Any Man Of Mine - sade meeks (top young adult novels txt) 📗

Lula continue to enjoy them. Please." I knew Ranger's first instinct would be to start tracing everything down, including starting with having the vases checked for prints. I wouldn't have even called him if I hadn't promised.

"I want the card."

"When and where?" I could handle that. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Office in 3." Click. I wasn't feeling particularly mature at the moment so I stuck my tongue out at my phone before I put it back in my bag. I started the car and headed back. Ranger and I got to the office within seconds of each other. I kept two of the doughnuts in the car for myself and grabbed the rest to take in to Lula and Connie. I sighed wistfully as I looked over at the Porsche 911 Turbo, black of course. Of all of Ranger's kickass cars, it was my favorite. I scowled down at my lousy car before meeting Ranger's gaze.

"Babe." I could hear the amusement in his voice even though he was wearing that frustratingly blank show-no-emotions non-expression of his. I screwed up my face in an oh-so-mature grimace. He walked over and slung his arm around my shoulder. I leaned into his embrace and kicked one of the tires. I felt Ranger shaking with silent laughter.

"Sending this one to car heaven would be doing it a favor." I rolled my eyes at him and reached into my bag. I gave him the card, glad to be rid of it. "You still have no idea who these are from?"

"Nope. Nobody I knew there except Joe, Mary Lou, and Lula."

"What are your plans for today? Do I need to put a guy on you?"

I shook my head. "No. You don't. There haven't been any threats. If it comes to threats, then I'll consider it. Until then, I don't need a friggin' baby sitter." I gave Ranger a 'Burg girl glare to reinforce my position. "I'm just about to check in and see if Lula wants to ride along on a pickup. Some guy who got drunk and resisted arrest by locking himself in his car."

"Babe."

"Don't 'Babe' me, Ranger. I'm carrying the GPS pen in my bag, Lula will be armed, and I repeat, there have been NO threats." Yet. It was the unspoken word at the end of my declaration. Ranger knew it; I knew it. We'd both seen this scenario play out too many times to not know it.

For right now however, I was going to make the most of the time I had before I did have to worry so much. At some point during this whole thing, I knew I'd wind up with a body guard. Since most skips tend to come with me a lot more willingly when a well-muscled scary looking Merry Man was with me to intimidate them, I'd wait to pick up LaPaglia until then. In the meantime, I knew Lula and I should be okay to handle Marcantel on our own.

I softened my glare a bit. "Look, I promise if I feel threatened or my Spidey-sense indicates anything more than a general creepy feeling, I'll call and ask for a guard, okay?"

Ranger had smirked just slightly when I mentioned my Spidey-sense. His expression serious again, he looked into my eyes, looking for what I wasn't quite sure. Apparently he found what he was looking for and nodded. I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding. He kissed my forehead and led me towards the office. "Come on, I don't want to be held responsible for keeping those two from their doughnuts."

We were greeted by stunned silence when we walked into the office. I wasn't sure exactly why until I felt Ranger remove his arm from my shoulders as he went to hand Connie some body receipts. Connie and Lula exchanged a look and both turned on me, eyes dancing. I gave them both a death glare. Lula glanced at the flowers, and then trailed her eyes to Ranger. I could see the wheels spinning in her mind and when her mouth opened, I spoke up, cutting her off. "I'm going after Marcantel. Wanna ride along?" I saw Connie do her best to hide a smirk as she realized what I was doing.

"Hunh! I might as well. Nothin' to do 'round here anyway." Lula grabbed a doughnut with one hand, her purse with the other, and headed towards the door. I hesitated a moment, debating the wisdom of pointing out that there was always filing to do. I mean, technically that is Lula's job. I decided against it. I did a slight eyeroll in Connie's direction and followed Lula to the door.

"See ya guys later," I said to Connie and Ranger. Connie did a fingerwave. Ranger caught my eyes with his. The intensity of his gaze startled me. My throat went dry as all the moisture in my body rushed south. Did someone turn up the heat? Oh boy!

"Hey Big Dog. You gotta come see this." I gave Carl Costanza a death glare and an honest to goodness Italian hand gesture. He chuckled and cautiously put an arm loosely around my shoulders.

Big Dog came around the corner. "Jeez Steph, I think this is a new one. What is that? Paint?" That was a reasonable question considering I looked like a walking Jackson Pollock painting.

"Close enough. Vinegar and food coloring. Turns out my skip, Marcantel, has a day job as a new age starving artist. He throws balloons filled with warmed vinegar and food coloring onto fabric. Apparently he got the idea after watching the mess his niece and nephew made coloring eggs at Easter time." Could I have had the insight to wear one of my Rangeman uniforms today? No. Of course not. I had to wear a light tan T-shirt and jeans to pick up my skip. Marcantel didn't take kindly to having his work on his current masterpiece interrupted by Lula and me. So he decided to use us as targets. Lula didn't look quite as bad as I did – her skin coloring wasn't conducive to absorbing the dye so she looked more like she attempted to tie-dye hot pink spandex. I, on the other hand, would be exfoliating for days before I stopped looking like a rainbow threw up on me. I almost regretted insisting Lula leave her Glock in the car. Part of me wishes I'd just let her shoot him.

I made a move to leave Carl and Big Dog to their discussion about how close food color bombs came in regards to the running bets around the station concerning my latest disasters when Carl tightened his hold on my shoulders.

"Joe wanted us to let you know he'd like to talk to you if you came in. He's back in his office." Carl shot me an almost sympathetic look that instantly set me on edge. "He's been in a real bad mood the last several days. I don't suppose you know why?" I didn't know exactly and I wasn't keen to find out anytime soon. I knew I'd have to talk to Morelli sooner or later but I hadn't pictured myself as the Amazing Technicolor Stephanie when the discussion happened.

"Tell ya what, Carl. You're gonna pretend you didn't see me and I'm just going to walk right on out of here with my body receipt. I've had a bad enough day."

"No can do, Steph."

"What do you mean, no can do?"

"He means it's too late. I'm already standing here." I turned to look at Joe. His eyes traveled the length of my body and back up and he just shook his head resignedly. "Cupcake, I'm not even going to ask. Carl, Big Dog." Morelli nodded to the guys as he reached over to latch onto my upper arm. He steered me into his office and closed the door. "Please, take a seat." He indicated the chair closest to me and then sat across from me at his desk. Joe ran a hand through his dark hair. Something must really be bothering him. He usually only raked his hands through his hair when he was frustrated or was very worried. Since he didn't know about the flowers and my apparently new stalker, I'm going to go with frustrated. Considering he wanted to talk to me, I was probably the source of that frustration. As Joe leaned back in his chair, arms crossed against his chest, I braced myself for round three of our current battle. For several seconds, neither one of us made a sound. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.

"WHAT!" I nearly screamed. Okay, so calm and mature weren't on my list of virtues right now. Sue me! I didn't want to be sitting in his office. I wanted to be somewhere ridding myself of the smell of vinegar. Joe sighed and put his cop face firmly in place, but still didn't answer me. I rolled my eyes. "Joe, you have about 20 seconds to start talking or I start walking. You're the one who brought me in here." I was working myself into a real snit. Part of it was from guilt, because I knew I was going to have to finally end things with Joe. The other part was sheer frustration and indignation over his "I need to talk to you" and then say nothing routine.

While I waited for Joe to start talking, I let my eyes wander, taking in his dark wavy hair, his brown eyes, and overall movie star handsome good looks. I sighed sadly. At one point, I really felt there had been a potential for more between Joe and I. I really had. I wanted to think that maybe someday we could get married and settle down. The problem was I was no longer the person that wanted that with him. Years ago I had been. Maybe if I had quit working for Vinnie after I brought Joe in when he was FTA, maybe I would have accepted the life my mother and Joe wanted for me. Reality is, I didn't stop doing bond enforcement and I could no longer see myself as a 'Burg housewife and mother. Joe had matured over the years and settled down. I had changed who I was and I couldn't go back. I was half way to the door since I felt it obvious that Joe wasn't going to speak when the sound of his voice stopped me in my tracks.

"What in the hell were you thinking?" Joe sounded livid enough to spit nails. This threw me. I carefully turned around and faced him.

"Excuse me?" I tried really hard to not sound as pissed off as I was. Somehow I don't quite think I succeeded. I'm sure my face showed anger and shock as I'm pretty sure my eyebrows were now out in space, orbiting the earth. This couldn't be about bringing in Marcantel in this condition. I quickly reviewed the last few days trying to figure out what could have warranted the open anger radiating from him. The only thing that came to mind was the scene with Ranger in my apartment and in my opinion he had no call to be this upset over it.

"The other night. At the bar." Joe was looking at me with an odd combination of anger and disbelief that I didn't immediately know what he was talking about. As if I was being purposely obtuse in not seeing the obvious.

"What about it?" I didn't even know what I was supposed to be defending but my hands were working their way to my hips and I could feel my feet