Manny came by the next morning to get Rosalyn and I found myself wanting to ask him if maybe he was moving too fast with Stella. As far as I knew, he was still living in Bobby's spare room. Though that might have changed last night. I mean, what other reason would we have kept the baby, except to give Manny and Stella some alone time?
I glanced over at Casey as she packed the diaper bag. Considering everything that's happened between us in the past two months, I was probably the last person to question Manny's motives.
For all I knew, maybe he'd found his soul mate like I'd found mine, and who was I to question that?
Once Manny left with Rosalyn, Casey turned to face me. "I get the feeling that maybe Stella and Rosalyn might be sticking around awhile." Technically, she was still under Rangeman's protection since we'd yet to find her scumbag ex, but I knew that wasn't what Casey meant.
"You might be right about that."
She smiled. "Good. I like Stella a lot." She paused, then frowned as if she'd heard what she'd just said and wasn't happy. "Don't get me wrong. I like Stephanie and Kristina too, but I feel like I have more in common with Stella."
"I understand," I replied. "I like nearly all the guys who work here, but I only have two best friends and that's Bobby and Ram, in that order."
She visibly relaxed with my admission. "Kristina wants to take me and Stephanie to lunch today." She turned her attention to the ring. "Should I wear this? I mean are we even telling people yet?"
Telling people hadn't been a blip on my radar when I asked her last night, but I couldn't think of any good reason why we shouldn't. A hint of insecurity broke through my happy thoughts, and I fought back a frown. Why wouldn't she want to tell people? "Do you have any reason why we shouldn't?"
She shook her head. "I want to shout it from the rooftops."
The insecurity I'd been feeling disappeared with her statement and I grinned. "Then I say you keep the ring on and when they notice, you let them make a big deal over it."
Her smile returned. "I need to get down to the kitchen and start getting breakfast ready."
I nodded. "I'm gonna go get dressed and head down to five. We have a couple of big meetings scheduled for today."
Before she could walk away, I snagged her by the hand and pulled her to me. "I love you."
"I love you too," she said before pressing a kiss to my lips. "Can we talk a little more tonight?"
"Of course. What do you want to talk about?"
"Plans and our future," she said, and I noted the hint of hesitation in her tone. "It's nothing bad," she hurriedly added. "I just want your advice on something."
While I admit I was curious, there simply wasn't time right now to get into a serious discussion. "Tonight then," I said as I snagged another kiss before letting go of her.
Once the apartment door closed behind her, I headed back to the bedroom to get dressed. Having only a couple of hours of solid sleep should have left me feeling like crap, but knowing why I hadn't managed a good night's sleep, instead left me invigorated. Honestly, I'd expected to wake up panicked and filled with regret over the impulsive decisions I'd made while high on too much emotion and too little sleep. Instead, the only thing I felt was a giddy excitement. For the first time in my life, I was ready and eagerly awaiting what would come next.
I'd barely made it into my office when Zero appeared in the doorway. "I didn't think you had it in you, but you did it," he said.
I scowled. "What in the hell are you talking about?"
"I was in the breakroom getting coffee when Casey came in with a batch of fresh muffins and pastries. She's wearing the engagement ring you bought."
"Oh," I dropped the scowl and leaned back in my chair. "That."
"Oh that," Zero echoed and rolled his eyes. "You say that like it's not the BFD that it really is."
"You knew it was coming," I replied.
"Yeah, but I didn't think you'd go through with it." He'd no sooner finished his sentence when Ram appeared behind him.
"You have some explaining to do," he said.
"About what?" I asked, even though I had a pretty good idea already.
"You get engaged and you don't bother to tell anyone. Just slide the ring on her finger and go about your business like the world hasn't just tilted off its axis."
I shook my head. "Damn, you're dramatic sometimes. You shouldn't be so surprised since you also knew it was coming."
"Santos," Tank bellowed from somewhere behind Ram. Well, shit. At this rate, I wasn't going to get any work done. I stood and walked to my office door, where Zero and Ram parted like the Red Sea. There, on the other side of the room was Casey, surrounded by several of the guys as they checked out her ring and hugged her.
"I do believe an announcement is in order," Tank said. At this point so did I.
I crossed the room to where Casey stood, wrapped an arm around her, and turned to face the men. "Okay. Guys. Can I have everyone's attention for a moment?"
The control room went silent as all eyes fell on us, except for the two men covering monitors. "Last night, I asked Casey to marry me, and she took pity on my sorry ass and said yes."
A cheer went up in the room and before I knew it everyone was slapping me on the back and muttering about how it was an end of an era.
I mean, yes, I know I was a player and a big one at that, but I don't get why it's so hard for everyone to accept that I can change. Ranger changed and nobody gave him shit about it. So, why is it so different for me?
Ranger appeared and nodded toward his office. I gave Casey a quick kiss, then excused myself from the group and followed my cousin to his office. "Close the door," he said as he eased into the seat behind his desk.
I did, then dropped into what I considered to be my chair. "What's up?"
"I just wanted to check in with you," he said as he stared at me with that damn blank face. "You're positive this is what you want?"
"Were you positive you wanted to marry Beautiful?" I asked.
Much to my surprise, he let his blank face drop away and a smile appeared in its place. "Honestly? Not at the beginning. I was so infatuated with her; it scared the shit out of me. Then I had that stupid idea of creating the deal with her." He shrugged. "Maybe I'd hoped that taking her to bed would scratch the itch and I'd be able to move on. Instead, it only made me want her more." He rubbed a hand over his face. "It took me a while to accept that my emotions were real and then work up the nerve to do something about them."
He cocked his head to the side as he studied me. "You don't seem to have that problem."
I brought one leg up and crossed it over the other at the ankle. "I guess maybe because I got to know her first," I said. "I had months of correspondence with her where we shared all kinds of things about ourselves with each other. It got to a point where I looked forward to getting her letters. So, by the time I found her on the bridge back in October, I'm pretty sure I was already in love with her."
"It's a different feeling," Ranger said.
I nodded. "You're right. It is, and I never in a million years thought I'd feel like this, but now that I do, I don't want to feel anything else."
"I think that answers my question, then," he said. "So, I'm just going to say congratulations for finding your way out of the dark side. Now that you have it, don't ever let go of the light."
Ranger, Bobby, Tank, and I spent the next couple of hours working out the details for officially separating the departments. I accepted the position to head up the apprehension department. That meant working closely with both the alphabet agencies and the bail bonds office. Ram would be my second in command. He would also work directly with Connie at the bond's office. Ranger trusted her judgment. Plus, having a link to the mob wasn't ever a bad thing. So, she'd be in charge of running the office. For now, Lula would stay on to do the filing and answer phones.
Hector would officially be in charge of installations and Ramon would be his second in command.
Stephanie would head up sales with Manny remaining as her second in charge. She would also lend her unmatched search skills to my department when needed. Bobby would continue with what he was doing medical-wise.
We'd need someone to head up the control room floor, but changes were coming with regard to monitor duties. So, a decision for that division would be postponed for now. Tank and Ranger would remain in charge of the entire company. They would avail themselves to whichever division needed help at that moment.
We decided to place a sign-up sheet in the break room for each of the official departments. It made more sense to have men who wanted to be in the departments than to assign them.
Once those decisions were made, we spent the balance of the afternoon meeting with the various heads of the alphabets and the Rangeman lawyers. We hammered out the final contract details.
By the time five o'clock rolled around, I was wiped out. Between lack of sleep and the multiple meetings, I was running on fumes. Thankfully, tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Since I was working a double on Christmas day, I had the entire day off for Christmas Eve.
I entered the apartment to find it empty and felt the disappointment all the way to my toes. Knowing Casey had a planned lunch with Stephanie and Kristina today, maybe she was now running behind. Then I noticed the piece of paper with my name on it resting on the breakfast bar.
Dear Lester, I'm with Stephanie and Kristina working on the wedding plans for Kristina and Hal's big day. I promise I won't be too late. Your dinner is in the refrigerator. Just pop it in the microwave for two minutes. Love you. Casey.
Well, that was an interesting turn of events. Though I was happy to hear Casey's friendship with Kris and Beautiful was continuing to grow. I ate my dinner, cleaned up the dishes, then grabbed my laptop and settled onto the couch. Might as well try and get some more work done.
I'd barely managed to dig into the floor plan for the apprehension department when my cell rang. Seeing it was the control room I put it on speaker.
"Yo," I answered.
"I have news," Vince said.
I sat up a bit straighter. "Good or bad."
"Good," he replied. "Stella's ex has been located."
"Oh yeah?" That was good news. "Who found him?"
"Some PSE&G workers who were working on a substation upgrade down in Camden," he replied. "His badly beaten body was found in the woods behind the substation."
Relief washed through me. At least he'd never be able to hurt Stella or Rosalyn again. "Do the police have any suspects?" I asked.
"From what we've been able to find out, it sounds like they're chalking it up to gang violence," Vince replied. Which meant, they weren't going to be all that excited to waste manpower trying to locate his murderer. "I assume you already told Manny?"
"Yes," Vince replied. "He's relieved."
"We all are," I said. "One less asshole taking up precious oxygen."
"Amen to that," Vince agreed.
"Make sure you let Hector know," I said. "That way he can thank his contacts for taking care of this problem for us."
"Consider it done," Vince said then hung up.
I set my phone on the coffee table, then leaned back, and closed my eyes for a moment. Relief washed through me. One scumbag down. Now we just needed to find Maddy and make Elliott Pfeiffer disappear.
An hour later the front door opened, and Casey walked in carrying several shopping bags. "I'm sorry I'm late," she said as she set everything down in the chair.
I shook my head. "No worries. I'm glad you're enjoying spending time with Stephanie and Kristina."
"Well, I'm happy you're okay with it because I'm probably going to be spending a lot more time with them over the next few months."
My brow knit at her statement. "Why is that?"
"Kristina's best friend, who was supposed to be her maid of honor, had to drop out of the wedding. That's what lunch was about today," she said. "She asked Stephanie if she'd be willing to go from bridesmaid to maid of honor and then she asked me to be a bridesmaid."
