Chapter 9

Steph

Even though Carlos had given me a one-time code to punch into the keypad to gain access to the parking garage under the Rangeman building, Lester and Bobby met me on the street. Grins, wider than the day was long, were plastered on their faces as they waved at me through the window and Lester tapped a card to a sensor, triggering the roller door to rise. They waved at me again, this time in a 'go ahead' gesture as I reached for the button to roll down my window, so I abandoned the move and eased forward instead, noting that they followed me in on foot. As the door lowered behind me, Bobby jogged ahead, pointing to an open space between two of the twelve identical black SUVs that filled this end of the space. I felt weird putting my little Mazda Miata in amongst the hulking vehicles, but who was I to decline a space so close to the elevator?

"Welcome to Rangeman!" Lester cried as soon as I opened my door to get out of the car. He waited barely long enough for me to get my feet under me, my bag slung over my shoulder, before he seized me in a one-armed hug that transitioned far-too smoothly into him leading me through the carpark. Bobby fell into step on my other side.

"Do all new employees get this kind of welcome?" I asked, holding my ground as he tried to steer me into the stairwell beside the shiny metal doors of the elevator. No way was I taking the stairs. Carlos said to go to the fifth floor. "Or am I a special case?"

Seeing my resistance, Bobby reached out and slapped the call button to bring the elevator down. "If anyone's a special case, it's Les," he pointed out as the doors sprang open. "He's been bouncing up and down like an excitable puppy all morning."

"Excuse me for being enthusiastic about my favourite stray joining the team," Lester mock-sulked, crossing his arms and leaning against the back wall of the box.

"Don't love being called a stray," I told him as we lurched into motion. "Please don't keep it up so it perpetuates into a nickname. It's my first time working in a predominantly male company, but I know how easily nicknames stick when guys are around."

Putting on a serious face that I did not, for one second, believe, Lester nodded, a brief jerky motion. "Yes, ma'am."

I screwed up my nose at him as the doors popped open. "Ew! Don't do that either," I said.

"Are these jokesters harassing you already, Steph?" Tank was standing directly in front of the elevator with his arms crossed over his chest, giving off far more formidable vibes than the last time I saw him and he was showing me pictures of his cats on his phone.

"Nothing I can't handle," I assured him, stepping out of the box before the doors started to close again. "How's Paul?"

Tank's expression softened a little at the mention of his cat, but not so much that he smiled or showed the tenderness I knew he felt for them. Clearly, Work-Mode-Tank had a strict set of expressions he wasn't allowed to venture beyond. "Paul's fine," he assured me. "His limp was a lot worse than the injury itself. I think he just liked the attention."

"No surgery needed, then?" I checked, casting my gaze around the office space I now found myself in. There were about a dozen desks scattered around the room, and a bank of what looked like TV screens stacked two high and six wide in a little cordoned off area where two men sat monitoring the black and white images flashing across the screen. There were doors that led to what I assumed were conference rooms, and what looked like a lunch room on one side of the open area, and a hallway that probably led to offices on the other.

"No surgery," Tank confirmed, gesturing toward the hallway, not waiting for me to move before he started leading the way. I performed a little skip step to fall into step beside him. "Just a bit of tough love."

"How tough was it?" Lester asked from behind us, and I glanced over my shoulder to find that both he and Bobby were both still with us, and Lester's usual grin was firmly in place. "And who was it tougher on? You or Paul?"

Tank opened his mouth to make a retort, possibly a defensive one, since I got the impression the big guy loved his feline friends like they were his own flesh and blood children. Showing tough love would have been hard for him. But instead, our discussion was interrupted by a call out from the far side of the room, near the bank of screens I'd noted.

"Is that Stephanie Plum?!"

I turned all the way around at my name, peering between Lester and Bobby to spot whoever it was that had recognised me. "Cal?" I called back. I'd only met him once, briefly, when he stopped by Lester and Bobby's house to drop off a file while I was there, but there was no mistaking the flaming skull tattoo emblazoned on his forehead. When he'd caught sight of me through the doorway to the kitchen where Lester and I had been squabbling over the best way to roll a burrito, he'd shouldered past Bobby to come say 'hi', insisting on introducing himself and hanging around to chat for a few minutes before he got back on the road. I discovered in that short interaction that despite his appearances, he was actually a nice guy, although he did flirt outrageously with me the entire time he was there.

Just like at Lester and Bobby's place, Cal made a bee line for me, shouldering past the pair so he stood directly in front of me, a dazzling smile on his face. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Ms Plum is the new office manager," Tank said with an air of authority I'd never heard before. Work-Mode-Tank was very serious.

"Ms. Plum?" Cal said, eyes widening slightly as he nodded, understanding trickling into his expression. "Office manager." He took a half step backwards and cast his gaze over the other occupants scattered around the office who were all now staring with interest, their tasks forgotten. When he turned his gaze back to Tank, there was a peculiar expression on his face. "Ranger know you hired a woman?"

Before I could either a) be offended by the implied sexism behind Cal's words, or b) ask who Ranger was, Lester let out a bark of laughter, clapping Cal on the shoulder. "I sure hope so!" he said. "Since Ranger's the one that offered her the job!"

"Ranger?" I questioned, brow furrowing as I looked from Lester to the others gathered around me. "No. Carlos was the one that offered me the job. Not Ranger. I don't -" I cut myself off as a tingle rose on the back of my neck, and Cal's eyes widened even more, focusing on something over my shoulder.

His already pale complexion lost even more colour and he dipped his head. "I'll catch you later, Ms. Plum," he muttered, turning on his heel abruptly and walking back the way he'd come. "Welcome aboard," he added over his shoulder as an afterthought.

I stared after him, confused, as the tingle on my neck increased tenfold until I was forced to rub my hand over the spot in an effort to make it stop. "What was that all about?" I asked, turning back to face Tank, Lester and Bobby but finding myself face to face with someone else entirely. "Oh!" I uttered, unable to help myself. "Carlos!"

A muscle just below his eye twitched, almost like a wince, but it was there and gone too fast for me to be confident of the expression it was supposed to represent. "Steph," he greeted with a slight nod to his head. "Follow me to my office and we can get started on your paperwork." Just like Christmas Eve when we met on the sidewalk outside his parent's place, he didn't wait for me to move, instead swinging around on his crutches and starting down the hall in the direction Tank had been leading me before Cal had interrupted our progress.

At the thought of Tank, and by extension, Lester and Bobby, I looked around to spot them, since they had disappeared without a trace when Carlos arrived, but they weren't anywhere to be seen in the main office area. I knew that Carlos wasn't the most personable person in the world, but there'd never seemed to be any more tension between him and his cousin than was usual for two guys who happened to have been raised in close proximity. Perhaps that was all to do with the home environment though. This was work, and at work Carlos was the boss. The dynamic here was different and if it was the kind of dynamic that made my friends disappear at the first sign of the boss, then it would certainly take some getting used to.

When we reached his office, he didn't pause, just waved a hand at one of the visitors chairs and kept crutching his way to the large leather office chair behind the mildly oversized hard wood desk. I was no wood expert, but it looked expensive, and as he settled into the chair, I couldn't deny that he suited his surroundings. I mean, okay, he wasn't exactly dressed the part of an office corporate with his black on black t-shirt and cargos, not to mention the combat boot on his cast-less leg. This was the kind of look I expected to see on someone traversing the jungle, not running a company.

"Take a seat," Carlos prompted when I failed to move past the doorway, distracted as I was by the furniture and the odd mix of Rambo and Business. And now that I thought about it, the guys out on the main floor, including Lester, Bobby and Tank had all been wearing the same uniform.

Nodding, speechless, I just crossed to the chair he'd indicated, trying to push the thought that I'd overdressed for the situation out of my head.

"Welcome to Rangeman," he began, folding his hands on the blotter in front of him and capturing my gaze with his own, not letting me look away even if I had wanted to. It was like he could see all the way past my eyes, to my soul, and he was weighing everything he found there, which immediately put me on edge. I hadn't exactly always been a model citizen. I'd hit the guy I'd lost my virginity to with my car when I was in high school, breaking his leg in the process. And I'd definitely done a few less than legal things in college too. Carlos was military, he obviously had a higher moral code than I did, and I didn't like the thought of him judging anything he might find by looking so deep inside me.

"You're looking a lot better than last time I saw you," I blurted. It was the first thing that came to mind that wasn't a confession of every wrong thing I'd ever done in my life. "You must be healing well?"

He blinked at my outburst, but showed no further signs of being perturbed by it. Instead he inclined his head. "The first few weeks being home after an extended mission are always the hardest," he explained. "It's an adjustment, and the injuries don't help, but I'm getting closer to being back to normal."

"That's good to hear," I said. "You looked terrible at family dinner. Less gaunt, and the dark circles are gone from under your eyes. You must be sleeping better and getting the nutrients you need again. I can't imagine going through whatever you went through to look the way you did. I miss one meal and my stomach is growling so ferociously that it scares small children. I could never-"

"Steph," he interrupted my ramble.

I shook my head. "Sorry," I apologised. "My mouth has a mind of it's own when I'm nervous."

His forehead crinkled slightly. "What do you have to be nervous about?" he asked.

"It's a bit of a leap to go from negotiating granny panty prices to managing an entire office," I pointed out, gesturing toward the door and the office I was apparently about to start managing. "I've never exactly done that before."

"No," he agreed. "But I've seen your qualifications. I know you interned as a personal assistant during your senior year of college. I've read your previous supervisor's evaluation reports on you. I have no doubt that you'll do fine here."

My mouth hung open. "You what?" I hadn't even given him a resume. He'd given me the job site unseen and waved my words away when I offered to send him a resume and cover letter so he could be sure he wanted to hire me. We hadn't even spoken about my work history. But he apparently had a list of my qualifications and access to my evaluation reports from EE Martin? That didn't seem right to me. That seemed like an invasion of privacy.

"I ran a background search on you," Carlos explained evenly. Like he didn't think there was anything wrong with that. "To be sure you were a good fit for the company. We handle a lot of sensitive information here and I needed to make sure you were trustworthy."

"And that background report gave you access to the reports my supervisor wrote about me?" I asked, trying to temper my indignation a little. It wasn't unusual for employers to run a background check on their new hires, I reminded myself. They had to keep the best interests of the company in mind, after all, but I didn't think it went that deep.

"Our searches are thorough," he replied. "The nature of our dealings necessitates a higher level of access to information about the lives of those we are seeking or protecting. It is often sensitive, and I needed to know that I could trust you."

I pressed my lips together and nodded. I need this job, I reminded myself. There was no point in arguing now and ruining my chances and being gainfully employed. Carlos was perfunctory in all his dealings that I'd seen, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that he would pry deeper into secret searches as a way of making up for a lack of actual intimate knowledge about those around him.

"Okay," I agreed. "I would have liked to be notified about the search, but I understand."

He inclined his head and slid a file folder across the desk toward me. "I was very impressed with what I found in the search, Steph," he said quietly, sending a shiver down my spine. "You should be proud of your achievements."

I mumbled out a thanks, accepting the folder and reaching for my bag where I'd set it down beside my seat. "I'll go fill these out then," I said, standing. "Is there a desk I can use?"

The lines of his forehead shifted in the suggestion of an expression that was too quickly smoothed away before I could interpret it. "This one," he said, pointing to the clear space on his desk directly in front of me. "You can sit here while you complete the paperwork then I'll take you on a tour of the building.

"Oh," I uttered, surprised. It was unusual, in my experience, for the boss to sit with you and hold your hand while you filled out entry paperwork. Usually, they gave you the packet, sat you down somewhere unobtrusive and returned miraculously as you were finishing up, or instructed you to return it to them when it was done. "No, that's okay. I'm sure you have important things to do. I can just-" I pointed to the door, but the unchanged expression on his face had me lowering my hand and dragging the chair closer to the desk. He said nothing, but handed me a - really nice - pen as I flipped open the folder and I got to work while he turned his attention to his computer.

A few times, I got the sense that he was watching me, but he never said anything, and when I lifted my gaze from my papers he wasn't looking, so I chalked it up to him being a super covert spy man… like Batman.

When I was finished, I laid down the pen and closed the folder, and before I'd even said anything he'd picked up the file and plopped it in his intray. He was on his feet - well, crutches - in the next instant, heading for the door and it was all I could do to scramble to catch up. For a man with a handicap, he was fast.

"We'll start your tour with the-" he was saying as he opened the office door, but cut himself off when he was met with a fist raised at face height, poised for knocking. "Santos?" he said to the body attached to the fist, and I got the impression there was an entire conversation contained in just that name by the way Lester let a slow grin creep across his face.

"Tank said Steph should be just about ready for her tour," he explained, lowering his hand to tuck both in his pockets.

"She is," Carlos agreed. "We were just about to start."

"And Bobby needs to see you in the infirmary," Lester added. "So I'm here to take over."

Carlos's eyes narrowed and Lester responded with a single raised eyebrow. Then came the staredown. I was just starting to feel uncomfortable, like I should maybe sidle past them and go find someone else to take me on a tour when Carlos broke the silence.

"I'll schedule you an appointment for when the cast is off," he seethed, swinging forward as Lester stepped back out of the way.

"What was that about?" I asked, averting my gaze from my new boss to my friend.

"Ranger's just-"

Ranger again. I'd meant to ask about it earlier. "Who's Ranger?"

Lester frowned. "You know Ra-" he snapped his mouth shut for a second before letting it pop open again on an oh. "I suppose you only know him as Carlos, since we're not allowed to call him Ranger at home…"

"Carlos is Ranger?" I clarified and Lester nodded. "So I should call him Ranger at work?"

"Might be for the best," he shrugged, slinging an arm over my shoulder and guiding me forward down the hall, leaving Ranger's office door wide open in our wake. "Don't want the guys to get ideas that they can call him Carlos too."

"Okay," I said, making a mental note to ask Carlos about it later. Surely he should have mentioned that kind of thing to me if that's what he wanted. "I'll try to remember that."

*o*

Once I'd seen everything, Lester showed me to my desk and I got to work learning my new role, reading policy and procedure documents on the company intranet that Lester directed me to before he'd left me to my own devices. I was just thinking about getting some lunch from the break room I'd seen earlier when the little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, sending a shiver down my spine. I spun around in my chair to face the entrance to my cubby to find Carlos there, watching me intently.

"Hi Car- uh, Ranger," I said, catching myself just in the nick of time. "How's your day going?"

A fleeting expression ghosted across his face, it was there and gone so fast that I couldn't be sure what it was other than it wasn't pleasant.

"Not that great, then?" I guessed, leaning an elbow on my desk and crossing one leg over the opposite knee. "That's a bummer. Is there anything I can help with?"

He assumed a casual lean against the half wall of the cubicle, crossing his arms over his chest as he held my gaze, his cast-clad leg jutting slightly into my space. "I realised that I haven't actually apologised for how I treated you before Christmas," he said solemnly, quietly, but with little to know expression on his face. They talk about people who are open books, easy to see what they're thinking, but Carlos was the exact opposite of that. "I was hoping you'd let me take you to dinner to make up for it."

My heart leaped at the invitation, urging me to say yes straight away. He was attractive, and I'd felt an odd pull toward him since the moment I first clapped eyes on him. I had a feeling there was so much more to the man than what he showed either at home with his family or here at work. I wondered what parts of himself he would reveal in a one-on-one setting. But there was a tiny rational voice in the back of my mind telling me to be cautious. He was my boss now. And from what I'd seen on my tour of the building, I was the only female employee. What if this was all an elaborate ploy to sleep with me and kick me to the curb? Admittedly, I'd never had someone give me a job just to sleep with me, but that didn't mean it wasn't a possibility. And if we ended up dating…

I gave my head a mental shake. He's not asking you on a date, I silently admonished myself. He just wants to apologise for acting shitty toward you. "I don't know," I said, aware that I'd probably been silent for a little too long.

Before either of us could say anything else, a head popped over the cubicle divider, spearing me with an incredulous look. I recognised them from my tour and the whirlwind round of introductions Lester had done while we stood in the middle of the floor, but I couldn't remember his name. "Are you seriously thinking of turning down the chance to eat on Bossman's dime?" he asked. "Have you seen the places he eats?"

"No, I-" I glanced at the boss man, feeling awkward. This guy was suggesting I take advantage of the size of Carlos's wallet. Carlos just raised an eyebrow at me and I looked back to where the head had been a moment ago, only to find the space empty.

"If you're free tonight," he said, drawing my attention back to him once more. "I can pick you up around eight?"

"Um," I hesitated. "I-"

"Do it!" the voice attached to our interrupter called from behind the divider.

"Mats oh-five hundred," Carlos barked at him, and the head reappeared, eyes wide as he glanced pointedly at the cast on Carlos's leg. "With Tank," he added, his tone harsher.

I had no idea what this all was about, but the addition of Tank's involvement caused the poor guy to gulp and disappear once more. "What's a Matso 500?" I asked.

A muscle twitched in Carlos's jaw and I watched him smooth out the annoyed expression as he turned to face me. "It's an informal disciplinary action."

"All he did was encourage me to accept your offer of dinner," I pointed out, confused. "Do you really think that warrants discipline?"

Back to his usual calm and aloof self, he lifted one of his shoulders in a shrug just a fraction of an inch. If I weren't watching him intently, I would have missed it. "The majority of my men are military," he explained. "They respond well to the structures we have in place and it serves the dual purpose of keeping their skills sharp."

"Right," I said, still unsure what those apparent structures were. I picked up a pen, clicking it a few times before dropping it again. Carlos, I noticed, stayed quiet, waiting for me to make the next move. "So what does a Matso 500 disciplinary action entail?" I asked, rather than acknowledge the dinner invite again. I still didn't know if it was a good idea.

"It's a sparring session."

"Oh," the surprised sound from my throat was automatic. "That's not so bad. A dip in the spa sounds-"

Carlos let out a laugh and I cut myself off. I could count on one hand the number of times I'd heard this mysterious, serious man laugh, and every single time, it sent a swirl of heat through me. Now was no exception. "Babe," he uttered, smiling so brightly at me that I almost didn't register what he'd called me. "I called him to the mats in the gym at five o'clock tomorrow morning for a session of hand-to-hand sparring."

"Like… wrestling?" I clarified, the word Babe echoing through my head in that unexpectedly affectionate tone, making it hard to think.

"Essentially," Carlos confirmed, his expression slowly returning to neutral as he shifted to get his crutches under him properly again, preparing to leave.

"So you want Tank to beat him up for you?" I asked, frowning.

Carlos shook his head. "No. I want Vince to learn to keep his nose out of your business."

"Does HR know about these methods?" I was struggling to understand how such actions could be condoned.

His eyebrow ticked up a notch. "Tank is HR."

I didn't have anything to say to that, but from the way Carlos's eyes were roving over my face, I assumed my expression spoke volumes.

"I'm open to suggestions for improvement if you have them," he said after almost a minute of silence.

I screwed up my nose, because who was I to tell this man how to run his company? But also, if anything should happen and his methods were brought to light by outside parties, I wasn't sure how legal they were. "I might think about it for a bit while I settle in, if that's okay?"

"Fine."

Another moment of silence passed between us, and I cleared my throat. "So, eight o'clock tonight?" I asked. "What should I wear? Where are we going?"

"Rossini's," he said simply and before I could stop it, thoughts of their decadent tiramisu forced a moan from my throat. "Is that okay?" he asked, though the look on his face and the way he shifted his weight made me doubt he'd misinterpreted the kind of sound I'd just made.

"Sounds perfect," I assured him, turning back to my computer to hopefully hide the blush I could feel heating my face as I thought of other ways to elicit the same kinds of pleasurable sounds from myself. "See you at eight."