Still don't own them and I'm not making any money…
Sorry again about the wait between chapters. Real life's been it's usual self. Thank you all who have been reviewing and messaging, encouraging me to write. The guilt factor is a huge motivator. And a big thanks to Haleigh and Melody as usual for their help editing!
What Happens in Vegas
Chapter 28
"Okay. I get to pick where we go for our honeymoon."
I thought about it for a minute, trying to decide if he would take me somewhere without malls or indoor plumbing.
"You love me?"
"I love you."
"Then you can pick our honeymoon. Just remember to imagine how much fun we could have in a jacuzzi."
"I'll keep that in mind," he said with a wolf grin before picking up his bowl and drinking his broth.
oOoOoOo
"Please, please, please," I mumbled to myself over and over as I paced the hall outside Ranger's room. I could feel the eyes of the Merry Men on me and I knew I was driving them nuts but I didn't care.
The doctor was in with Ranger, deciding whether or not to release him from the hospital today. And I didn't think I would survive the wait. Since he'd woken up a week ago, Ranger had done his best to be the worst patient ever.
He refused his pain meds and tried to refuse his antibiotics. After about three days, he'd tried to check himself out of the hospital. When I stopped him, he started flirting with the nurses to make me jealous so I'd let him leave. I ignored him. Then he'd threatened the doctor and the RangeMen I'd put outside his door to make sure he didn't escape. I threatened to call his mother and tell her he didn't have enough visitors.
That had been working but I was at my wits end. If the doctor didn't release him today, I might just help him escape myself.
I was just thinking about how I could get him home when the door to his room swung open.
"Ms. Plum, would you please join us," said the doctor.
I nodded with a sigh, wondering what Ranger had been up to now.
Surprisingly, he had been on excellent behavior for his examination and was finally being released. The doctor just wanted to go over some at home instructions with me. I tried to pay attention, but he said everything I needed to know was in the packet of discharge papers he'd handed me before starting. I'd give them to Bobby and between him and Ella, they'd have everything under control.
The doctor left and I turned to see Ranger giving me 2000 Watt smile. I rolled my eyes and moved closer.
"Congratulations." Then I peppered kisses all over his face, ending at his still smiling lips.
oOoOoOo
"Happy?" I asked Ranger later that night as we lay cuddled together in his wonderful bed.
"Unbelievably," he said before dipping his head to claim my lips.
We kissed lazily, savoring the taste of one another, for a few minutes before I felt Ranger's hand sneaking up my abdomen under my shirt and his tongue teasing the seam of my lips. I let him in and twined my arms around his neck as he palmed my breast, pulling a soft moan from me.
Things escalated from there until Ranger let out a loud groan as he pulled me on top of him. Unfortunately, I recognized it as a groan of pain rather than passion.
"Oh shit, Ranger, I'm so sorry," I said and I quickly disentangled myself and moved to lie beside him.
"You didn't do anything, Babe."
"I know, but I should have remembered that you're not cleared for any strenuous activity."
"Strenuous activity?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Uh, yeah. You know… running, working long hours, ruining your wife, takedowns… things like that."
"Only you, Babe," Ranger said with a chuckle as he carefully repositioned us so we were simply lying curled together.
We stayed like that for a few minutes with the only movement being Rangers fingertips drifting slowly from my hip to rib cage and back. I was just about lulled to sleep when Ranger pressed a kiss to the back of my neck.
"When do you want to get married again?"
"Huh?" I really was just about asleep.
"Our wedding, Babe. When do you want to have it?"
"Soon," I said, rolling to face Ranger.
"How soon?"
"Well… how long do you think you're going to be out of commission? I don't want to have a honeymoon without any honey."
"Probably about a month until the incision in my stomach and my ribs are good. And I heal quickly."
"I can live with that," I said giving him a slow kiss. "That'll give us time to plan and get everyone invited."
"Everyone?"
"Everyone important."
"Good."
"Don't worry, Batman. I did the three ring circus once and I'm not in a hurry to have a repeat."
He responded to that with a kiss of his own before grabbing his phone, flipping it open and navigating to the calendar.
"How's the 26th work for you?"
"Good," I said, staring at Ranger as if he'd sprouted another head. "Anxious?"
"No. I told you, once I set my mind on something I make it happen. And there's a lot of planning to do. We need to find a secure location, find a priest and do a background check on him, set up security, find out if our guests are bringing dates and do background checks on them…"
"You're doing a background check on the priest?"
"Of course."
I just rolled my eyes at that. I was marrying/married to one of the most paranoid men in the world. And I still adored him.
"Not paranoid, Babe. Prepared. And I love you too."
I smiled and went gooey for a minute, still loving the words 'I love you' coming from him without a qualifier. And then I sent him a glare.
"Are you always going to do the ESP thing?"
"Yes."
I rolled my eyes again and let it go.
"I'm going to need to find a dress," I said with a sigh. I'd gone wedding dress shopping twice before and I wasn't looking forward to doing it again.
"You could just wear that little, white thing you wore in Vegas."
"Right. My mother would have a heart attack and Grandma would want to know where she could get one like it."
I felt Ranger shudder and moved closer before I kissed him hard… for purely therapeutic reasons. Didn't want him emotionally scared.
We carried on until I felt a hand sneaking into my little cotton shorts and swatted it away, distracting Ranger from his concentration on my neck. It was going to be an interesting few weeks until Ranger got some medical clearance.
oOoOoOo
When we woke up the next morning, we showered together and then I ordered breakfast while Ranger started his physical therapy exercises. Once I was done, I leaned myself on the bar to watch him work. He was deep in his zone, giving the repetitive exercises with the same level of concentration he gave a high stakes take down.
As soon as he was done, he turned his head and locked his eyes with mine, catching me staring.
"Babe."
"What?" I asked, blushing slightly. "There's nothing wrong with a wife enjoying watching her hubby."
"Hubby?"
"Yep, that's you," I said.
And before he could reply, there was a light knock on the door before Ella came bustling in with breakfast. She sat a steaming plate of strawberry pancakes on the bar for me and a bowl of granola and yogurt for Ranger as well as an assortment of fresh fruit.
"And how are you feeling this morning, dear?" Ella asked Ranger.
"Glad to be home," Ranger said.
"It is good to have you back. I was worried about you in that hospital. Did the boys bring the dinners I sent you?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"It's my pleasure, dear. Now, you two eat up, and call if you need anything else."
After Ella left, I tucked into my pancakes while watching Ranger eat his granola. I'll never understand what he sees in the stuff. It's fine in a bar with a lot of chocolate chips and maybe a chocolate coating, but to just eat it with plain yogurt and some cinnamon, no thanks.
When we were done with our breakfast, we stacked our dishes on the tray Ella left and went to get ready for work. I tried to convince Ranger to stay in the apartment and rest, but he wouldn't hear of it. He said he would get just as much rest sitting in his office catching up on paperwork.
I dressed myself in old jeans and a t-shirt since it was safe to go back to bounty hunting now that Harper was gone.
We rode the elevator to the fifth floor together and I gave Ranger a long 'have a good day' kiss until the cat-calls got too loud.
"We'll take care of him, Bomber, don't worry," Lester said, coming up behind Ranger.
I just shot him a glare, yelled goodbye to the guys and got back on the elevator.
At the bonds office, Lula and Connie were full of questions, as expected. Lula had second hand information from Tank, but apparently he was a terrible source of gossip because all he'd told her was Ranger was found, Ranger was in the hospital and Ranger got out of the hospital. I was surprised the man was still alive.
"So, how'd you find Ranger?" Connie said before I could ask if she had any files for me. Guess I wasn't getting any work done today.
"Harper offered to swap Ranger for me. We just followed him when he showed up at my apartment."
"That easy?" asked Lula.
"Yeah. He was on the deranged side."
"What'd he do to Batman to put him in the hospital that long? Tank said they were watching internal bleeding or something," Lula said.
"Harper drugged Ranger, chained him up and beat him pretty badly. He was unconscious when we found him," I said, shuddering to remember that terrible night. "He had some internal bleeding so they had to repair that and combined with the broken ribs and deep bruising, the doctors just wanted to keep him there to make sure he was healing okay."
"And he's going to be fine?" Connie asked.
"Yeah."
"And what's the status on you two. Tank wasn't too clear on that either," Lula said.
"We're staying married," I said, a big, goofy grin spreading across my face.
I didn't catch either of their responses, because both Lula and Connie started squealing, jumping up and down and hugging me. They carried on, getting louder and louder until Vinnie poked his head out of his office.
"What's going on out here?"
"Our girl's staying married to Batman," Lula announced.
"You're both going to keep bounty hunting?" Vinnie asked.
"As far as I know," I said.
Vinnie just nodded and slammed his office door shut again.
"We're having another wedding," I told the girls when they finally calmed down enough to let me talk again.
"Another wedding?" Lula asked. "You can get married more than once?"
"We had a civil ceremony in Vegas. We're both Catholic so now we're getting married in the church. It'll make our families happy and we want to have a wedding we can actually remember."
"When?" Connie immediately wanted to know.
"Will you two promise to keep it quiet for a while? At least until we can get the invitations out?" I asked.
I saw them both fight some sort of internal battle, but finally they nodded.
"The 26th. We haven't picked where and knowing Ranger, he might not tell anyone until the day before," I said with a smile.
They both laughed before picking back up on their questioning. And I didn't get anything done for the day. We talked all morning, went out for lunch and looked at wedding websites all afternoon. At least I remembered to get my files from Connie before heading back to Haywood.
I met Ranger on the 5th floor and we went up to his apartment where Ella had dinner waiting for us. We ate and then settled in for the evening, making an effort to keep our hands to ourselves.
And that was our pattern for the next few weeks. Get up, breakfast, work for the day, dinner together and spend the night relaxing in the apartment and making wedding plans. A few nights we had dinner with our respective families, keeping them up to date on the wedding, but still doing things our way, and a few nights we went on double dates with Tank and Lula, but that was it. Lester actually accused us of acting like an 'old married couple.'
Then, before we knew it, it was the 24th, two days before the wedding, and Ranger was having his last post-op check up. Despite the fact that he was very creative, we were really hoping he was cleared to resume normal activity…
oOoOoOo
A/N: Sorry again about the wait. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so hopefully that will motivate me to get this story done. Please review and let me know what you though (or how thoroughly annoyed you are about the wait between chapters).