Monday morning arrived and Joe and I had to get back to the real world. Joe called as I was leaving, but I didn't get to the call in time, it rolled into voicemail.

"Cupcake just wanted to share the good wishes from the force. I walked into this morning's briefing and the briefing room is covered in these paper wedding bells and a banner saying congratulations that everyone signed. Got to go, love you."

That was nice of them I thought as I pulled into the garage on Haywood, waved to the guys that were stuck on garage duty and took the elevator to the 5th floor. I stepped in the control room to my own celebration with paper wedding bells.

"How did you guys find out?"

"Took an FTA in last night and Big Dog told me," Lester said as he walked over and gave me a big bear hug. The rest of the guys followed suit with well wishes as Tank come in. "OK everyone back to work. Welcome back Steph," he grinned while looking up at the decorations "About time".

I followed him into his office. "Where's Ranger?"

"Went to Miami yesterday to handle a transfer. He should land at Newark in two hours. Nobody here has told him your news. You need to tell him yourself."

"Yeah I know I was planning on doing just that. Who's picking him up?"

"Um" Tank said making a show at looking at the clipboard." Looks like you are. Here's a tip, he may be ok with the friendship agreement but deep down he was hoping you and Morelli would be off again and everything would go back to the way it was. This marriage will blow that fantasy out of the water."

I stood there shocked and speechless I had no idea he felt that way. I knew I owed it to him to tell him about the marriage personally but I never realized that Ranger still ,well I don't know, what he wanted, things to go back to what we had before, but what was that?

"Stephanie" Tank was standing in front of me snapping his fingers.

"Yeah" I said snapping out of my daze.

"You ok?" he asked.

"Yeah I'm good" and I turned and walked out of the office. An hour later I was on my way to the airport to pick up Ranger and the FTA. The whole way I kept trying to figure out what to say, how to say it and how to get the FTA booked and get Ranger out of the station without someone saying something.

I decided to just keep the rings out of site and go to lunch after the drop off, hopefully the words would come.

That just left the drop off, not likely Ranger would wait in the car.

That problem was solved when I arrived. Ranger had the FTA in holding at the airport police station. We didn't have to transport him back to Trenton.

"Yo", I said coming up behind Ranger. "Ready to roll?"

"Babe" he replied. This time Babe was more of a question than a greeting.

"Hi".

"I wasn't expecting you. How did you end up on chauffeur duty?"

"Sorry. I wanted to talk to you so Tank sent me for the pickup."

"Talk about what?" he asked with a raise of the eyebrow.

Shit! "Why don't we talk over lunch? Come on, I'm starving."

We headed for the truck. Since I had the keys I automatically went to the driver's side. Ranger just stopped and stared. Silly me what was I thinking Ranger didn't ride along with anyone but Tank.

"Fine", I told him, "I didn't want to drive anyway."

"Where to?"

Crap I wasn't ready for this why did Tank have to tell me about his feelings anyway?

"Back to Trenton. We can go to Mario's."

All the way back I ran options through my head. Sitting on the passenger side made it harder to keep my hand hidden but Ranger was in his zone.

At Mario's he order a tuna on whole wheat. sounded good so I got one on white bread. We moved over to a table where Ranger sat with his back to the wall and I chose the seat across from him.

We ate in silence and then he said "You wanted to talk?"

"Um yeah", I said. Then I went blank. I had no idea how to start this conversation. Sensing this Ranger went on.

"How was Cozumel?"

YES! I can work with this, man is he good!

"Cozumel was wonderful, the most memorable vacation I have ever had."

"And what made it so memorable?"

Well crap it's now or never I guess so like a band aid I just yanked it off. "Joe and I got married".

There. I said it. Now I just hoped that Ranger would decide to be an adult about this.

"Married, congratulation Babe."

"Thanks. I didn't want you to hear this from anyone else. You've been a good friend to me. You've helped to keep me safe. Our friendship is important, and friends don't let friends find out major life changes second hand."

There was a moment of hurt in his eyes, but the Ranger blank face was quickly put on. Ranger pushed his chair out and stood "I appreciate that. Ready to go?" he asked.

"Sure" I told him.

The ride back to Rangeman was done in silence, which is normal with Ranger. As we pulled into the garage I turned and said, "Our mothers are throwing a reception for us on the first I would like it if you were able to attend."

I knew Ranger kept a busy schedule. If he wanted an out he could use that, and I would understand.

"I'll see what I can do." He said as I got out of the truck. Ranger made no move to follow me out.

"Coming?" I asked.

"No, I have a meeting Babe".

Ranger drove off, in the wind again. I found out later from Tank that he took another job out of town, but checked in every day. Tank had no idea how long Ranger would be gone this time, but it looked like he would miss our reception.

The night of the party was upon us. When I stopped by the Tasty Pasty and picked up the wedding cake I ran into Terri Gilman. It was odd. I had hated Terri or had been jealous of her for years but when she offered her congratulations and added it's about time I felt like she really meant it. Before I knew it, I invited I her to the party. I knew Joe would want her there and if he can get along with Ranger and put the past behind him, than maybe I needed to make nice with Terri. Besides that, Terri often worked as an informant for Joe. There was no reason for me to antagonize one of his sources.

We decided on a beach theme for the party. Joe wanted to use our cake topper we got in Cozumel and we were wearing the outfits we bought for the dinner that last night. My blue dress still had the same effect on Joe that in had in Mexico and we were about 30 minutes late to our own reception and everyone knew why.

Most of the guests were already there. Joe thanked me again for inviting Terri, he was happy we buried the hatchet. Several of the Rangeman guys were there. Eddie, Carl, Big Dog and Mary Lou were over at the punch bowl. I saw Robin talking with Grandma Mazur, Valerie was chatting with Joe's sisters and everyone looked as if they were having a good time. My mom fussed at us for being late while shooing everyone into a receiving line. We stood in the receiving line with my parents, Joe's mom, and both of the grandmothers. Both moms wanted that tradition so our guest could come up one at a time and give their well wishes. I found this to be a complete waste of time since we had seen every one of these people in the last two weeks and they had already given us congrats, but it made them happy. Since they didn't get to see the wedding, it seemed like a small thing to do.

Ranger walked in and the room went silent. I'm sure some people were wondering if Ranger had decided to crash the party. Since Joe and I didn't look upset, several people visibly relaxed and conversations started up again.

To the surprise of many, Ranger brought a date. Several of the merrymen were in front of us, Lester with his girl of the week, Bobby and his girlfriend Caroline, Hal and Cal, Tank and Lula. It was Lula that broke the silence in their group.

"Holy cow Batman has a new Batgirl."

Lester looked at Bobby, Bobby looked at Hal who was looking at Cal and then we all stared at Tank.

"I don't know," he said turning his eyes back to the guys. He did some silent communication that I interpreted as 'we need intel' and then they all split apart. Ranger came up to us and shook Joe's hand, gave me a nice kiss on the cheek and wished us well. His date apparently had manners, and introduced herself as Rosealie Burton and extended her hand.

"It's nice to meet you so glad you could come". Okay, now I had a name to pass along. I wondered who would be first to ask what I had found out. I didn't have to wait long, as Zero came up behind me a little later.

"Ok so what did she say?" he asked.

"Her name is Rosealie Burton that's all I know." I told him and he was off. Honestly, men gossip worse than women.

The party was in full swing and I had forgotten all about Ranger and his date. Joe and I were standing over at the buffet table talking to Terri.

"So how did you get roped into hosting the class reunion?" Joe asked.

"I'm not even sure" Terri said "One minute I was at Tommy Three Toes viewing paying the respects of the family. I remember Sue Ellen and Gloria were there talking about something, I wasn't really paying attention. They asked me a question and I said sure sounds great. The next thing I knew," staring and pointing her finger at me, "your sister is calling me up to arrange a committee meeting."

I couldn't help but laugh Terri and Val working together that was funny. "How come I didn't know about this sooner?" apparently I said this out loud because Joe replied.

"We've been avoiding your mothers on nights that your sister and her crew are there." Oh yeah that's right. I excused myself and went to mingle with the other guest but I heard Terri say "I didn't even remember Valerie was in our class"

"Don't feel bad" Joe told her "neither did I until one night at dinner we got to talking about senior Homecoming". I heard Terri laugh then Joe followed up with "It's not like Val was the Plum sister I had my eyes on."

"That's cruel to say to me Joe," Terri said in what sounded like a fake pout. "We were dating back then."

We mingled with our guest a while longer and my mother finally announced it was time to cut the cake. Finally, the part I had been waiting for all night. I met Joe back at the cake table. We had agreed beforehand that there would be no smashing cake in the face. I wanted to eat it not waste it.

We cut the cake, took our bites and everyone cheered. Joe and I spent the rest of the night in each other's arms dancing. It was a wonderful night and I was truly thankful to my mother and Mrs. Morelli for putting it together.