A special thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed! I've tried to send a PM to each reviewer, but please forgive me if I missed someone.

Standard disclaimer applies as usual. Blah blah blah.

CHAPTER 8

Eek! Ranger is asking me out on a date! A real date to a fancy party! My mind was whirling a million miles a minute and I was having a hard time trying not to pant like a dog from excitement. I mean, hey. How often does Batman go out on dates?

He was watching me with an amused expression on his face and I was sure that he knew exactly what I was thinking. ESPM, remember?

"Sure," I said, trying to retain some dignity and play it cool. "I'd love to." It was the truth, too. A weekend alone with Ranger- oh, boy!

"Good," he said. Was it my imagination or did he look a little relieved? Did he possibly think I would say no?

When I was done eating, I discreetly reached under the table to pop open the snap on my jeans, giving a big sigh. I was thinking about Vinnie, wondering why the devil he was FTA in the first place and why the devil we hadn't gotten him yet. Well, okay. I know I haven't tried my hardest, but I've been busy!

"So," I said. "Any news on Vinnie?"

Ranger glanced at me and finished chewing his final mouthful of food. He appeared to be thinking about his response. "Yup."

Well gee, I bet it took a lot of thought to come up with that answer. I rolled my eyes. "Aaaand?"

"And you'd better get ready to go. Button your jeans back up. Something's going down tonight and we gotta be there," he said cryptically, grinning when my eyebrows lifted in surprise at the comment on my jeans.

"How do you do that?" I asked him.

"God given talent."

"You have a God given talent of finding out information on take downs?"

He chuckled. "I thought you were talking your jeans. The information is just the result of some questioning and recon work."

I narrowed my eyes back at him. "So what's happening?"

"Vinnie's decided to turn himself in."

"What? Why? How?" I was incredulous.

"I got a call this afternoon from him. Said he fixed all business that he needed to, and was ready to come back. He also didn't want to lose money on himself any longer."

Probably he didn't want to get his ass handed to him by Batman. "Where is he now?"

Ranger got up and put our dishes in the sink. "Waiting for us," he said, holding the door for me.

Once in the garage, Ranger opened the passenger door of the Cayenne for me to slide in. Before it closed, he looked at me for a moment with his eyes twinkling. "For the record, Babe, I'd be happy to share my other God given talents with you whenever you're ready."

Gulp.

After driving around for about 45 minutes, I was bored and had to pee. I also didn't have clue where we were headed; I just hoped we'd get there soon.

Feeling a bit like a child, I asked Ranger the question that every parent hates. "How much longer?"

"Bored, Babe?" Ranger asked, grinning at me.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Yes, and I have to pee."

"Can't help you with the pee thing, but I can help you with your other problem," he said, glancing in my direction.

Yikes! What was that supposed to mean? Don't be foolish, Stephanie, I told myself. You know damn well what that means. I decided not to comment on Ranger's remark. Ranger smiled and I knew that he knew what I was thinking, as well as why I didn't respond. Damn.

About 5 minutes later, Ranger pulled up to the curb and stopped the car. We sat there for a few minutes in silence, me thinking about my bladder and Ranger thinking about God knows what. I was pretty far into my own zone when Ranger's voice cut into my daydreams.

"Look alive, Babe."

I popped back into reality and looked around. Someone was walking down the sidewalk in our direction, and when the person came closer I realized that it was my perverted cousin. I did what came naturally and rolled my eyes.

Vinnie walked up to the car, and I could tell that he was nervous. He kept looking around and I thought his eyes were about to jump out of his head they were moving so much. It was then that I noticed Ranger had pulled a gun from the small of his back. I figured it was in case someone decided to come after Vinnie, but hey, it could be to shoot Vinnie for all I know. I'd wanted to shoot the rat on several different occasions.

Vinnie and Ranger locked eyes and Ranger gave a little, almost imperceptible nod. Vinnie nodded back and slid in the car. Just as Vinnie's door closed a 4-door sedan came careening around the corner, heading straight for us. Ranger immediately slammed the Cayenne in drive and floored it out of there. I turned around, watching the little POS car try to chase us, but it was no use. It had nothing on the Porsche.

The drive back to Trenton was without excitement and totally silent. This could be due to the fact that Ranger's right hand on my knee, thus rendering me incapable of speech. Amazingly, Vinnie had said not a word since he got in the car. I finally pushed all those thoughts (like Ranger, and having to pee) out of my head and turned around to Vinnie.

"Why were you running?"

"Huh? Oh. Why do you care?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "Cause we were the ones that had to look for your sorry ass, and I want to know why you were FTA in the first place."

"None of your business," he snapped back nastily at me.

"Listen, you little turd-" Ranger squeezed my knee gently and I turned around to look at him. "What?" I snapped. His look told me to cool it.

Fine. Whatever. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Vinnie watching us. He was looking at Ranger's hand on my leg and smirking. I narrowed my eyes even more and sat back in my chair, wishing Ranger would just get to the station already so I could at least pee.

We got to the TPD faster than I thought, thank God. I jumped out of the car the second it stopped, dashing off for the bathroom while Ranger turned Vinnie over. I took my time, knowing that Ranger was filling out the apprehension paperwork. When I finally emerged from the bathroom I was surprised, once again, by none other than Joe Morelli.

"Hey, Cupcake," he said. "Got a minute?"

"Sure, what's up?" I'd been so preoccupied with my bladder, I hadn't even thought about the possibility of seeing Morelli here. Not that seeing him was a bad thing, just unexpected.

"Congrats on bringing in Vinnie."

I shrugged. "Wasn't a big deal. He turned himself in."

I waited, knowing that Morelli had more on his mind than Vinnie's return.

"Cupcake," he began, "I know there's something going on with you and Manoso." He paused. "In fact, I think there's more to it than even you realize. Now that I'm aware of that, and because I care about you, I just wanted to let you know that I'm not going to harass you about it. I'm going to stand back and let you make your own decisions, but I thought that you needed to know. Even if we're not together, you should know that I will always love you."

I was speechless. What did he mean, more than I realized? I could barely think straight but I managed to croak out, "More than I realize?"

Okay, so it was sort of a heartless comment, considering the man had just poured his heart out to me, but hell, I wanted to know what he was talking about.

To my surprise Joe rolled his eyes. "Don't worry about it. My point was all the other stuff I said."

I blushed. "Yeah, I know." I could see Ranger walking down the long hallway towards us.

"I better get back to work," Morelli said, turning away and starting to walk in the other direction.

"Joe?" I called after him.

"Yeah?" he asked, turning in my direction once more.

To my surprise, I found myself running up to him and throwing my arms around him in a big hug. "Thank you. I'll never forget this."

"I know," he said, hugging me back with a little smile. He gave Ranger a small nod, then turned and walked away.

At that moment Ranger reached me, and put his arm around my shoulders. "Ready to go, Babe?"

I smiled up at him. "Yeah," I said, "I'm ready."