Standard stuff: I don't get the credit for the characters as they all belong to JE.
Not as Standard stuff: A huge thank you to Jenny (JenRar) who has continued to be up to any challenge I send her way, no matter how much time passes between stories. You are an amazing and patient beta, and I count myself very lucky to have been able to work with you over the years.
Not What it Looks Like
"It's not what it looks like," Stephanie whined.
"That's a damned shame, Babe, because I like how it looks," Ranger responded, not seeming to be at all surprised to find Stephanie on all fours in his bed, wearing only a lacy bra and panty set with her ass pointed toward the door.
"I got out of the shower, but everything hurts, and the only clothes I had here were uniforms Ella picked up for me," she began to ramble. "By the way, we really need to negotiate what constitutes an appropriate uniform." As she spoke, she flung her head around to see Ranger clearly, which only served to make this seem more like an invitation than an argument.
"From where I'm standing, Ella deserves a raise, because I would have assumed a uniform meant cargos and a RangeMan shirt," Ranger replied, barely able to contain his smile.
"I have those, but they hurt to wear, so I had to just put on the pieces I could stand." As she finished her explanation of her lack of clothes, she bent her arms to rest on her elbows and attempted to hide her face on her arms. If anything, it only made the situation look even more inviting.
"Babe, you're going to need to explain exactly what this is," Ranger spoke with a strained voice. "Because I've been gone for six weeks, and my homecoming appears to be a woman I admire, nearly naked in my bed, presenting in one of my favorite positions, so from here, the way this looks is a fantasy come true."
"You admire me?" Stephanie asked, pushing up on her arms and wincing at the same time.
"That's not news," Ranger replied coolly before pushing away from the doorframe and moving to the bed. "Why does it hurt to wear clothes?"
"It wasn't my fault," she began, making it hard for Ranger to keep from smiling.
"It rarely is," he agreed.
"But this time, it really wasn't."
If he'd been able to take his eyes off the name of his company embroidered on the rear end a mere inches from his hand, he might have seen her pout.
After a groan, she managed to collapse on her stomach with her face on the pillow on what he considered to be her side of the bed. Once she stopped moving, he was able to finally move his eyes up and winced at the gashes along her back, including some faint discoloration that he knew would develop into darker bruising over the next few hours, given how fair her skin was. Seeing the marring of her body got his focus back where it belonged. "What happened?"
"Joe's been working on a gang-related case lately and hasn't been at home most days, so I had a little time before I was supposed to take Grandma to the Clip and Curl and decided to swing by his house to let Bob out," she began explaining.
"I didn't realize you two were domestic again," Ranger replied, pissed his men hadn't filled him in on this development.
"We aren't," she quickly corrected him. "I was just doing a favor for a friend. After I got Bob squared away, I noticed Joe's mom had dropped off one of her lasagnas, soI heated up some for a quick lunch, since I didn't have many groceries in my place. After I finished eating and cleaned up, I'd been there for more than hour and had to rush out to my car to get to get Grandma in time.
"When I got in my newest clunker, it didn't want to start, and at the same time, there was this guy covered in tattoos with a flaming bottle in his hand. It was pretty obvious he was going to throw it at me, and since I couldn't get my damn car to start, I had to make a run for it. I opened the door at the same moment he threw the cocktail, and I didn't get as far away as I needed to in order to clear the explosion. It went off when I turned back to see what was happening, and the blast threw me down on my back." She began to gesture and grimaced as she lowered her arm once more.
"Who was it?" Ranger asked, trying to keep his voice level.
"I don't know exactly," she answered, and Ranger could tell she meant it honestly."I know it was related to a case Joe was working and wasn't one of my crazies, which is why I said it wasn't my fault."
"Why would someone Morelli was investigating come after you instead of him?" Ranger wondered aloud.
"The guy he was after was known for having some girls working the corner of Stark and Fourth, so Joe was trying to get information from them. When they propositioned him, he told them he couldn't step out on his woman because she wouldn't take kindly to that. I guess they pushed him on who he was seeing and he gave them my name, not seeing the harm in it," Stephanie explained. "So, the guy came after me in the hope of scaring Joe off the case."
"Did he tell you he'd used you as part of his cover?" Ranger couldn't understand how Morelli let someone get that close to Stephanie.
"No, he said he didn't think I was in any danger, and he didn't see the point in scaring me."
"So, he put you directly in the sights of a known gangbanger and then didn't even tell you what he'd done so that you could protect yourself," Ranger summed up, obviously seeing the events very differently than she had.
"I guess so," she answered, her voice sounding very small.
Ranger felt the need to comfort her in some small way and reached out to move the curls that had fallen over her face. The moment his hand touched her head, her eyes closed, and he was overwhelmed with the need to protect her. She was so vulnerable, so unaware of the constant danger that surrounded her, and the idea of someone adding to that was unthinkable to him. As her breath evened out, he debated climbing into the bed behind her and resting for a while. He was still offline from his mission completion and could certainly use the sleep. As he watched her rest, he knew he'd never be able to relax knowing someone had hurt her and was still alive to tell the story. Instead, he bent down and kissed her hair, taking a deep breath and smiling as he caught a whiff of his shower gel. She smelled like him and was sleeping practically naked in his bed. He didn't care what she said… He like the way this looked and was tired of having things unsettled between them.
When Ranger hit the main floor, most of the noise died down except for a few who called out a quick welcome home. Walking with purpose, he stopped at Ram's cubicle, which was directly across from his cousin's. "Get up to seven and guard the door. No one but Ella or me is allowed to enter the apartment."
Ram stood and nodded but asked, "No one but you and Ella have fobs to get into the apartment. Is there a threat we aren't aware of?"
"Negative," Ranger replied, ready to walk away, but he decided this might be a case where a little extra information could prevent a curious employee from poking his nose where it didn't belong. "Stephanie is there and is not in any condition to be disturbed."
"Is she hurt?" Ram asked, his eyes beginning to harden into those of a battle-trained soldier ready to wage war.
"Nothing that time won't fix," Ranger answered, knowing it wasn't enough to truly settle down his employee.
Having talked through all that was necessary, Ram nodded once and ran to the stairs.
Ranger looked at his cousin, who had obviously heard the exchange, before nodding toward his office. Walking past the door of his second in command, he paused only long enough to issue the order, "Get Brown and come to my office."
A tense four minutes passed as Ranger and Santos waited for the company medic to arrive with Tank. After the men settled behind the closed door, Ranger finally began talking. "Who responded to the car bomb today?"
The men all exchanged glances, which was enough of an answer to know no one had been there.
"Do you want to tell me how all the money I've invested in tracking equipment and staff is not enough to know when a car explodes in broad daylight in the most gossiped-about section of town?"
"If this is about Bomber," Brown began, "she got a new car yesterday, and she was supposed to come by this afternoon for a shift for Rodriguez. We were going to wire the new car while she was here."
Ranger rubbed his eyes using the pad of his thumb and forefinger. This kind of thing was classic Stephanie. She rarely did things intentionally to be reckless, but keeping her safe and maintaining her sense of independence were often at odds with each other, which meant people could get a jump on her, leaving him no way to keep her protected.
"Morelli is working with the gang taskforce of the TPD. He was on Stark and told some hookers that he was back with Stephanie, and the news spread to someone with a vendetta against him," Ranger explained, not wanting to betray Stephanie's confidence but considering her privacy collateral damage to keep her safe.
"Intel said they weren't together," Tank jumped in. "They watch the occasional game and shared a sub at Pino's, but we weren't aware of a relationship."
"That's true, but she stopped by his house to help with the dog and stayed long enough to be spotted," Ranger explained, not telling them it was probably her stomach that got her in trouble. "Man came up with a Molotov cocktail and killed her car before she'd had it long enough to get trackers on it."
"Why didn't she tell us Morelli had used her as his cover?" Santos asked, hating that she was exposed when someone had her in their sights.
"She didn't know until after the fact when Morelli told her why she was a target."
There was a moment of silence, broken by someone clearing their throat in an attempt to soften a growl of irritation and then the clicking of a ball point pen—a coping mechanism Santos picked up years ago to channel his nervous energy when his fingers were itching to grab his sidearm.
"When do we roll?" Tank asked what the others were thinking.
"I'm going to Morelli alone." The looks Ranger received made it clear they didn't like that plan. In a rare concession, he amended, "I'm doing the talking. If you want to be a witness, that's acceptable." He stretched his neck, uncomfortable with anyone else playing a role in keeping Stephanie safe. "In the meantime, we need Hector to hit Stark and find out who tried to take out Stephanie."
Tank's large hand grabbed his cell phone, and with a grace his size didn't seem to match, he punched in a message to their resident technology expert and former gangbanger. Nearly immediately, there were three knocks on the closed door before it opened to reveal the shortest but perhaps the most terrifying man in the RangeMan building.
"Boss?" Hector asked, a throwing star spinning on his right index finger. Apparently he had picked up a nervous tick similar to Santos.
After Ranger had finished recapping what happened, Hector nodded once, placed his hand over his heart, and then turned to leave without another word.
Before he could reach the door, Ranger added, "Alive."
"Quicker to let me do it," Hector argued.
"Speed isn't the objective," Ranger rebutted. "He's mine."
"Si," Hector reluctantly agreed before leaving the office.
"You doing okay?" Tank asked, making Ranger wonder what he was after. "You just wrapped up a mission, and you usually take a little time to readjust so you aren't hitting civilian life with a warzone mentality."
"I've got the right mindset for what we're about to do," Ranger replied coolly.
"We'll help you, but it will be hard to cover up the disappearance of the Burg's golden boy," Santos expounded.
"People might try to pin it on Bomber," Brown added.
"I'm not going to kill him," Ranger informed them, knowing that wasn't the right course of action, despite how much he might want to do it. The idea of the man—the one who had so used Stephanie for most of her life—walking around and breathing never set well with him, but that wasn't a good enough justification to take his life. There were other ways to make Morelli suffer, and after teaching him a lesson about Stephanie's safety never being sacrificed for your own, he was coming back to the seventh floor to take the first step of teaching Morelli a lifelong lesson in how Stephanie should be treated.
Not seeing the reason to add anything else, he stood and walked to the garage, confident his men would follow him. They'd been at his back when he asked them to risk their lives without defining the purpose. Knowing the special place Stephanie held in the hearts of each of his men ensured they would want to participate in this.
When they pulled up to Morelli's house, the ash-blackened patch of asphalt and a small pile of broken glass was all that remained of the explosion that could have taken Stephanie's life.
"Ranger—" Tank called outwhen Ranger stopped to stare at the spot that could have taken the one thing that meant the most to him. If she had stayed in the car trying to make it crank, or if she had walked to the gang member instead of running away... Any different choice might have caused an entirely different outcome, all because the cop was too blind to see the immediate danger he put her in simply by dropping her name on the streets.
As he turned to walk to the house, he stopped his second in command and took off his reflector sunglasses to be sure Tank understood how sincere he was being. "You can't let me kill him."
"Understood," Tank said with a nod. "Does he need to be able to walk on his own?"
"Crutches are okay," Ranger answered, turning away before anyone could see him nearly smile. Few people got Tank's sense of humor, but if you gave him a chance, he was funny guy.
Morelli opened the door and stepped back before they got to his back steps. Ranger was glad he didn't motion for them to enter. I would have made it feel too much like a social call and not enough like the retribution it was supposed to be. "I knew you'd be coming as soon as I heard you were back in town."
"I don't usually make house calls," Ranger said.
"I don't usually almost get Stephanie killed, and I know you have a thing about keeping her safe," Morelli countered, shutting the door and moving to the kitchen to pick up a half-empty bottle of beer.
In an instant, Ranger rushed Morelli, pinning him against the kitchen wall and knocking the bottle out of his hand. With an arm against the cop's neck, he got close into his face and spoke low. "I don't have a thing about keeping Stephanie safe; it is the single greatest purpose in my life."
Morelli held his hands up, as though surrendering, which took some of the fire out of Ranger. It would have been easier to hit him if he'd fought the rough treatment, but seeing him give up said a great deal. "Every time you look at her, I want you to remember that you put your life ahead of hers."
Ranger loosened the pressure against the cop's neck to make talking easier.
"I apologized to her, man. Believe me, I've beaten myself up for not warning her it might be a problem, and don't worry… She has a way of making me pay when I make mistakes like this. Stephanie has a long memory."
Leaning back into Morelli, Ranger said, "You'll pay, because you are about to see her happier than she's ever been, and you'll know that you lost any chance you might have had with her with this single choice."
"You think she'll hold this against me long-term?" Morelli didn't sound convinced.
"No, but I think I will." With that, Ranger stepped back marginally. "I've stayed out of whatever you had with her because I thought you could give her the security and happiness I couldn't give her. Now that I know I'm wrong about that, I'm going to stop holding back and I'm going after her with everything I have."
"She'll choose you over me," Morelli stated as fact.
"It's not even a choice." As he spoke, his phone vibrated to alert him of an incoming text from Hector.
Downstairs, mostly in one piece. On my way to pick you up.
Suddenly Morelli didn't seem worth his trouble anymore, so he turned and looked at Brown and Santos, smiled slightly, and tilted his head in the cop's direction.
"Gladly," Brown responded, shaking off the expression of a medic and taking on the full Army Ranger he was trained to be. "You gonna need me at the office later?"
"Negative," Ranger responded. "What's left won't need a medic."
"You sure leaving those two with Morelli is a good idea?" Tank questioned when they got in the SUV, where Hector was waiting.
"They won't kill him."
"But will they get the right message across?" Tank wondered aloud. "This is more personal for you, so I figured you'd demand to do it."
"Santos thinks of her like a sister, and Bobby is the person who has to put her back together every time she gets hurt," Ranger explained. "It couldn't be any more personal for them."
As if knowing that was true, the big man in the back seat stopped talking and followed him when they arrived at the office and went to the basement, where the private holding cells were located.
Ranger didn't hesitate or issue any orders regarding what to expect. He walked straight to the door, unlocked it, and threw it open with a resounding bang as the knob hit the wall behind it. "What's your name?"
"Jorge Martinez," the man responded with what he probably intended to be a sneer, but the swelling around his eye and lip made it ineffective.
"You messed with the wrong woman," Ranger began.
"Word on the street was that she belonged to the cop, which meant your protection was useless," the foolish man replied. "The cop was putting his nose where it didn't belong with my women, so I had to teach him a lesson with his girl."
"The cop lied." Ranger moved slowly as he spoke. "The bounty hunter isn't his woman. She's mine."
At that, Martinez lost his confidence. "I didn't know that, man. Word was different."
"You didn't think to ask anybody first to see if it was true?" Ranger slammed on the tabletop.
"She was at his house for a long time. It looked true."
Ranger spoke low and steady, looking Martinez in the eye as his meaning began to sink in. "You just learned a valuable life lesson, with no time left to put it into practice."
Fifteen minutes later, Ranger could feel the split in his knuckle where his hand hit against Martinez's bone one too many times. He'd stopped begging and was really just pitifully moaning and crying with each blow. Disgusted with lack of fight, Ranger let go of the grip he had on Martinez's collar and let him fall to the ground in a heap.
He looked Hector in the eye and instructed, "Give him a visible scar and dump him somewhere he'll be seen." Then he knelt down and shook the man he'd just abused in order to get his attention once more. "I'm letting you live, but if anyone wearing your colors ever causes or allows a single hair on her head to be hurt, I'll rain down on you in ways you'll never survive." He received a nod and a whimper as a response that Ranger took as agreement to the terms as he'd outlined them.
Ranger entered his apartment as quickly as possible, slipping out of his boots at the door. A quick look showed Stephanie was still sleeping, exactly as he'd left her, with a slight grimace on her face, proving she was still uncomfortable.
Hoping she'd continue to sleep through the worst of it, he moved to the shower to clean off any evidence of what he'd done. Tying the towel around his waist, he looked himself over in the mirror to be sure he had gotten rid of all signs of his contact with Martinez. His knuckle was scrapped in a couple of places, so he grabbed some ointment, not only to keep it sterile but to hopefully remove some of his blood drying on his hand after the shower. As he was finishing the task, two soft hands touched his bare arm.
"It's not what it looks like," Ranger stated.
"Did a skip resist?" she asked. Ranger knew she remembered from past experience exactly how the guys' hands looked when they fought someone.
"Not exactly," Ranger answered cryptically, putting his blank face in place so he didn't give anything away.
"What is it, then, if it's not how it looks?"
"I needed to teach someone a lesson, but it wasn't a skip." He knew she wouldn't let it go until she got more from him.
"Was this because of me?" she asked, forcing his hand in a way he wished to avoid.
"Partly."
"What was the other part, if it wasn't me?" Her tone was getting sharper, and he knew she was only one or two more misleading comments away from getting angry.
"Me," he answered, seeing his response confused her. "I needed to teach a lesson to someone who thought he could hurt you, partly to protect you in the future and partly because the reality of how close you came to not making it today hit me in a way I wasn't prepared for."
"You've always gotten mad when I got hurt." She obviously still didn't understand.
Ranger was struggling to find the right words to explain himself. "When you're hurt, it's one thing, but you could have died today, and I would never have known what happened. I would have missed the best welcome home I've even gotten. I had to send a message to the streets so that I'd never have to worry about the feeling in my chest happening again when I see burn marks on the street.
"So, those scrapes on your hand aren't because you were mad. They're because you were scared."
He grimaced at her word choice. "I'd prefer to say worried, but your way works too."
She was quiet for a moment and let her fingers run down to the scrape on his hand. "Just to be clear, the way this looks is that you got hurt trying to take care of someone you…admire. It looks like keeping me safe is more important than your own comfort." As she spoke, her fingers continued to move over his skin. "I'm sorry it isn't how it looks, because I kind of liked that idea."
Ranger moved quickly, put his hands on her hips, and lifted her to sit on the countertop, with his legs between hers, moving then to frame her face with his hands. "I might have been hasty."
Her eyes were wide, the dark of her pupils framed with the quickly deepening shade of blue. "How?"
"Maybe it was exactly what it looked like."
She shivered slightly as he spoke, despite the steamy warmth in the room. When she next spoke, it was quieter. "Do you remember when you first came home and I told you it wasn't what it looked like."
He smiled at that memory. "I do."
"I might have slightly overstated my protest."
"How does one overstate that?" Ranger didn't understand.
"I knew you were due back today, so I'd scheduled to work from the main floor to know when you arrived. And, if you seemed like you were okay, I was going to try to sneak up here and wait to welcome you home privately."
Ranger tried to hide his amusement at the idea of her thinking her could sneak up to his apartment without anyone noticing and alerting him.
"After the explosion, I decided to skip working and came up here to clean up and see if I might be able to welcome you back the way I've always wanted to. But it didn't take me long to realize that moving hurt and there was no way I could do what I'd hoped."
"What had you hoped to do?" He loved where this might be heading.
Her face turned red, and he marveled at how someone as confident as her could still blush at the idea of talking about sex.
"I'd wanted to be in your bed, dressed in very little, to see what might happen."
"What would you want to happen?"
"Why do men seem to want to talk about sex? Why can't you be happy with a glimpse of what could have happened without hearing all the details?" she blurted out, her obvious embarrassment hooking some of her anger and possibly making her speak aloud what she intended to be private thoughts. "I tried to ignore it, but by the time I got up on the bed, I couldn't move much more and knew it would never work. I'd just come off looking crippled instead of sexy."
"That's where you're wrong," Ranger interrupted her rambling, making little wrinkles appear on her forehead. "I walked into the bedroom and saw you kneeling there and knew I'd never seen anything as sexy as you in my life."
She made a noise of disagreement but smiled anyway. Even though she obviously struggled to believe him, he could tell his words had still made her happy. They stood there, silent, as the air cleared from his shower. Without intending to move, they found themselves closer than when Ranger first set her on the counter, their faces mere inches apart.
"I want to kiss you," Ranger announced, clearly surprising Stephanie at his boldness and causing her to draw a breath in through her opened mouth.
Seizing the opportunity, he leaned in and claimed her lips with his own, trying to pour as much as possible into the kiss. He thought of how it felt to walk in and see her in his bed, wearing practically nothing. He remembered the way his anger swelled when he saw the bruises on her back. He recalled his rage when he saw the evidence still on the street of the explosion that could have taken her life, and then he thought back to how it felt when she came into the bathroom, concern on her face, to check on him.
When they pulled apart, Stephanie felt dizzy. They'd spent plenty of time kissing in the years they'd known each other, but there was something different about what just happened. It was like Ranger had dropped his filter completely. She had to force her eyes to open in order to see his face. For once, it wasn't blank. She couldn't put a label on his expression, but she wanted to see more of it. It was that thought that caused her to kiss him back.
When their lips touched, she let her hands wander and tangle in his silky hair, and she thought of how much she'd love to do this in bed. Then she remembered how she had to hide her face when he first came home because she knew the single look she got of him wearing the painted-on shirt showing every muscle he had caused her to look flushed and wanton. She remembered how it felt when he leaned down and kissed her hair before he left to apparently avenge her. She thought of how it was humbling to have someone stand up for her instead of making her feel like she was easily expendable and forgettable. She recalled how she felt when she woke up and realized he was back and she couldn't stop herself from going to him.
This time when they pulled back, it was Ranger's turn to look at her face, she assumed to see what had changed between them to cause their kisses to be more potent and powerful than ever before. "Babe…"
She nodded, understanding what he hadn't said. "I know."
"I'm not letting you go," he warned her. "I'm not stepping aside or waiting to see what happens."
"I'm not going anywhere, and I'd follow you if you tried to step away," she answered, holding on to him.
"Come on." He pulled her down and kept his hands on her hips until she was steady on her feet.
"Where are we going?" She glanced down and realized neither of them were appropriate to leave the apartment.
"Bed," he answered, reverting back to his short responses.
"I don't think I can…" She hated to admit it, but there was no way her back was going to hit the mattress.
Ranger spun around quickly, holding on to her to keep her from falling backward. "That's not what I meant."
Stephanie thought it was the first time he ever seemed flustered and it was endearing. "I guess it's not what it looks like, then?" she prompted, attempting to be funny.
"Oh no, Babe." He lost any trace of uncertainty as he moved to close any distance between them. "It's exactly what it looks like."
Stephanie swallowed twice and still couldn't find her voice to respond.
"I'm going to take you to that bed and pull you to me to love you all night long. And when the sun comes up tomorrow, I'm going to keep on doing it forever," he pledged. "Then, once your body heals a little, I'll do a lot more than just hold you at night."
"I think I'd like that," she answered, her voice small and weak sounding.
"Which part?" he said in a teasing voice.
"My body healing a little."
He raised an eyebrow, as though doubting that's really the part she'd like. She smiled slightly and held her head up confidently. "The rest of it I know I'll love and thought it went without saying."
"Apparently looks can be deceiving," he said, reminding her of how their day had begun.
"And sometimes they're exactly how they appear."
With that, the time for talking was over.
Had anyone happened to have seen them that night, it would be have been easy to see the care and tenderness between two people that could only be born of love. Because for them, Stephanie knew, how it looked was a transparent mirror of reality.
The End.
A/N: Hello everyone! I realize it's been two years since I posted on fanfiction, but to borrow a line from Stephanie, "it's not my fault." Well, maybe it is, but feel really badly about it just the same.
Warning – Blatant self-promotion is about to occur! Read at your own risk.
I've been working on the sequel to my original story, and am happy to say that on October 1, the second book in the Killer Cup of Joe series came out on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It's called Finely Ground (by Jennifer Templeman), and it picks up close to where the first one left off. If you have a chance to read it, I'd love to know what you think.
In the meantime, thank you for reading a little ramble that was knocking around in my head for a while. No matter what else I write, there is a piece of my brain that I'm convinced can only house the Plum universe which is why I keep coming back.