I didn't want to think about what Joe had said. All my life, I'd been told that I wasn't good enough.

I wasn't the best daughter. That honor went to Valerie.

I wasn't the best wife. Though I challenged anyone to be a successful wife when you were married to Dickie Orr.

And I wasn't the best bounty hunter. I'd never be in the same league as Ranger or Jeanne Ellen. Though if you ignored the garbage and exploding vehicles, I usually managed to get my man. That had to count for something right?

The rest of my weekend passed uneventfully. Tuesday found me once again at Rangeman, and this time at lunch, I placed a homemade chicken stir fry in front of Ram. This second lunch was my meal ticket to more weapons training, which I acknowledged that I desperately needed.

We were eating in the breakroom when Tank walked in.

He looked around and in one visual sweep noticed that Ram and I were eating the same thing,

He paused in front of Ram. "Would you like to explain this, Soldier?" he said, looking between Ram's plate and mine.

"Wait, what?" Ram replied, clearly concerned about what he may have gotten himself into.

"One of you appears to be cooking for the other. Are you two in a relationship?"

It looked like Ram saw his life flash before his eyes, "Woah, woah, woah. Relationship? Hell no, not if she was the last woman alive."

"Gee, thanks Ram," I spat out.

"I mean you're cute and all, but I don't have a death wish. And frankly you're also super high maintenance."

"I'm what?!"

He ignored me and kept talking to Tank, "Bomber here just wanted some weapons training, and we agreed that lunch was a fair price."

Tank seemed to weigh this up. "So, the boss's woman decided – voluntarily – that she wanted some extra weapons training? And rather than give her said training, you decided to extort lunch from her?"

"I mean, um, well it was hot food and…"

Tank cut in, escalating in volume, "Hot food?! You think the food in the breakroom isn't good enough? You keep this up and I'll force feed you army rations MYSELF. Is THIS why I've had Rosa in my office in tears? That woman is a SAINT." He turned to me. "She said you won't eat her food!"

Poor Rosa. I hoped I hadn't hurt her feelings, "I'm sorry, Tank. I just really hate salad. I'm pretty sure even Rex hates salad."

Tank raised a hand to the bridge of his nose and got very quiet. The quiet was scarier, "If Rosa cooks hot lunches will you eat them, Stephanie? And stop inciting mutiny?"

I nodded.

"Good. Ram, take her to the range now. You need to get some more training in too. I want you at the top of your game in case I decide to shoot you both."

I followed Ram down to the armoury and he put me through my paces. Loading and firing, over and over again. He was trying to sell me on the merits of a lighter semi-automatic but I wasn't buying. I didn't like firing my gun and being able to fire it more easily and more often wasn't something I wanted to entertain.

After cleaning up the spent casings, I thanked him for giving up his afternoon.

"No problem, Bombshell," he replied, and tried to ruffle my hair.

"I'm sorry Tank got so angry at you. Is he always like that?"

"Tank? Nah. He's just out of sorts because of Ranger."

"Because Ranger left him in charge?"

"It's not about having to be in charge – it's because Ranger didn't take him with him. If it was a run of the mill mission it'd be fine but…. Tank knows Cruz can watch Ranger's back, he's just not convinced anyone can do it as well as he can."

"Ram, where's Ranger?"

Ram sighed, "You know I was in the Rangers with Ranger and Tank?"

I nodded.

"You know what Rangers do?"

I nodded again. I knew that they were deployed in small teams, to run guerrilla ops.

"Ranger's done a lot of work in the war on drugs, and he's made a lot of enemies, pissed off a lot of people. One of the Mexican cartels in particular is gunning for him. They don't mess around, and they don't make the distinction between soldiers and civilians." Ram paused, weighing how much more to tell me. "There were rumours they were going to go after the family members of some high ranking commanders, so a team's been sent to take out the cartel leader first. Cause a vacuum so they fight among themselves. At first Ranger thought that the Reapers were working for the Jiminez cartel, that that's why you were being targeted. When that was sorted, he was sent down to Mexico straight away. Tank would have gone with him, but with a chance the Reapers were still around, or the cartel might send someone, Ranger said he would only go if Tank stayed and kept an eye on things here."

I skipped work the next day and treated myself to a Ghostbusters marathon. It has been a while since I had tried to disappear into my couch and now that I knew why Tank really wanted me working at Rangeman, I knew I wouldn't be missed. I ordered two Pinos' pizzas, a meatball sub and garlic bread. I was just debating the merits of going to the 7-11 for a snickers bar when there was a knock on my door.

I opened it, and Tank walked past me straight to the fridge. He grabbed a beer and drained it, holding up a finger, signalling I should wait a minute. When he was done he lowered his hand. "Since you look fine, I thought I'd need this before I listened to whichever bullshit story you were going to come up with as to why you weren't at work today. Well?"

"I just figured since the Reaper threat had died down, and the cartel hadn't sent anyone after all, that you didn't need to pretend to hire me anymore."

Tank mulled this over for a second and then it clicked, "Ram told you where Ranger is, and you thought I'd only hired you to keep an eye on you?"

"Didn't you?"

"No, Plum. I didn't. Having you at Haywood does make it easier to keep you safe, but you're also the best skip tracer I have. I'd have offered you a job even if there was no threat. Why do you have no confidence in that?"

"I guess it's hard to have faith in yourself when you're told you're a line item in the entertainment budget," I muttered bitterly.

"The entertainment budget? I'd forgotten that's where your expenses were listed." He smiled, "We had to give our accountant a sizeable bonus for coming up with that."

"For coming up with a joke at my expense?"

"For coming up with a way to hide you. Let's face it, you're not cheap. Having the cars, labor and medical expenses listed under your name would make it pretty obvious that you're Ranger's Achilles heel. Instead those costs are hidden under "pyrotechnics" and "morale booster" in the entertainment budget," he explained. "Anyone looking at that budget would be really disappointed at how tame Rangeman Chistmas parties are…"

So that explained it. I was starting to feel a little guilty about thinking the worst of Tank, and I really wanted to speak to Ranger myself. "Tank, have you heard from Ranger?"

He shook his head. "He's not in contact at the moment, but that's to be expected." He looked like he didn't want to say any more about it, or couldn't. "I'll see you at work tomorrow, Plum. You're not getting out of the rosters that easily," he called as he headed to the door.