A/N: I wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you so much for everyone's positive reviews and feedback. They inspire me to keep writing. I had no idea that the JE/Stephanie Plum FanFiction community was so huge. Thank you for your plot suggestions. I am taking many of them into consideration. I hope that I am able to keep the quality of my writing to everyone's high standards. This will be a shorter chapter used for character/relationship development and to set up future events, so please hang with me. Things will get moving again in Chapter 6. All the best! -J

Chapter 5

I arrived at my apartment after the viewing around 9 PM. Shockingly, the night went without incident. I think grandma could tell things were a bit out of whack in my life at the moment. I entered my apartment, locked the door behind me, and stood in my kitchen, head in the refrigerator searching for something worthy of eating. After nearly ten minutes of waiting for food to magically appear without success, I closed the fridge and went to the living room.

I stripped out of my dress clothes and went in search of an oversized t-shirt to wear. Problem was, I'd just sent all the oversized t-shirts I had with Joe. I sighed in defeat, standing in my panties and bra. I pawed through my pajama drawer, finding only sexy negligées clean. No use for those, I thought, my face getting hot with frustration. I could feel myself becoming irrationally angry about my lack-of-desirable-jammies situation. I tried to ignore the underlying cause for my emotional imbalance, instead choosing to live in the land of crappy pajamas and denial. I'd sleep naked, but God might be watching. I opted to slip into a pair of Nike shorts and a ribbed tank top before padding barefoot to the bathroom to brush my teeth and remove my makeup.

I crashed on the couch, watching several episodes of House Hunters International before succumbing to a deep, dreamless sleep.

I woke up feeling disoriented. I lay perfectly still trying to collect my thoughts. It was still dark outside. A glance at the bedside clock. 4:55 AM. I was working on piecing together what was wrong with this picture when something made contact with my temple.

I thrashed out with my arms and screamed, panic following through my veins. I realized I hadn't gone to bed last night. My hand made contact with something hard as a rock as I continued to thrash. I jumped out of the bed and smacked my hand into the light switch, illuminating the room and temporarily blinding myself.

"Babe," came a soft, concerned voice from the bed.

I blinked several dozen times, not speaking. I did some deep breathing and tried to steady my heart. When my blood pressure finally dropped below stroke level, I studied the man in my bed.

Ranger was laying in the bed next to where I had been. He was not wearing a shirt. His hair was mussed with sleep. The bed sheet was draped over his perfect legs and lower torso. And his nose was bleeding.

"Crap," I whined. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was you. I didn't mean to do that…" my voice trailed off as Ranger stood, pulling a tissue from the box on my dresser.

"I didn't mean to frighten you or come where I was unwelcome," Ranger said.

"I don't mind," I said on a whisper. "I didn't realize it was you."

He studied me before speaking. "I came by to speak with you around midnight, but you were asleep on the couch when I arrived. You looked uncomfortable folded up there and your sleep seemed fitful, so I carried you to bed. I was walking out your front door when I heard you cry out. You were having nightmares. The only way I knew to soothe you was to pull you close."

I studied his face. I don't know why this shocked me so much. This was typical Ranger. Man of mystery, always trying to protect me. But this version of Ranger seemed softer than I was used to, and it caught me off guard. I couldn't find words.

"I'm sorry if overstepped my boundaries, Babe." He was applying pressure to his nose with a fresh tissue.

Instead of responding, I walked to Ranger so I was standing face to face with him. I studied his eyes for a long moment before laying my hand on his heart and laying my head on his shoulder. He wrapped his free arm around me, and he laid his cheek on the top of my head. I closed my eyes and sighed with contentment. Ranger felt safe and warm.

"I'm sorry hurt your nose," I whispered.

"Babe," he whispered back, drawing me closer to him and pulling up toward the bed. We settled back in, Ranger on his back with me on my side, one arm curled over his chest and head resting across his bicep.

I lay there for a long time, unable to fall back asleep. I listened as Ranger's breathing evened and his body relaxed. I studied his face, shocked at how young and peaceful he looked when he slept. The lines of worry that were often etched into his forehead relaxed and disappeared in sleep. The hard line of his mouth softened. The firm set to his jaw calmed, and his mouth was ever so slightly open.

I knew Ranger was close to my actual age, but our ages would be decades apart if age was determined by life experience. Ranger was an ex-Army Ranger, and the horrors he had seen on missions had aged him and changed him in ways I would never understand. I did not know him before his military career, but I knew that experience had affected him deeply. He had learned to protect himself by hiding his emotions and by disengaging. He learned to protect others bodies, but also thought he could protect others' hearts by shutting them out. His work for Rangeman could be plagued with danger, further alienating him from society and his family. This beautiful man laying before me had a dark, dangerous past and an uncertain future.

Like Ranger, my future was uncertain, too. But my uncertainty wasn't the result of living a fast, hard, perilous lifestyle. My uncertainty was caused by a serious lack of maturity. I have spent my entire life refusing to conform. My singular, feeble effort to conform by marrying Dickie lasted mere minutes. As a child, I insisted I could fly. (News flash: I found out the hard way that humans are not built in a way that makes them capable of flying.) As a teenager, I spent a serious amount of time with my head in the clouds. As an adult, I refused to accept a job with steady pay. I refused to marry a balding man, buy a house, and birth 2.5 children. Worst of all, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I love my job as a bounty hunter, but realistically, I can't see myself doing this job in my fifties. It's physically challenging. I can't chase down and tackle skips forever. Despite the uncertainty in Ranger's and my lives, the one thing I absolutely could be certain of is that I loved this man in my bed. I wasn't sure how to define the love I felt for him, but I knew it was there, and it scared the crap out of me.

Ranger was sleeping peacefully when I broke from my mental reverie. I felt myself beginning to drift off again. I studied his face for another moment before snuggling my body further in to his. I brushed my lips across his ribs and on a near silent rush of air whispered, "I love you."

As I drifted off, I swear I heard him say, "I love you too."