Since I couldn't do it personally, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has left guest reviews for chapter 1. This chapter contains spoilers for Smokin' Seventeen. Anything familiar belongs to Janet Evanovich.

Chapter 2

I grabbed my stuff and made the ten minute drive to the bonds office. This was going to be fun, I thought to myself as I swung into the office. Lula had been sitting on the fake leather couch flipping through a magazine. The second I stepped through the front door, she was on her feet.

"Okay," Lula said."I've waited long enough. Spill it."

"Yeah," Connie said."We're dying to know what happened."

"You were on your way back to Rangeman last night," Lula said,"so obviously Ranger didn't dump you. So what was dinner about? What'd he want with you?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said to them. How could they believe it when I still couldn't believe it myself? I had purposely kept my hand out of sight until after I told them. I knew they'd need to see the ring as proof.

"Uh-uh, that ain't gonna fly," Lula said."Somethin' must of happened last night. And you're gonna tell us what it was."

"You're not leaving this office until you do," Connie added, backing up Lula.

I took a deep breath and forged ahead."Ranger asked me to marry him last night," I said. It felt strange saying it out loud. Ranger and marriage still didn't seem to go together.

Lula's eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of her head, and Connie sat down hard in the chair behind her desk. For a few seconds nobody said anything. You could have heard a pin drop.

"Are you fuckin' with us?" Lula said.

"No."

"Ranger really asked you to marry him?" Connie asked, the shock evident on her face.

"Yep," I said. And I held up my left hand so they could see my engagement ring. If I was going to keep showing my ring off, which I fully intended to do, then I was going to have to start lifting weights or something. It was beautiful, but I was worried that my finger wasn't strong enough to support it.

Lula grabbed my hand and yanked it under her nose for a closer look."Holy shit. HOLY SHIT!" Lula yelled."Look at the size of this ring. I could buy a house for what this here rings worth. I bet it's real and everything. Ranger wouldn't give you no cheap-ass ring."

Connie was around the desk, nearly pulling my arm out of it's socket, to get a look, too."I can't believe it," she said."I've known Ranger for years. And I never would have thought he'd ever get married again."

"I was more surprised than you," I told her."I thought he was playing a joke on me."

"That's a serious ring you got there," Lula said.

"Yeah. That's what finally convinced me."

"Dang, I can't believe you're going to be Mrs. Ranger. I don't know how you did it. Well, I know one way you did it, but to get him to propose ... Girlfriend, that took skills."

Skills I still thought I lacked. But Ranger did propose, so I must be doing something right in that department.

"You gotta tell us everything," Lula said, sitting back down.

"Don't leave a thing out," Connie said, shaking her head."I still can't believe it."

"You're not the only one," I said, dropping down in the chair in front of Connie's desk.

I told them about the restaurant. And I told them how I thought someone had put Ranger up to it, but I left out the dessert part of the night. After all, there were some things that Connie and Lula didn't need to know. And even if I wanted to, I didn't think I could I find words to describe the details if I could.

I sat back in my chair when I was finished. Connie and Lula still looked a little stunned.

"Your mom is going to have a heart attack when you tell her," Connie said.

"Yeah," Lula said,"but Grandma Mazur is going to be happy. She's gonna make sure she got the seat by Ranger at every dinner you have there."

Shit. My family. I'd forgotten all about having to tell them for a minute. My mother was going to kill me. Not to say that she didn't like Ranger. It's just that he wasn't considered family material in my mother's eyes. Hell, she'd barely considered Joe to be family material.

"Um ..." Lula started."I hate to bring this up, but what about Morelli?"

Good question. Even after talking about him with Ranger, it was one I still didn't have an answer for. So I went with stalling.

"What about him?"

Connie and Lula's eyebrows raised.

"You fall on your head or somethin'?" Lula asked."What do mean what about Morelli? You were practically engaged to him not too long ago."

I slumped a little lower in my seat. My earlier worries about hurting Joe were back with a vengeance.

"This has the potential to turn real ugly," Connie said.

I glared at her.

Connie put her palms up in surrender."I'm just saying that they're both armed. Both alpha-male types. And both in love with you. So this could go badly if Morelli was holding out for a reconciliation."

Connie wasn't saying anything I didn't already know, but hearing it said out loud didn't help the knot that was steadily growing in my stomach.

"Does Morelli want back with you?" Lula asked.

I shrugged."I haven't got the foggiest idea. I haven't seen him in a while."

"Are you going to tell him yourself?" Connie asked."Or wait and hope he finds out when you're on your honeymoon?"

I was leaning towards honeymoon, but I didn't think that would be fair to Joe. After all, we have a long history that, I think, still included a distant friendship.

I blew out a sigh."The news should come from me. I owe him that much."

"Uh-uh," Lula said."That don't sound like a good idea to me. Ranger'd be pissed."

"Why would he be pissed?" I asked Lula.

Both Lula and Connie shook their heads at my obvious stupidity.

"Girl," Lula said,"I thought you would of learned somethin' about the way men think by now since you'd pretty much been involved with two of them at the same time."

"I know a lot about men," I said.

"Uh-huh," Lula said, not convinced,"if you say so."

"What am I missing?" I asked Connie.

"You're going to talk to the guy that's been your on-and-off again boyfriend since forever," Connie said, taking pity on me."If that wasn't enough, you're specifically going to talk to him to tell him that you're about to marry the guy that had been the biggest obstacle in your relationship? And you don't know why Ranger wouldn't want you to?"

"Joe wouldn't hurt me," I said.

"Not physically. But emotionally ... that could be a whole different story. And I'm sure Ranger wouldn't want you to be put in a position of having to defend him, or your relationship."

Well, it made sense when she put it that way."Maybe Joe won't find out," I said. Of course knowing how fast news travels in the Burg, Morelli's probably heard all about it and was on his way here.

"You got some life," Lula said."First off, you're engaged to Batman. And second, you have the finest ass in Trenton wanting you back. I wish I had your problems."

"No you don't," I told Lula."They give you stomach cramps and eye twitches."

"You're right. I don't want no digestive issues. I got my eatin' down to a science. Speaking of eatin'," Lula said."I could go for a Cluck-in-a-Bucket run."

I looked at my watch."It's not even lunchtime."

Lula stuck her hand on her hip."So? What's that got to do with anything?"

"I have to clean the office and you promised to help me," Connie said, pointing a finger at Lula."And you're not leaving until you do."

"Hunh," Lula said, grabbing the garbage can and walking over to Connie's desk."Hold on," she said to me,"I can take care of this real quick."

Connie beat her to the desk."You are not going to just throw everything away."

Lula's eyes narrowed and I sensed her rhino mode coming on.

"I don't have anything better to do right now," I told Lula, hoping to calm her down,"so I'll help you two with the cleaning. And then we'll all go to Cluck-in-a-Bucket for lunch." I hated anything to do with picking up after anyone, myself included, but I didn't want Lula and Connie to kill each other. With my luck, Morelli would be assigned the case if they did. It was really sad when I had to be the grown up in the room.

"I guess that'd be okay," Lula said."At least someone here is makin' sense."

Connie glared at her.

"I hope you got money on you," Lula said looking over at me,"because I'm gonna work up a real appetite here."

Why, me? I thought to myself, and picked up a stack of papers.

A couple of hours later, I dropped Connie and Lula back at the office and headed to the safety of my car.

Traffic was starting to form, so I turned off of Hamilton and mindlessly wound my way through a few side-streets, my thoughts on how I was going to tell my mother tomorrow about Ranger and I getting married. Most women wanted their mother to be the first person they told. I wasn't one of them. I was going to put it off as long as I possibly could.

I slammed my foot down on the brake just in time to avoid running a red light. Maybe I should be paying more attention to my driving and less attention to my mother. And while I was waiting for the light to change back to green, my passenger window was suddenly smashed in. A beat later, a meaty arm came through the window and unlocked the door. A big guy with a blond buzz cut climbed into the seat and pointed a nasty looking gun in my face. Had I had more time, I'd have taken his arm off getting the heck out of there. But it happened so fast, and was so unexpected, that my reaction time was slow.

I suppose it says something about my life when my first thought about being carjacked wasn't, 'Oh my God! What am I going to do?' But rather, 'Oh shit. Here we go again.'

"Drive!" The guy said.

"I don't think so," I said, sounding more confident than I actually felt. Sometimes criminals will back off if you put up a fight.

My head rocked back from the blow, and all I could feel was pain radiating from my temple where I'm guessing the butt of his gun had struck me. Okay, apparently this wasn't going to be one of those times. He wasn't backing off.

"I'm not going to say it again," he said."Drive!"

I wasn't going to push my luck. Yet. My foot hit the gas and I drove on auto pilot while I tried to come up with some way out of this. Unfortunately, the pounding in my head was making it difficult to focus. How do these things always happen to me? Great. Now, on top of everything else, I sounded like my mother.

The carjacker hadn't said anything aside from a few clipped directions. The more I thought about it, the more pissed off I became. I mean, who the hell did this guy think he was? I had things to do, for crying out loud. I had Rex to take care of. I had a wedding to look forward to; who knew I'd ever think that. The beginning of a brand new life with Ranger. There was no way I was going to let some moron with no manners, no brain, and no deodorant take those away from me. So I did the only thing I could ... I crashed the car. I figured Ranger wouldn't mind me wrecking another one of his cars in this particular case. Not that he ever seemed to mind. As the car hit concrete, I strained against my seat belt and felt the airbag deploy. The sudden silence was deafening. I sat for a few beats and mentally checked myself out. No pain except for where he had hit me. I could move all my parts so nothing was broken. Good deal. The guy next to me wasn't so lucky. He hadn't been wearing a seat belt and the airbag hadn't been much help to him. His head got knocked into the broken glass of the passenger window. He wasn't moving, or groaning for that matter, so I could only assume that he had lost consciousness. All I had to do now was get my ass out of there before he woke up.

I unbuckled the seat belt and wrenched my door open. My legs were like rubber but I knew that was a small price to pay for not getting shot ... or worse. I started down the deserted street, keeping to the shadows not wanting the carjacker or anyone else to see me.

I had been walking for about ten minutes when I saw headlights coming towards me. I'd ducked behind a tree and would have stayed there if I hadn't caught sight of the car. A Porsche Cayenne. Ranger. I'd somehow forgotten about the tracking device in my ring. And, not to mention on my car. The control room would have known something was up, since I was supposed to be on my way back to Rangeman, and my ring and my car were in two different places.

The Cayenne stopped on the road in front of me, and I took off towards it. I had crashed the car without having to think about it. But now that it was over, the fear of what could have happened tonight had set in and I was starting to shake.

Ranger met me halfway and pulled me to him, his arms tightening like steel bands around me. I slid my hands up his back and clutched his shoulders in a death grip. I was afraid he was going to have to cut his T-shirt off to get me to let go of him.

We stood wrapped around each other for a few moments, not saying anything until my shaking had stopped. Ranger eased back and looked down at me, his mouth a grim line when he got a look at my face. I didn't need him to tell me how bad I looked. My head was killing me.

"Are you all right?"

I blew out a breath."I'm fine now," I said.

"What happened?"

"I was driving back to Rangeman and I stopped for a light. The next thing I knew, this idiot was in my car with a gun pointed at me."

"The crash?" Ranger asked.

"It was the only thing I could think of at the time to get myself out of the car and away from him."

"Good thinking, Babe," he said, his arms tightening even more. Probably he was thinking of what could have happened tonight, too.

I looked up at him."I really am all right," I told him, starting to believe it now myself."I'm like a cat. I've got nine lives."

"That's true, Babe, but you've used up a lot more than nine since I've known you."

"I've been busy," I said. And more than a little stupid at times.

A black Rangeman SUV drove past us on the street. No doubt heading to the crash site. Tank got out of a second SUV that had pulled up behind the Cayenne. Tank didn't say anything, but I saw his eyes go hard when he also got a glimpse of my face. He exchanged a look with Ranger before getting back into the SUV and taking off towards my car. I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Shouldn't we be hearing sirens by now?"

"It didn't seem necessary to call the cops right now," Ranger said."They're probably busy and I'd hate to disturb them for this."

Uh-oh. I looked up at Ranger."This guy's going to make it to the police station, right?" I asked him.

"Eventually," Ranger said.

"You know," I said to Ranger,"you can't just go around killing people that upset you."

"I didn't say anything about killing him."

"You didn't say anything about not killing him, either," I pointed out.

Ranger took a step back and opened the passenger door for me."He'll be taken care of," Ranger said. End of conversation.

I slumped into the comfy leather seat and leaned my head back. I hated to admit it, but I didn't really care a whole lot about what happens to the carjacker. Tomorrow I would care. Maybe.

Ranger angled behind the wheel and drove me back to Rangeman. At least, that was where I thought he was taking me. I must have dozed off, or possible passed out for a few minutes, because when I opened my eyes Ranger was leaning over me, unbuckling my seat belt. I looked past Ranger and blinked in confusion. We weren't at Rangeman. We were in the parking area of the emergency room.

I sat up straighter."What are we doing here?" I asked, as if I didn't already know.

"Babe," Ranger said,"you just passed out on me. I want you to get checked out to make sure you don't have a concussion."

"I don't want to go in there," I said."I'm fine. I don't need a doctor to tell me that my head hurts. I already know it does."

Ranger paused for a moment making up his mind.

"Please," I added, hoping it would work on him the same way him saying it does on me.

He got back behind the wheel after another moment of internal debate."I'm only agreeing to this because I'll be keeping an eye on you all night," Ranger said to me, his voice serious."But if you pass out again, you're going to the hospital."

I rebuckled my seatbelt. Fair enough. I hated hospitals but I hated dying more.

I really wanted to curl up in the seat and close my eyes, but I was afraid Ranger would immediately make a U-turn and head straight back to the hospital if I wasn't completely awake and alert.

Ranger drove through the center of the city with one eye on me the whole time. I was starting to worry about how bad my face looked. I didn't feel any worse than I had in the past when I've been injured, but Ranger was acting a little more concerned than I thought this warranted. Could be just the fact that now that we were engaged, my well being was going to be more of a issue for him if that was at all possible.

Ranger turned down Haywood and pulled into the Rangeman garage. He came around to my side of the car and opened the door for me. I could get used to this, I thought to myself. Without the carjacking, of course. Ranger helped me out of the Cayenne and put his arm around me, propelling me into the elevator.

I stood leaning heavily into Ranger and tried to keep the bruised part of my face out of the the cameras line of sight. I didn't want the guys in the control to worry. I'd found out, more than once, that when the men were worried they took matters into their own hands without listening to reason. They've adopted me as sort of the Rangeman mascot. And everyone knows, you never mess with a team's mascot.

Ranger noticed what I was doing."No point in hiding, Babe," Ranger said to me."They all know about what happened. This guy's safer in jail right now."

I stiffened in his arms.

"Don't worry," Ranger said."Once the men found out that you were okay, they mostly calmed down."

"Mostly or totally?" I asked, looking up at him.

"You can't blame them for being upset," Ranger said."They care about you."

"That's good to know," I said."But I don't want anyone getting in trouble because of me."

"They'd have to get caught first," Ranger said, his mouth in the almost smile.

The elevator doors opened. Ranger unlocked his door, and tugged me through the apartment into his bathroom. He tilted my head back and looked closely at the side of my face under the light.

"This doesn't look good," Ranger said, finally."What did he hit you with?"

"The butt of his gun."

Ranger ran a washcloth under the faucet. I think he needed a moment to get a grip on his feelings. Ranger wasn't happy.

He came back to me and gently applied the cloth to my face.

I caught his hand and made him look at me."I've been through worse, remember?"

"This should never have happened in the first place."

"Look," I said to him,"as much as you'd like to, you can't stop every bad thing from happening. Especially to me. I'm all right, aside from having my face look like a page from a coloring book."

Ranger held my eye for a long moment. Deciding if I was just putting on a show, or if I was really as okay as I seemed.

He must have believed me.

"And on the bright side," I said to Ranger,"if my mother finds out about this, it'll make telling her about our engagement a lot easier. It'll be hard for her to flip out too much over two things at the same time." But since the police weren't called, my mother wouldn't have her normal source of gossip so she might not find out about the carjacking until the guy was brought in, which wouldn't help me at all. Jeez, I couldn't even get being carjacked to work in my favor.

"Babe," Ranger said,"you're the only one who would say something like that."

Hard to tell if that was a compliment or a complaint. Best not to ask.

Ranger tossed the towel into the sink, and pulled me to him."It was a compliment." Ranger was reading my thoughts again since I was pretty sure I hadn't said anything out loud."Just when I think I've seen it all, you manage to surprise me," Ranger said, his lips moving against the uninjured side of my head.

There was something almost gentle in his voice."You know, for someone who's supposed to be such a badass," I said to Ranger,"you've got a soft spot."

"Only for you, Babe," he said, taking a step back and looking down at me."I'm sure Ella brought something up to eat if you're up to it."

I wasn't sure if I was hungry, but I didn't want to have to think about anything right now. And dinner sounded like a good distraction.

"I could go for something to eat."

Ranger wrapped his arm around my shoulders and moved me towards the kitchen.

After we finished eating; mostly it was me eating and Ranger watching me, we'd migrated to Ranger's den and to watch a late game. Ranger was sitting slouched back in the couch, and I was curled up next to him, my head resting on his leg. I couldn't say it was the softest place for my head, since Ranger was all muscle and his thigh was no exception, but I didn't care. I was just happy to be alive with Ranger close by.

I was starting to get drowsy, and I shifted my head a little trying to stay awake when Ranger spoke.

"Careful, Babe," he said, looking down at me.

"I wasn't doing anything."

"But I might," Ranger said, his eyes darkening,"if you don't stop squirming in my lap."

The visual that popped into my head at his words took care of the feeling sleepy problem. I moved my head another inch and smiled."Was that a threat?" I asked. What better way to forget about my head than to make certain other body parts a priority. I knew it would sound stupid to most people, but over the last few months, longer than that if I was being honest with myself, I'd begun viewing Ranger as my cure for whatever ailed me. No matter how upset I was, or how hurt, just having Ranger there with me made me believe, however improbable, that everything would be okay. And having a banged up head was nothing compared to some of the other things Ranger had gotten me through.

"More like a promise."

My toes curled. Ranger always kept his promises. I sat up carefully and flung my leg over his, straddling him. Ranger's hands settled on my hips holding me against him. I bent my head to his, my lips brushing his ear as I spoke.

"And you always keep your promises, right?"

One of Ranger's hands moved to my breast."Right, Babe," Ranger said."But your head ..."

"My head isn't the part of my body that I'm thinking about."

That was all Ranger needed. He stood up, with me still wrapped around him, and headed for the bedroom. Minutes later, we were both naked. I was on my back in bed and Ranger's hand was skimming the inside of my thigh. I had a grip on the sheet and I think my eyes might have been rolled back in my head in anticipation of what was ahead. A few minutes later, I could honestly say that I'd felt no pain.

Ranger also kept his promise of keeping his eye on me throughout the night. He woke me every hour to make sure my brain was still functioning properly. After the night I'd just had, I wasn't sure that was a reasonable goal. And you would think being continuously woken up would be beyond annoying, but Ranger did it in very inventive ways. Like his lips finding a particularly sensitive spot on my neck. Or his hand skimming across my breast. His leg sliding along mine. What can I say? Ranger has an excellent bedside manner.

I was in my cubby the following morning running a few searches for Rangeman when a woman walked in with Tank. This was strange for a number of reasons. First being that no one shared anything about their personal lives here at Rangeman. Except for Ranger, of course. And an occasional picture of Tank's cat might appear. But other than that, it would look to the world like the Rangeman men had no social lives. So the appearance of a woman with Tank had my curiosity up and running.

Tank talked to Hal for a few moments and then ushered the woman into Ranger's office. I felt my eyes squinch together. I'm not the jealous type, usually, but I knew something was up since Ranger didn't mention anything to me about a mystery woman this morning. So I did the only thing a newly engaged woman could do when an somewhat attractive woman was being brought to her fiance's office. I pushed back from my desk and followed slowly behind Tank down the hall.

I couldn't hear a whole lot, since his door was partially closed, but I did let out a breath when I heard a few words about a job for her. Wait a minute, they were talking about what I've come to refer to as a "distraction job." That didn't make any sense. Ranger always called me when he needed a short skirt to lore some poor, unsuspecting FTA out of a building. Why would he all of a sudden hire out? I couldn't come up with any reason that would explain it or, at the very least, lower my blood pressure.

I skulked back to my cubby and waited with steam ready to shoot out of the top of my head until Tank got back into the elevator with the other woman. Then I hauled myself out of my chair and willed myself to stay calm on my way back to Ranger's office.

His door was open this time and I didn't bother knocking before I walked in, closing the door firmly behind me.

"What was that all about?" I demanded, hands on hips.

Ranger's mouth tipped up in an almost smile."Babe, were you eavesdropping again?"

"Maybe," I said, folding my arms across my chest. Belligerent. It's a look that every woman in my family had perfected.

Ranger crooked his finger at me."Come here."

I shook my head side to side."I don't think so." There was no way I was going to let him seduce his way out of this one."Why are you giving a job to some bimbo, when I'm right here?"

"Come here and I'll tell you," Ranger said.

I blew out a sigh and closed the distance between us. When I headed for the chair across from his desk, Ranger wrapped a hand around my wrist and pulled me into his lap, his arms tight around me holding me there.

"Hey!" I said."This isn't fair. I'm mad at you right now."

"You can't be mad at me," Ranger said, brushing a kiss against my hair.

"Why didn't you tell me you had a job?" I asked, pulling as far as I could away from him.

"I was planning on talking to you about it after Tank left," Ranger said."I should have guessed that your ear would have been plastered to the door."

"Why didn't you ask me?" I asked again, not letting up for a minute.

"I was going to ask you," Ranger said to me."But in case you weren't feeling up to it, or you didn't want to do it, I had to make sure we had someone ready to take your place."

"My heads fine," I said."Well, mostly fine. And why wouldn't I want to do this job?"

"I wasn't sure if you were going to be comfortable flirting with a man who wasn't me now that we're engaged."

I hadn't thought about that, but since I'd been in love with Ranger for years and I still managed to get the job done, I hadn't considered that things may be different now.

"Does it bother you?" I asked him.

"I'll admit that it doesn't make me happy to think of someone hitting on you," Ranger said,"but it's your decision to make."

I thought about that for a second before speaking again."As long as I know you're not going to be upset about it and try to kill the guy, then I'll be fine."

"I make no promises, Babe, if there's a possibility of you being hurt."

"I'm always in danger of getting hurt," I told him."Considering the bruise I have from something that was not work related, you should know that better than anyone." I'd used a ton of makeup on my face this morning, but the bruise was still visible if you looked close enough. Luckily, most of the bars where we pick up skips weren't bright inside.

"While that's true, Steph," Ranger said,"I don't want you getting hurt again. Especially if it's because I asked you to do a job for Rangeman when you weren't 100 percent. I don't like you being in danger, but I don't want to change who you are because I'm worried about keeping you in one piece. So I wanted the decision to take the job to be yours."

"You know, I was never sure about having kids, but this clinches it. If you're acting like this now," I said to him,"then there's no way we're ever having kids. You'd be impossible."

Ranger's hand slid under my T-shirt making my muscles bunch where his hand rested against my stomach."I'd be worse than impossible," Ranger said, his lips skimming my ear."But you'd get used to it."

Not in this lifetime, I thought. I'd finally relented on the tracking devices, but it took me years to do it.

Ranger moved his left hand from my stomach to my thigh. I looked down at his hand, which was free from any jewelry, and suddenly had a thought about the woman that had just left Ranger's office.

"How come women wear engagement rings but men don't?" I asked.

"Women like diamonds more than men?"

"Funny," I said to him."Seriously though, women walk around with a ring that pretty much screams 'Hands off!' to other men, but guys have nothing to keep other women from poaching. No one would even know that you're engaged," Like that bimbo that just left your office, I thought to myself.

"Is that something you're worried about?" Ranger asked.

"I don't know," I answered honestly.

I trusted Ranger in every way. But ever since finding Dickhead doing Joyce on my brand new dining room table ten minutes after I married him, there's always been a little part of me that wondered if anyone could stay faithful to me. I guess that would explain my reluctance to commit fully in a relationship until now.

Ranger crossed his arms over me, pulling me tighter to him."You don't have to worry on the score, Babe," Ranger said."Once your mother and grandmother find out, the whole state of New Jersey will know that we're engaged."

That would be true, once my mother regained consciousness after I told her, that is.

"And you don't have to worry about other women," Ranger added."Most of them are usually too scared of me to do more than look."

"Well, I don't exactly have men throwing themselves at me, either."

"What about Dave?" Ranger said."He walked naked into your bathroom while you were showering. That's close to throwing himself at you, don't you think?"

I shuddered at the memory. A few weeks ago, in a misguided attempt to convince Ranger that I could, in fact, take care of myself if I had to, I accidentally told him about Dave Brewer. How Dave had broken into my bathroom. And how I had to break his nose.

Dave was a man my mother had tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to fix me up with. I'd told Dave repeatedly that I wasn't interested in him, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He also turned out to be a serial killer, so it was probably good that I hadn't been interested. I'd forgotten that I wasn't going to tell Ranger anything at all about Dave. But I guess I was too wrapped up in making a point.

"He had help from my mother," I said.

"He's lucky he got shot," Ranger said, and I could hear something slightly scary in his voice. Ranger was no happier now than he'd been when I first told him about Dave.

I let my body relax against Ranger and looked up at him. I tried to remove the sudden stiffness from his mouth by brushing my thumb across his bottom lip."I thought I told you that you couldn't just go around killing people that annoy you."

Ranger's mouth thinned. Uh-oh.

"Dave did more than annoy me," Ranger said.

I patted his cheek and settled back down, my face pressed into the side of his neck inhaling the scent that was distinctly Ranger. If someone could figure out a way to bottle that scent, they'd be millionaires in a matter of minutes.

"I'm sure he did," I said, sweetly."But Dave's dead. And you can't kill someone twice."

You could however, as I'd found out, have three people try to kill you all at the same time. Which is why Dave was dead. He got in the way of two other people planning on eliminating me that night.

"What were we talking about?" I asked, feeling the need to get off the Dave subject.

"Engagement rings," Ranger said."And if I did anything to mess up with you, I'd likely get my ass kicked by every guy here at Rangeman. They seem to be almost as protective of you as I am."

Like anyone could kick Ranger's ass. I picked my head up enough to give Ranger a yeah-right look.

He smiled."When were you planning on going to your parents' house?"

"I was going to finish up here, and head over around dinner time," I said."I could always wait until tomorrow if you need me."

"I always need you here," Ranger said, kissing the top of my head."But you need to tell your mother before she hears it from someone else. You sure you don't want me to go with you?"

I'd planned on telling my mother about my engagement tonight, but I wasn't sure exactly how she would take the news. On the one hand, I'd be married and off the streets; one of my mother's goals since two days after my divorce to Dickie went through. On the other hand, I was marrying Ranger. And if my mother was going to say anything against Ranger, I didn't want him to be around to here it.

Ranger, as usual, read my thoughts."Babe, I can handle your mother."

"I know," I said. Ranger, unlike me, didn't believe in avoiding things no matter how difficult they were to do."But I still think it'd be easier if I told her alone."

"Your choice," Ranger said."I'll be here if you need me."

I gave Ranger a quick kiss. Okay it was supposed to be a quick kiss, but Ranger had other plans. When he finally broke away, my face was heated, along with a few other places. I slid off Ranger's lap before he could stop me, and started back to my cubby. I paused in the doorway of the office and looked back at Ranger.

"You can have Tank call that woman back and tell her she's not needed," I told Ranger."If you need something then I want to be the one to help you. Okay?"

"If that's what you want, Babe."

I smiled at him."It's what I want," I said, and walked back to my desk.