Hiya, here's another chapter. It's not as long as some of the more recent ones, but that can't be helped. The story is just like that. Enjoy!

Steph's POV

Monday was a bit nerve-racking. Carlos and I had 2 client meetings with existing customers and I was a bit rusty on our services. "Just follow my lead Babe. You'll be fine. I want you there not only for your people skills, but because you see things that others often miss."

I relented and dressed in one of my new business suits. We drove to the first customer site and the meeting was quite pleasant. The customer owned a luxury car showroom and dealership. He had trouble in the past with cars being stolen from his lot, but ever since RangeMan took over, nothing had been taken.

He introduced himself and insisted that we call him Roger. He showed us around the building and the surrounding lots and Carlos pointed out a few areas that could be vulnerable. I took notes as they talked and when we returned to the office, I went over them to make sure I didn't miss anything. I even made a few suggestions of my own.

When we left, Roger seemed happy with the suggestions we had made and we promised to get a quote to him as soon as possible. We all shook hands and when we climbed into the car, Carlos turned to me and said, "You did great in there Babe. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks. I was really nervous. Hopefully I'll do better this afternoon. What should we do in the meantime?"

The tips of Carlos' lips curled into a slow smile. I knew what he had on his mind, but there simply wasn't time for that. I rolled my eyes at him and pulled on my seatbelt. Carlos' face turned serious and he said, "I need to stop by the Haywood site to see how things are coming along there. I need an estimate on when we can start rebuilding our offices. After that, we should find somewhere quiet to come up with a proposal for Roger and maybe get some lunch. Not necessarily in that order though."

I thought for a moment and said, "I can call my mother to see if we can go there for lunch. We could then use their dining table to work on the proposal. I could also show my mother some of my plans if Grandma Mazur isn't around."

"I think that's a good plan. Why don't you call your mother now? If will give her a bit of notice then maybe she can get away from your grandmother long enough for the two of you to talk."

I nodded and dug in my purse for my phone. After a quick conversation with my mother, I put my phone back in my handbag and turned to Carlos. "As luck would have it, Grandma Mazur is out of town. She and her friends Elaine and Marion went to Atlantic City for a few days. Both my parents are expecting us for lunch at 12. I did mention that we might be a few minutes late and she said that was fine. It isn't a hot lunch."

Carlos drove to Haywood. It was basically a demolition site at the moment. There were dozens of workers and heavy machinery clearing the remains of the old RangeMan building. The next door warehouse was already gone and that site has been cleared. The warehouse wasn't a very substantial structure, so it was easy to remove.

The difficulty or so Carlos was told by the foreman, were the subbasements from the old building. They were structurally sound, but they needed to be removed before the new building could be started. Carlos asked for an estimate for when the work would be finished. The foreman looked at a few bits of paper in his mobile office and estimated 6 weeks.

Carlos was happy with this estimate and I was surprised. There looked like there was still a lot of work left. The foremen suggested that he have regular contact with Ranger over the next few weeks. If things could be moved along quicker than the estimate, Ranger would need to know.

After Haywood, we headed to my parents' house. As usual, my mother was waiting for me at the door. What surprised me was that my father was also there. We walked up to the house and I kissed and hugged my dad and was led inside by my mother. I left Carlos to greet my dad as my mother dragged me upstairs.

Once in her bedroom, she pulled open a drawer in her dresser and pulled out a very pretty album-like book. She handed it to me and said, "This is sort of like a keepsake book so you can retain your wedding plans. It has a planner, a checklist and lots of other helpful hints."

I flipped through the book quickly and agreed that it would be very helpful. It would allow me to better organise my plans. I looked up at my Mom and noticed that she had a tear in her eye. I quickly stood and hugged her. We're not a very physical family, so this was out of the norm. Instead of pulling away and putting on a brave face, my Mom wrapped her arms tightly around me and said, "I'm so glad that you are happy baby. I know I've harped on you for a long time about getting married, but I'd rather see you happy than wedded. I'm just glad you have found both with Carlos."

"Thanks Mom. I really am happy with Carlos."

We both wiped the tears that were in our eyes and headed downstairs to find Carlos and my dad deep in conversation. I overheard something about a car and decided to leave them to it. I went into the kitchen to help my mother bring a platter of lunch meats, cheeses, tomatoes and onions out to the table. She had a second platter that was filled with cucumber, carrot and celery sticks with a sour cream and onion dip. There was also a green salad.

When we placed everything on the table, Carlos looked around at the food and then at my mother and said, "This looks wonderful Ellen. I know you went to extra trouble just for me, so thank you very much."

My mother blushed at Carlos' comment, but decided to hand out plates and fetch the bread. The bread was fresh from the bakery down the street. It was still a little warm. At first, I groaned with I saw that it wasn't white bread, but when I tasted it, I had to stifle a surprise groan.

"What kind of bread is this Mom? It's delicious."

"Sour dough bread. It's healthier than white bread, but doesn't taste as gravelly as whole grain bread."

I nodded and filled my sandwich with some meat, cheese, tomatoes and topped it with a few salad leaves and some mayo. After lunch, my dad invited Carlos to go out into the garage. As soon as we cleared the table, my mother said, "The dishes can wait. Come and see what we've planned so far for the engagement party."

I followed my mother into the living room and we sat side-by-side on the sofa. My mother had a spiral bound notebook that she laid on the table and opened it up. The first thing she showed me was the guest list. It was huge. I looked at my mother who looked a bit sheepish. "I was hoping you could help me whittle this list down a little. When I met with Maria and Ella, we decided to try and keep the list of guests under 250. If we could get the number of guests be less than 200 that would be even better."

I looked over the list and then at my mother. I took a pencil and started marking asterisks beside the people I really wanted there. I then put an 'X' beside the ones I definitely didn't want there. This included Angie Morelli, Joe's Grandma Bella and several of Grandma Mazur's kookier ex-boyfriends. I really wanted to exclude Vinnie from the list, but he was family and I thought it might cause some hard feelings. This lowered the list enough to keep my mother happy for now.

I did one final pass and put a tilde '~' beside any name that was questionable. These were the gossip kings and queens who weren't really friends of the family. I didn't rule them out, but it would help my mother if they needed to remove more people from the list later. I explained what the three marks were for and my mother nodded and made a small note in the corner. She also asked if I could make a list of my friends that I wanted to invite. She had added some names, but she was sure she forgot some. She was right. I wanted to invite several people to the engagement party. I added Sally Sweet, Mooner and Dougie, Robin Russell, Big Dog, Carl Costanza, Gina Giovichinni, Dillon Ruddick and of course, Joe Morelli.

I handed the book back to my mother and she protested a bit about inviting Joe. I looked at her and said, "Mom, Joe's been really supportive of my relationship with Carlos. He has helped RangeMan a lot since the bombing and he's an old friend. He and Carlos have even started to become friends. I would like to invite him. If he doesn't feel that is appropriate for him to go, then he simply won't go."

My mother conceded and moved on to show me a bunch of other things that they planned. They decided not to hire a caterer so they could provide some family favourites. Food and drink would be set out and replenished all evening by the hotel's wait staff. A large banner would be printed. Ella suggested that they use the same company that made the RangeMan banner, and Ella was going to run with it. Now that she knew our colours, I'm sure she is going to follow those guidelines.

I was pretty impressed with the restraint showed by our mothers and Ella. There wasn't anything overly crazy. A large decorated engagement cake would be ordered from Tasty Pastry. Maria was going to order another cake that was a Cuban specialty from her baker. There would be a bunch of other small desserts. I could see that they would be busy for days getting all the food ready. That reminded me.

"Mom, I forgot to mention that we'll be getting the keys for our new house tomorrow. The kitchen is all yours. The only problem is that it's completely bare at the moment. We have no pots, pans, table ware or glassware yet."

"I'm sure I can provide most of what I need. Space is the limiting factor here more than anything."

"OK. We'll need to buy things as well, so maybe I can just give you my credit card and you can buy what you need. I was going to go shopping one day this week, probably tomorrow or Wednesday in-between meetings."

"I know you aren't much of a cook, but maybe you can help me if you're interested."

"I'll see what I can fit into my schedule. Carlos and I are very busy over the next couple of weeks visiting customers. Evenings might work better than the day."

I talked with my mother a little longer and we decided to put off discussing my wedding plans because Carlos and I had some work to do that afternoon. Not only did we need to come up with a quote for Roger, we also needed to get our wedding invitation text sorted out. I moved over to the dining table and pulled out Carlos' laptop. I pulled up the program we used to generate quotes and then went out to the garage. I found my father and Carlos with their heads buried in an old engine block that my father has been playing with for the past 2 years.

Carlos looked up when I walked in and looked at his watch. His eyes widened and he said, "I'm really sorry Frank, but work is calling. I'd love to see more of this another time." Carlos shook hands with my father and we all trooped back inside. Carlos sat in the chair I just vacated and I sat beside him. It only took us about 20 minutes to come up with the quote for Roger. We'd print it back at the beach house tonight and get it in the mail tomorrow.

We spent the next little while talking about the wedding invitations. We agreed that we didn't want the traditional 'Parents A and Parents B request your presence, blah blah blah.' Since we were both already married at one point in time, we were also keeping the ceremony relatively secular. No hymns or bible readings during the ceremony. We wanted the ceremony and the invitations to be succinct and true to us.

In the end, we asked my parents for input. It was quite funny when my mother heard that we were having a secular ceremony. She was drinking coffee at the time and it went out her nose. She had to run to the bathroom to clean up and check for any burns. When she returned, she apologised for her reaction. In the end, she was the one that came up with the perfect text for our invitations.

Carlos took the final text and went into the hallway to call Ella. He passed on our text to Ella who was on her way to her friend's shop. We packed up our stuff and left my parents and headed to our afternoon appointment.

Carlos' POV

If my Babe ever doubted her value at RangeMan, today should have alleviated any of her misgivings. Not only was she instrumental in pointing out security holes in existing systems, she assured our customers that RangeMan was still capable of offering top notch security. During our afternoon meeting, she convinced Josh Hollister that he needed to upgrade his security cameras to the newer infrared style. He held out the last time we did an account review, but somehow, my Babe made him realise that this was in his best interest.

"Babe, I'm so proud of you. You did such a great job with Hollister today. The last time we did an account review for him, Lester suggested that new cameras would help us see and identify suspects in the dark. Hollister didn't want to spend the extra money, even though it was in his best interest. You came in today and laid things out in a way that he could understand. You gave him useful business cases where the new cameras would be useful. Without you, we'd probably only have sold him 4 more cameras. Instead, he's upgrading all of his cameras, adding an additional 6 cameras and well be doing night time monitoring of his property. That's a huge win for RangeMan."

I watched the colour of my Babe's face go from her usual alabaster to bright red. She even rolled her eyes at my comments, but I just laughed and said, "I'm being serious Babe. I mean it when I say that you are good for RangeMan."

My Babe smiled shyly at me and said, "I guess this is our last night out at the beach house for a while eh?"

I nodded and said, "We can go back there anytime you want, assuming my parents aren't using the house."

"I'd like that. I love it there."

I smiled and said, "There's a really nice restaurant that overlooks the promenade. We can eat there and then watch the sunset from the beach before heading home. Hollister isn't expecting our quote until sometime next week, so there's no rush to get home."

My Babe agreed with me and we drove to one of our favourite restaurants along the waterfront. We parked and went into the restaurant. We were greeted at the door by a waitress who seated us in a more private area of the restaurant. We had a spectacular view over the water, and since the sliding doors were open, it was like we were on our own private balcony.

I looked at my Babe and watched her stare out to sea. She loved the sound of the ocean. She even didn't mind the cacophony of the sea birds. The awe in her eyes was enough to make me smile. When she turned and looked at me with the exact same expression on her face, it melted my heart and I leaned over and kissed her gently on the lips.

She looked at me and asked, "What was that for?"

I repeated the kiss and said, "I am just expressing my love for the future Mrs. Manoso."

"And what if the future Mrs. Manoso doesn't want to change her name?"

"Oh Babe, we never talked about that. If you want to keep your name, I don't have a problem with that. I'd even support a hyphenated combination."

My Babe chuckled and said, "Actually, I think I want to change my name. It might get me away from the whole Bombshell Bounty Hunter thing once and for all."

This time, I chuckled. "Babe, the only thing that will get you away from that nickname is time and distance. Besides, if you are working full-time for RangeMan, I doubt many people will have a reason to call you that in the future."

We ordered a bottle of wine and then shared a seafood platter. After dinner, we took a long walk along the boardwalk. We walked slowly and enjoyed the fresh sea breeze. After we reached the end of the boardwalk, we turned around and started walking back toward the car.

We were about ½ ways back to the car when my phone rang. At first, I was expecting it to be Agent Saunders. I was a bit surprised when I saw that it was one of my men from Miami.

"Report."

"Sir, we have been over everything at the prison where Mrs. Martine was kept and we found something. Henry Paradis entered the prison wearing a guard uniform on the day that Mrs. Martine went missing. He had all the necessary credentials. He entered just before 3PM for the evening shift. He exited around 2AM. Both times, he was unaccompanied.

"At first, we couldn't figure out how he got entered into their system. There must have been someone on the inside. We ran financial checks to find out if anyone was bribed into adding him to their guard roster. We found that one of security guards responsible for watching the monitors added him to their system. He also turned off the security cameras in the holding area and through to the incinerator."

I stopped walking and asked, "Have you been able to track Paradis' movements after he left the prison?"

"No Sir. We are scouring all traffic cameras and we're working with the Local FBI. They have issued a state-wide alert for the car he was driving and we have patrols out searching the streets."

"OK. Has there been any news about the DNA tests?"

"Only that there is a bit of a backlog and they're supposed to be in-progress right now. You should hear something soon."

"OK Rodriquez. Good work and let me know if they get a line on Paradis."

I looked at my Babe and said, "Paradis entered the prison where Rachel was staying. He was dressed as a prison guard. He bribed one of the security specialists and Rachel's area and the path to the incinerator had no security camera coverage for a 12 hour period. It's beginning to look like Paradis is behind this whole thing and that he killed Rachel."

My Babe looked at me and said, "I hope the FBI can figure out where he was for those 5 years. His dark period might help to understand why he is doing all of this."

"Me too Babe. Me too."

We finished our walk and returned to the beach house. Once inside, my Babe started to hurry around gathering everything together. I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. He grinned at me and said, "Tonight's our last night here. I want to get the packing over with so that we can enjoy what time we have left here."

She winked at me and I did the same. I gathered up our belongings and left out clean clothes for the following day. When we were finished, I dragged my Babe out onto the patio and pulled her down with me on one of the deck chairs. We sat there and kissed like horny teenagers and watched the sun go down.

Well, there you have it. Another chapter has come and gone. Unfortunately, it will be a little while until I post my next chapter(s). I'm going away and I won't have much chance to write while I'm away. Thanks for your patience.