Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to Janet. The plot & General Juliano are mine.
AN: Thank you for all the lovely reviews. I hope you enjoy the world I created for our favorite couple and continue to read this story. I really like what I've written so far and it was hard to share it with everyone. Please continue to let me know what you think.
Hi, I'm Ricardo Carlos Manoso and I'm 28 years old and widowed. I own a security company called Rangeman based in Trenton. I have some partners who invested in the company but I am the managing partner and CEO. I have a second job, I'm a government paid mercenary. I make good money which I invest in my business, the stock market and real estate. I have only ever loved one woman but I screwed that up when I was 20. Let me start at the beginning.
My grandparents fled Cuba and settled in Miami but then moved to Newark. They lived in a Cuban neighborhood where I grew up. My parents sent us to Catholic school; I did well in school and kept my nose clean earning a football scholarship to Rutgers. I enrolled as a business major and was given the back-up quarterback position. I know it's a cliché, but I fell for a cheerleader. It was love at first sight. She was 5'7" with long legs and a slim figure with curves in all the right places. Her skin was soft and tan in the summer but peaches and cream in the winter. She had wild curly brown hair with blonde highlights and the most expressive blue eyes I had ever seen. It was like a window into her soul. She was kind and didn't see me as a poor kid from the ghetto. She had money but explained it was a savings account from her birth parents and she was raised by an aunt and uncle. Her name was Stephanie Michelle Plum.
We started dating the night we met and I moved into her apartment a week later. For two years I spent all my free time with her and we took our classes together so we could help each other with our homework. I was the youngest of six and took a lot of teasing from my brother and sisters. They said I should play the field but I knew my Babe was the only one for me. Yeah, I called her Babe because that's what she was. Men would follow her across campus but she only had eyes for me. It was great until our 20th birthday. My parents had a party for us and that's when Emilio the screw up ruined everything.
Emilio was the apple of his mother's eye, two years younger than me and always in trouble. He kept hitting on Steph and told us that he just wanted one night with her and he'd leave her alone. There was no way I'd allow my cousin to touch the love of my life. Emilio must have wanted revenge for not getting his way. He always got his way and had all the Manoso charm so most females were only too happy to follow him into bed. He used our party to announce he'd joined the Army to avoid prison. He insisted that I join as well promising to be good. Aunt Emelda and Grandma Socorro pressured me until I agreed. They never liked Stephanie because she was white and had money.
A week after the party I had given into the pressure. I went home and told Stephanie that I had joined the Army and was shipping out the next day. She was upset but insisted that she could move to Georgia and attend school there. I couldn't ask her to do that so I broke up with her. I watched the joy leave her eyes, I know I broke her heart but I broke my own as well. How could I ask her to give up her life for me? I would only be an Army grunt. Where I would be shipped off to? She wrote me every day for two months but I returned every letter unopened. We needed to make a clean break; I knew she was too good for me. I had nothing to offer her.
One night, during basic training, Emilio talked me into going out with him, his girlfriend Sara and her sister Rachel. I didn't have that much to drink but I woke up the next morning in bed with Rachel and it was clear we had sex, she'd been a virgin. Six weeks later I received a call from Rachel that the home pregnancy test was positive. I did the only honorable thing I could and married her. She would have access to healthcare and I would support her and the child. At that point I knew I'd lost Stephanie for good, she'd never forgive me for everything I had done. I called my parents and told them. They were disappointed in me and sad that my Babe wouldn't be part of our family. They loved her, my siblings loved her, and Grandma Rosa loved her. Celia was seriously pissed at me and said that this would kill Steph. Steph broke off all contact with my family, including Celia, after I married so I had no idea what she was doing or who she was with and it was killing me. The thought of her with another man was enough to break me so I stopped thinking about her.
I was selected to join the Rangers and accepted so I could earn more money for the baby. Emilio was dishonorably discharged and confessed to General Juliano that he drugged me and wanted me kicked out of the Army too. The general took me under his wing instead. One night while I was at Ranger training Rachel went into labor and called Sara and Emilio to take her to the hospital. Emilio was driving but he had been drinking and was stoned, he crashed head-on into a tractor trailer. Emilio, Rachel and our daughter were pronounced dead at the scene. Sara was the lone survivor but spent a month in ICU and a year in a rehab facility just to be able to walk again. She confessed the truth to me when she woke up. I never had sex with Rachel, Emilio did. Emilio wanted to get revenge on Steph because she refused him and he wanted me to look like a screw up in the eyes of our family. I had lost my Babe, the love of my life, because Emilio was a selfish, spoiled bastard. He was lucky he was already dead.
I spent four years in the military and the last four years as an independent contractor, or a more accurate description would be a mercenary. I also work as a bounty hunter for Vincent Plum using my street name, Ranger. My Rangeman partners are none other than General Mark Juliano and retired Major Frank Plum. They wanted me to contact Stephanie and patch things up with her, telling her the truth about Rachel and the baby. I had finally decided to do so when I came back from the most hellish mission I had ever been on but it was too late. She married some lawyer at her mother's insistence the day before I came home. I had been gone six months. I heard about her divorce, everyone in Trenton did. Why would anyone cheat on her? I knew she had been widowed before the divorce was final, but after everything she'd been through I couldn't move into her life again. She's been hurt by every man in her life, I only wanted her to be happy.
I had made a decision after Rachel died and finding Stephanie married cemented that decision. I would never marry again and never have any children of my own. I would die on one of my missions and I never wanted Stephanie to feel that kind of pain. No, I never wanted to cause her that kind of pain again.
AN2: This is the last chapter of back story and going forward will be the present. I know you want to see what happens when they meet again but you'll have to wait for that. ;)