright, why'd you go celebrating with Manoso and his goons in the first place? That was just asking for trouble."

"I was perfectly safe," I argued. "They'd never let anything happen to me."

"Listen to what you're saying," Joe said as his volume escalated. "If they wouldn't let anything happen, how did you end up married?"

"We were all drunk. As far as anyone knows it was my idea and Ranger was drunk enough to go along with it."

"More than likely Manoso just wanted in your bed," Joe said in a petulant voice.

"Joe, I hate to break it to you, but if I was that drunk Ranger wouldn't have needed to marry me."

"Shit, I just realized you two must ha…"

"Stop," I cut him off. "That is not open for discussion. What else did you want to talk about?"

"Not much really. Just that when you're done with this thing with Manoso, don't think you can change your mind about us."

"Don't worry, I won't. Can you leave please?"

"Sure. I'll see you around." And then he let himself out.

Locking the door behind him, I rested against if for a minute before sinking to the ground in tears. When I'd realized Joe and I weren't going to work, I'd gone to tell him and try to make him understand why it wouldn't work. We'd had a fight, but I'd hoped once he calmed down, he'd see that the fighting only proved my point and in the end we could be friends. Looks like I screwed that up royally.

I don't know how long I'd been lying beside my door crying my eyes out, but eventually, I heard the lock click. Not really worried, I saw the door swing in about an inch before it hit me.

Rolling out of the way, I watched it open the rest of the way to reveal Tank.

"Bomber, what are you doing on the floor?"

"Resting," I said, praying he'd ignore my tear streaked face.

"Hey, girl, what's wrong?" he asked as soon as he noticed, then crouched himself down to my level.

"Fight with Joe," I said.

"Morelli?" Tank asked as his face went blank.

"Yeah, he was here when I got back from dinner with my parents. He wanted to know about me marrying Ranger. I just told him we were over before I even went to Vegas. I wanted us to stay friends," I said, starting to sob again.

"Hey," Tank said as he scooped me up, giving me a squeeze as he got us standing. "He's upset and it's understandable. That doesn't mean you can't be friends once he calms down and you get everything cleared up about marrying Ranger."

"You think?" I'd gotten the crying stopped, but I was still sniffling.

"Yeah, just give him some time."

"Okay," I said nodding, before suddenly realizing that Tank had literally just shown up at my doorstep. "Uh, what were you doing here in the first place?"

"Someone took a few shots at Ranger. He wants you to come to Rangeman because he thinks it might be related to you getting shot at this morning."

"Is he alright?" I didn't think Tank would be this relaxed if it was serious, but I had to check before I could do anything else.

"He's fine. Just grazed his shoulder. He didn't even have to go to the hospital."

"And what am I going to do at Rangeman?" I asked suspiciously.

"Bombshell," Tank groaned, confirming that I was getting put under protection. "Please don't fight me on this."

"I don't want to stay in a safe house or a Rangman apartment."

"Can you just come with me and take this up with Ranger?"

Taking a deep breath and reminding myself that it really wasn't Tank I had to fight with, I nodded.

"Thank you," Tank said.

"Let's get this over with," I replied, heading for the door.

"Aren't you going to take a bag or something?"

"Nope, that would be like admitting defeat before the discussion even begins."

"Whatever you say," Tank said, following me out the door and locking it behind himself.

Once we were in the car, Tank slipped into silence, but I couldn't really handle that right now. The momentary worry I experienced for Ranger before I knew he was okay set me on edge again. As long as I didn't really think about it, I could pretend we weren't married and things were normal. But if I thought about it, a tiny part of me was beyond happy to be married to Ranger and that little part had had a heart attack at the news he was hurt. Maybe that was why he didn't want a relationship. Because he thought I couldn't handle his life if that little part of me was allowed to grow.

My thoughts had been wandering and before I knew it, we were at Rangeman and Tank was leading me towards the elevator. I was surprised when I saw him hit the button to take us to the control room. I'd figured that I would be sent straight to the seventh floor.

"Why are we going to the fifth floor?" I finally asked him.

"Meeting," he answered.

"I get to come?" I asked, slightly shocked.

"Yeah, you seem to be targeted too. We need to figure out if it's the same person after both of you."

"Huh?" I never got to go to meetings. Usually, the meetings took place and I was informed, or sometimes not informed, once they were over. I think I would like being involved.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

An hour later, I was almost ready to scratch my previous statement that I liked being involved. This meeting was possibly the most boring thing I'd ever had to sit through. And that includes the advanced economics class I took in college with a 300 year old professor who spoke in a monotone.

As it was, I was struggling to pay attention. Now that I was finally getting included, I wasn't going to blow it by falling asleep in the meeting or something. It was just so hard.

The beginning hadn't been so bad when both Ranger and I had gone over everything we could remember from the shootings. Then, the guys had asked questions and bounced around ideas, which had been okay because it was interactive. After that, however, the reports on the bullets used on Ranger were brought back and compared to the analysis of the bullets used to shoot my car. The guys went into gun-talk that I didn't follow at all, so I felt myself zoning out.

When I thought that was through, they started going on about… honestly I'm not sure what they were talking about. There was stuff about the probability of us having a common attacker, and stuff about the probability of us getting attacked on the same day without it being the same person. Like I said, I didn't follow the conversation.

Finally, after an interminable amount of time, the meeting ended. The guys trickled out of the room until just Ranger and I were left.

"Good job, Babe," he told me, giving me the half smile.

"Huh?" I asked, not really understanding what I'd done to deserve praise.

"You paid attention and kept making an effort even after it turned to things you didn't understand."

"I like being involved."

"I know, that's why I sent Tank to get you before the meeting."

"So I'm needed for after the meeting?"

"We really need to talk and the list of topics seems to be growing."

"I know," I admitted.

"You want to do this here or on the seventh floor?"

"Seventh floor," I decided. At least there I could curl up on the couch and there would be a chance of finding a snack.

"I'll have Ella send up some snacks," Ranger said with a grin, doing the ESP thing.

With that, we headed upstairs and were just settling in when Ella arrived. She placed the tray on the bar in the kitchen the let herself out. And there went my last chance of distraction.

"Let's start with the shootings," Ranger said.

"Okay. It seemed like you guys pretty much agreed that it was the same person."

"It looks that way, and more than likely it's related to us getting married. We don't know the seriousness of the treat yet, but I'd still like you to stay here."

"Ranger, I can't come running here just because I got shot at. I also can't deal with getting locked up while someone else looks for my psycho."

"Our psycho," Ranger corrected before continuing. "And you wouldn't be locked up. I'm more comfortable with you here and secure, than alone at your apartment."

"And you think that because we're married, you can just tell me what to do?" I asked, knowing the question was irrational but not able to stop it.

"No, Babe, I have no illusions that being married to you would mean I could control you. I just want you safe."

"Alright. Let's go back to the part about me not getting locked up. How would I not be locked up here?"

"You could come and go like normal, you'll just have someone go with you. And one of the guys will be your backup when you go after skips."

"Ranger! I don't need a body guard," I protested, starting to get angry. I may not be getting locked up, but I was still losing a lot of freedom

"I know it sucks, Babe, and I don't like it any better than you. If it makes you feel better, I won't be going out alone either."

"Really?" I asked.

"Babe, this person shot at us and we have no idea what kind of a threat he is yet. Also, he shot at your car, but he was actually aiming at me. It would be a good bet that it's someone fixated on and you wanting to eliminate me."

"What?' I asked with my eyes going wide. I didn't want Ranger hurt, let alone eliminated because of me.

"That's why we get bodyguards. Are you going to go along with this?"

"Yeah," I nodded. I could deal with it if Ranger could.

"Now, the next thing we have to deal with is where you're staying. The fourth floor's full, but I can have one of the apartments cleared if you really don't want to stay up here with me."

"No, don't do that. I can stay here," I said. "We are after all married."

"And that's probably the next thing we should take care of," Ranger said, sighing.

"Alright, I guess it is time, but first can we go get some stuff from my apartment?"

"Sure," Ranger said, giving me a little smile then motioning me towards the door as he grabbed a set of keys.

We took the Porsche. The ride to my apartment was silent, but it wasn't the normal silence brought on by Ranger's zone. This was almost uncomfortable. 'The talk' was now scheduled for when we got back to Rangeman, and with it waiting and lurking over us. There wasn't really much else we could talk about.

Pulling into my lot, we both got out of the car and headed upstairs. I moved to take the elevator, but Ranger stopped me. He was taking the stairs and so was I, since apparently I could get ambushed somewhere in between.

At my door, Ranger pulled out his gun and motioned for me to stay in the hall way while he cleared the apartment. I waited. And waited. And just when I was starting to worry I heard Ranger call out.

"Babe, it's all clear, but you better come in and see this."

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A/N: I hope you liked it! Please Review and let me know…