Thanks to Susan who proofed this chapter, all remaining mistakes are mine. :)
Chapter 5
Still laughing Tank turned to me and said, "Mrs. Taylor may I introduce two other core team members of RangeMan?"
"Shit." the Latino man said. Then put his hand in front of his mouth in shock he swore again.
Their heads suddenly swept to the direction she was sitting in a guest chair with such a speed, she was afraid they would strain their necks. Being done with fooling Tank, she sweetly said to him with a wink the other men could not see, "I would be honored to be introduced to these gentlemen, Mr. Tank." She said while batting her eyelashes again like a fool, ignoring the language used.
Tank tried to stop laughing which took him a while, the other men just stood there waiting for an introduction, looking completely perplexed. She could see them thinking that something was not right, but what? Could it be Tank was laughing at her? That would be bad. On the other hand, was Tank laughing at them? That would be equally bad. She showed a confused face to the two and winked as she looked at Tank, and every time she did that, he started to holler again.
She took pity on the two and walked up to them to shake hands. "Hi I'm Stephanie Taylor; I work at the bonds office as a replacement of Vincent Plum. I don't know what I have done to your Mr. Tank but I hope I haven't broken him. Please call me Stephanie or Steph."
The Latino still looked confused murmuring about 'Mr. Tank' and 'broken him', the sound of Tank laughing must have been a new experience for this office as more and more men in black walked by the now open door to take a look.
The African American came out of his stupor first, "Mrs. Taylor, I'm Bobbie Brown and this here is Lester Santos, so nice to meet you." we all shook hands and by then Tank had gathered his bearings again. She thought she was going to like Tank very much, and was proud she made him laugh. These men had a rough life dealing with the underbelly of society, not to mention what they had seen while working for Uncle Sam. It was always her pleasure to lighten their days.
Although, she had enough fun for that day so she decided to behave for the rest of it. She smiled at Tank and brought her attention to the two men in front of her. "Mr. Brown, it is my pleasure to meet you too, Mr. Santos a pleasure."
"Wow, you are definitely better looking than Vinnie." Mr. Santos was a blabbermouth so to hear.
"Gosh, I sure hope so Mr. Santos, my husband would not be happy if I morphed into something akin to Vinnie." She deadpanned.
Mr. Brown grinned mischievously. "So, you are Hawk's wife, I have heard a lot about you." Then he said to Santos, "You better watch out here Santos, this is a wicked woman. She will best you, even when you are on top of your game."
She laughed, "Who has been telling you fables, Mr. Brown? And please call me Stephanie; it makes me feel so old to be a Mrs."
"Okay Stephanie." Brown said, "I will not give up my sources so easily, first I want to know what you have done with Tank, and please call me Bobby."
Mimicking him, she replied, "Okay Bobby, I have done nothing with Tank, we just had a little fun together, isn't that so Tank?"
He snickered, "Yes we have, best damn fun I had in ages."
"You see Bobby I haven't broken him." Now she snickered.
"Damn it, tells us the joke already, and call me Lester." Santos cried impatiently.
"Are you always so crass Lester, or is this just for me?" She asked in her disappointed mommy tone.
"Oh, fuck I am sorry." Blabbermouth replied.
Now she laughed aloud, "I think we will get along just fine Lester, I kind of like you're inability to pretend. You are a, what you see is what you get guy aren't you." Although there had to be much more to this man, otherwise he would not be part of the core team there. As far as she knew, RangeMan was a very successful business.
He beamed when he nodded, yes, "Thank you, Gorgeous." He reminded her of Ricky, he could bounce in excitement just as blabbermouth did now.
"You are welcome, Handsome." Giving him a genuine and kind smile in return, so far she liked these men. "So, Bobby, tell me now who has spilled the beans on me? Was it Hawk?"
"No, it was Vince, he works for LHR sometimes. He was quite complimentary about you, and told me some of your antics. If it is true what he told me, we better watch out here." He grinned.
She felt her face lit up in happy anticipation. "Is Vince here? Is he back, and Hal? You know Hal?"
The men had the same indulgent facial expression as Hawk always had when she was excited. Tank answered, "Yes they are back, but are on surveillance duty right now."
"Oh, I am so glad they made it back." She gushed. "Are they alright? I mean no bullet holes, or broken bones, anywhere."
"Yeah, they are good. They will be back here at five."
"Oh," she replied deflated. "Pity I can't see them today, my son's nanny is under the weather and I have to get Rick from school." His security detail could do that, but that is something she had never done. It would always be her, his father, of his nanny Carla, who gets to do that. In a few years, he would not need his nanny or her anymore to come home from school. Carla gave her the freedom to work, but work was the only reason she used to pass on her responsibility to be his mom. Maybe she could invite Vince, Hal, these men, Lula and Connie to a pool party at the house, Rick missed his dad, grandma, and his Uncle Luca so much. Making new acquaintances and friends might be the key to expel loneliness and bring some fun for the both of them.
Santos said. "Why don't you get your Rick and come back to see them. We could go out together and grab some dinner later?"
She gave him a grateful smile, "No, I can't do that, Rick needs to do his homework, and it is a school day tomorrow, but thank you for the invitation. I will see Vince and Hal another time. Call me when you can schedule me, Tank." He nodded affirmative, they all shook hands again and she left the building with a good feeling.
/
"Fuck man, that woman is hot. That Hawk guy is a lucky bastard." Lester stated to Tank and Bobby when Stephanie had left the office.
Tank chuckled, "You could say that. She's clever and funny. She played me the entire time she was in here, you should have seen her before you came in. Moreover, she has a great talent learned from her husband. When I first saw her when she came in, I thought that she was some dumb rich bitch, but she has much more going for her. Yeah I'm going to love to get to know her."
Bobby said. "Vince had told me she would come to Trenton and was excited, it seems that when she is in the vicinity it is never dull. She loves to set people on the wrong foot, but is never malicious. Although she doesn't suffer, fools gladly according to him. Didn't you hear what she did to that cop Morelli?"
His audience shook their head, waiting in anticipation. "She humiliated him in front of his colleagues, and called us RangeMan, gentlemen." Bobby divulged proudly, before he stopped talking again.
"So tell me, what did she do to humiliate Morelli?" Lester asked smiling wickedly in eagerness to hear the downfall of that fucker. There was no love lost between Lester and Morelli, both well known to the women in town.
Bobby grinned again. "If I hadn't seen it myself I would not have believed it. I was having Lunch at Pino's Yesterday, with a few of our men, including Cal and Hector, when an unfamiliar but beautiful woman came in with Connie and Lula. I now recognize her as Mrs. Taylor. We all admired her, but dismissed her immediately because she was obviously a wealthy and spoiled married woman. I mean you cannot miss that rock on her left hand, or you have to be blind. They were laughing and joking with each other and ignorant to the attention she attracted. When they finished their lunch, she first went to pay their tab, then she went to the restroom and when she came back, Morelli asked her out to dinner, rather loudly. She looked him over, declined the honor, telling him that she was married and if she wasn't, she still wouldn't go out with him, because she had a standard to uphold. Now comes the best part though, she walked past us and said with a beautiful smile, "Good afternoon, Gentlemen." Moreover, she repeated that smile to us when they left a very silent and astonished establishment. I thought that the most wonderful thing, because the place was obvious packed with cops at that time, the same cops that call us tugs."
Tank snickered, "She did that did she." He had a faraway expression on his face, "hell this doesn't surprise me one bit. Have you ever met Hawk?"
"No." They replied simultaneously.
"That is one scary man, he is an ex Ranger like us, as is her uncle Luca by the way, they are the owners of LHR as you know, and now they own Plum's bonds office too. Hawk is a mind fucker by profession, and I am almost sure he has trained his significantly younger wife in that trade. They are a scary team. Now Mrs. Taylor has asked us to let her learn the ropes of bounty hunting, so she understands what apprehending skips entails, and consequently what she might expect from us. She has also told me, she will do the preparatory work, as in doing searches where her skip is, before she sends the file to us to make the capture easier. Furthermore, she wants to do a distraction, just for the fun of it. I didn't want to at first, but she made me talk to her husband and he explained how he was unhappy if she was unhappy, and she would be unhappy if we try to stop her from getting what she wants. What do you think Ranger is going to say about the fact that I have granted her requests when he comes home tomorrow?"
Bobby and Lester did not answer directly, because they were in shock. That slip of a woman had not only her badass husband eating out of her hand, but had Tank doing something he did not want.
"He will kick your ass." Bobby finally said. "I know she is cute and all, but he never will agree to show her the ropes. Good God man, have you seen how she looks? Those lethal nails could be broken, and her couture clothes, might be ruined. Not to mention, I doubt she can run in those killer heels, if she can run at all. This will not go over well with him, I guarantee you."
"That is what I thought." Is all Tank said in return, although he now was convinced there was much more to Stephanie Taylor. He also knew that if Ranger tries to retract their agreement, she was the one that would screw him over lovingly.
/
Fuck, he was glad to go home. He had been fifteen minutes from killing himself when they finally called it quits. Three months, spent in utter boredom had made him borderline suicidal. Oh, the money was good, but never again. RangeMan was thriving now, no need to accept those requests anymore. His contract with the government had ended, and he was relieved it had. Two years ago, he could not have imagined having those feelings, but here it was.
He was a hunter, a warrior, not a babysitter. This fabulously wealthy family had travelled the Middle East on some undisclosed government business, with their eighteen-year-old daughter in tow. That had not been any treat what so ever, and the only excitement he had had was the daughter trying to seduce him. She must be out of her mind, he was fourteen years her senior. What did she think he was a pedophile or something?
The only eighteen year old he ever thought of, was the one he met the evening before he left for his army Ranger training. Her, he remembered with fondness, God she had been all he had ever wanted in a woman. She had been beautiful, pure, intelligent, full of life, and even in her innocence, so sexy. She came up in his mind every now and then, when he realized he was lonely. He had almost married in Miami because of a pregnancy scare from a one-night stand, a few years before he found that treasure in Newark. However, before they had tied the knot, she had a miscarriage, which was sad, but he walked away scot-free. Although, when he had to walk away from that treasure in Newark, it had been considerably more difficult. He had even come up with that line, 'if they were meant to be, they would meet each other again', what BS. He had never seen his Babe again.
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