Disclaimer: Janet Evanovich is one clever lady. Characters and everything you recognize are hers. I'm just playing.

Chapter 8

Sunday rolled around, and it was time for the next cooking lesson. Thankfully, Bobby confirmed that the stitches were dissolved and my hand was doing just fine, so I wasn't too limited.

"Alright, Babe, mise en place, it means 'putting in place'. First step is to get everything set up so that once you start cooking, you don't have to stop to gather anything. So, what are you going to do first?"

"Ummmm… start boiling the water, right?"

At that, Carlos grabbed me around the waist and laid a big kiss on me. I was a little dazed by the time he was done, and he stepped around me to fill a pot with water and put it on the stove. I guess that means I was right.

After that, we worked to gather the rest of the ingredients together. As expected, Ranger made up an excuse about my hand still being stiff and handled mincing the garlic himself. Maybe I'd try another time, but for now I was happy to be minimizing the chance of stitches. I mean, I'd JUST gotten rid of them.

I was also pleased to see that Ella had indeed gotten me the shrimp that was already peeled. Not one gross little leg in sight. Ranger explained that since we were making so much, we'd be cooking it in batches. And under his watchful eye, nothing burned and all the batches looked relatively similar. Huh, maybe I could do this whole cooking thing after all!

As we were packing up the shrimp and pasta, deciding to clean after the shower, my phone buzzed with a text message. I laughed, "looks like Susie heard about our wedding and was fed up with the way hers was spiraling out of control, so she eloped. No bridal shower. Great, what do we do with all this food now?"

"Trust me, food never goes to waste here. Follow me."

With that we went down to the break room, each grabbed a plate (Ranger's with just a little shrimp and a salad he pulled from the fridge), and started eating. Soon enough, the breakroom was overflowing with men eyeing the big platters of shrimp scampi then looking at Ranger, then looking back at the shrimp. It was clear they were trying to decide if it was a test.

"It's okay this once, guys. Our plans got canceled and we didn't want to throw this all away."

In no time at all, the food was all dished out and the guys were chowing down. I was eyeing them with open curiosity. It all tasted fine to me, and Ranger seemed okay with the shrimp he'd eaten, but I suspected I'd never know even if he wasn't okay with it. The Merry Men seemed to be enjoying it.

"Beautiful, you have a plate full of food. Why are you watching us instead of eating? I don't know where you guys got this, but this is great! You don't want it to get cold."

"I just wanted to make sure you all like it. Ranger helped some, but this is the first time I've cooked in a while. Or that I've cooked shrimp ever!"

There was a beat of silence as they all looked at me wide eyed, and I started chewing on my lower lip.

"You cooked this? But it is delicious!" blurted Hal. Then he blushed bright red, "I mean, it tastes like it came from a restaurant. Not that, I mean…"

Carlos burst out laughing at that, and the guys just turned and stared at him in shock before they started chuckling as well. Then, one by one they complimented my cooking and went back to eating. I guess that means it was a success. We hung around the break room, chatting with those who had time for a while before I pointed out to Ranger that we still needed to clean the kitchen. I know Ella can do it, but it really felt like part of the process.

As we were cleaning up, Ranger kept looking at his watch. Once the last dish was put away, Ranger came up behind me and pushed me into the counter, trapping me with his arms. "Babe, do you trust me?"

"Of course."

"Good. Then grab your purse, we're heading out."

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

I thought that was odd, but shrugged my shoulders and did as he asked. Imagine my surprise when we went down to the garage and Bobby, Lester, and Tank were standing there with what looked suspiciously like my luggage mixed in with some black duffle bags in front of one of the Rangeman SUVs.

"Uh, are we going somewhere, boys?"

"Trust me, Beautiful, we're not boys," Lester said with a huge grin on his face.

Ranger kept guiding me forward with a hand on the small of my back and when we came even with the guys, he smacked Lester on the back of the head. He opened the SUV and they loaded all the bags in. Then he held the front door open and looked at me, blank faced, and said, "yeah Babe, we are." I'd be worried about third world countries, but I could see just a hint of a twinkle in his eyes and it put me at ease.

I got in the car, and Ranger reached over me to buckle my seatbelt. I turned around and looked at the guys crammed into the back seat while Ranger walked around and got in the front of the car. "Uhhh, that seemed like a lot of bags, if we're all going somewhere… who is going to run Rangeman?"

"We had the head of the Miami office come up to manage everything, and then some of the other guys from this as well as some of the other offices will temporarily take up some extra responsibilities until we get back. What's the fun in being management if you can't take a vacation with your friends from time to time?"

"Huh. Okay." I have to admit, I was surprised by this simply because I didn't think that Ranger or any of the other guys ever took vacation.

With that, Ranger put the car in reverse and we drove along in silence through the night. As silence is truly nothing but sheer boredom to me, I quickly put my head against the window and fell asleep. I still don't know how long I fell asleep or actually where we were when I woke up. I just looked around, saw a runway, and a big black jet. I guess we were flying wherever we were going and the guys didn't want to go through security.

I looked at Ranger and opened my mouth to ask him a question, but he just raised an eyebrow and I sighed. "I trust you."

We boarded the plane and were greeted by a pilot and co-pilot. As I looked up, I was surprised to see not just Bobby, Lester, and Tank, but a bunch of the other guys from the office as well. Ram, Hector, Hal, and Cal were all sitting on the plane looking relaxed. Huh. The guys had already loaded our luggage, I assume while Ranger was waking me up, so all we had to do was buckle up and we were on our way.

Ranger and I were seated on a couch, so I snuggled up against him, barely registering the surprise on the guys' faces as I fell back asleep. What? I'd used up all my energy with Ranger today!

I woke up what felt like a few hours later, but really I had no idea how long it had been, alone on the couch. Ranger and the others were sitting in an area that seriously just looked like a living room. They had beers in front of them and were lounging around chatting. Somehow, Ranger seemed to immediately know that I was awake. Turning around, and holding out his hand to me.

I got up and walked over to him. I'd no sooner put my hand in his than he'd pulled me into his lap and dropped a kiss on top of my head. "I was just going over with the guys how we're going to run the bonds side of Rangeman now that you're joining Rangeman full time."

Bobby leaned forward and said, "we're really excited to about this, Steph!"

"Yeah, so, what'd Ranger offer to finally get you to accept?" Lester added with a waggle of his eyebrows, "What could he possibly offer that any one of us wouldn't have given you, Beautiful?"

I blushed bright red, while Ranger growled, and Bobby and Tank burst out in laughter while the others were trying to disguise their laughter.

I kept my head down with Rangers arms wrapped around me, too embarrassed to look up. I know that they had asked me to come work there full time when Ranger was gone, but maybe they were just being nice and knew I wouldn't take it. Maybe they thought now that the only reason I had the full-time offer was because of my new relationship with and marriage to Ranger?

To my surprise, Tank reached out and lifted my chin up. Looking me in the eye he said, "I know you are going to be a great addition to Rangeman. And we can't wait to help you train and get safer!".

I smiled my appreciation and Ranger just tightened his hold on me. "Babe, trust me, everyone who has ever worked with you knows why we're hiring you. You've got great instincts, you're tenacious, and you always get your man!"

The guys were nodding along with this, so I decided to accept it. After all, Ranger never lied to me.

"And, I know how difficult you think training is going to be for you, and we've held off on a lot of it because of you hand for the past couple days, so I figured we'd all take some time off and have fun before we get down to business!"

I peeked at Lester out of the corner of my eye and could tell it was killing him to let "get down to business" go, but he did it anyway. Probably he figured that if he didn't lay off, Ranger would just send him home as soon as we landed. And probably not in anything nearly as comfortable as the jet.

They guys started talking about Rangeman business from while Ranger was away, so I snuggled into Ranger more and buried my nose in his neck. He started stroking my back and between that and the Bulgari scents, I drifted back to sleep.

I woke back up with a jolt, realizing that the plane had landed. The guys were looking at me amused. I guess they weren't used to seeing people sleep that much or that deeply. What could I say? I'm a world class sleeper.

The first thing that I noticed when the door to the plane opened was a blast of warm, humid air. That's when I got excited. Okay, I mean, first time on a private plane, unexpected vacation, I'd been excited this whole time. But in the corner of my mind, I'd really wondered WHERE we were going! How could I not? I mean, Ranger eats twigs and leaves, so who knows what he thinks is a relaxing vacation… especially with all those gear bags. Come to think of it, some third world countries have jungles and rainforests that are they're warm and humid, right? And although MOST people have to show ID and passports to travel internationally, I would bet that Ranger has ways around it, I mean, he is Batman after all.

I was getting myself more and more nervous and didn't even notice that everyone else had left the plane. Ranger was just standing there looking amused and said, "Babe, would I take you anywhere dangerous on our first real vacation together?"

I hadn't really thought about this being our first vacation together. I guess we've traveled together before, but always for work. And we hadn't really been at Point Pleasant long enough to call it a vacation. With that, I smiled, and jumped into his arms giving him a heated kiss. "We're on vacation together!" I squealed!

"Babe." Ranger said, shaking his head. I took that one to mean, "you're just now realizing this?"

I had my legs wrapped around him, so Ranger just shifted to get a better hold on me and then carried me out of the plane. The guys were all waiting at the bottom of the stairs next to another black SUV and a sexy, sexy black convertible. They took one look at me wrapped around Ranger and let out some wolf whistles. I just giggled and let Ranger put me down.

"So, Batman, where are we?"

"Lihue, Babe." At my blank look, Ranger clarified, "we're in Hawai'i on the island of Kauai."

I let off more excited squeals and bounced around hugging the guys saying, "we're in Hawai'i!" over and over again until I got back to Ranger. I didn't give him a hug, I gave him a big kiss. It didn't take more than half a second for the kiss to start getting out of control. Finally, Tank cleared his throat and clapped Ranger on the shoulder. "Let's get out of here first, man."

I finally took a good look around and realized that we were, in fact, still at the airport. Good call, I suppose, on Tank's part, but I did really like kissing Ranger. I got in the convertible with Ranger and this time there was no falling asleep. We drove along the coast for a while, then through what seemed more like a city, before finally it felt like we were in what felt like a totally uninhabited jungle. We drove along a small road before Ranger pulled up to a driveway with a gate across it. He punched in a code, and then drove down the dirt driveway for a while before it turned into the trees. We pulled out into a clearing and in front of us was a gorgeous white house with solar panels on the roof and breathtaking views of the ocean in the distance.

'Carlos," I gasped, "this is beautiful."

"Yes it is, Babe." When I looked over, I noticed that he was staring at me, not the view, and I blushed. Which of course, made Ranger chuckle.

Come on, he said, I'll show you the inside before the guys get here.

"Where did they go?"

"They're stocking up on supplies in town. They should be here in an hour or so."