Disclaimer: The characters of the Stephanie Plum series belong to Janet Evanovich and are used here without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
NOTE: This is the outline of an idea. It’s in dire need of polish, editing and Ranger’s POV. I have no clue where it came from, but here it is.
Rating: Suitable for people over 13
Feedback: Contact TT at: ttsmiscellany@yahoo.com
The Truth Comes Out
By TT
Stephanie stood by the couch, her hands fisted, her face red with anger, her eyes blazing. This was bad. She knew this was bad and she knew it was going to get worse. She could feel the words she had struggled to hide for so long, the truth she guarded with all her might was going to escape and there wasn’t a single thing she could do to stop it.
This fight was beyond anything she had had with Dickie or Joe and, though she knew why, she was denying it.
Glaring at the man across from her, she could almost see the anger rolling off of him. Ranger was a dangerous man. He was always calm and collected. He never lost his temper, at least not until now.
The two of them had been screaming at each other for ten minutes. She had never heard the low hissing anger before, never heard him raise his voice as he had just done. Of course, she also realized that she had never run into Carlos before. It was Carlos she was fighting with now, the man under the image of Ranger. Carlos was a man of passion and need; he was the fire that burned under the cool exterior of Ranger.
And it was that realization that had set her secret free.
She clamped her teeth shut in an effort to keep the words inside, but his next words, shouted loudly enough to wake her nearly deaf neighbors, released the words from their purgatory.
“You were his fuck buddy for God’s sake, at least until he found someone to replace you,” Ranger sneered.
Stephanie felt a stab of pain and tried to assure herself that he just didn’t understand what she and Joe had shared.
“Why is it different with me?” He demanded. “Why won’t you be with me?”
“Because I love you, damn it! I love you with all that I am. I love you so much that I can’t separate you from me! I can’t live with you like I did with Joe! Can’t you see? It has to be all or nothing when it comes to you! Otherwise, you have all of me and I have nothing.” A look of horror washed over her face as those words were uttered and the full knowledge of the truth of those words penetrated her being. She had denied and fought those feelings for so long that stating them gave them even more power over her.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she dashed to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her and sinking to the floor, back resting against the door as she started shaking. In seconds the shaking turned to sobs.
The words she’d spoken ran through her mind again, their truth of the words piercing her heart and soul. The worst part was that now he knew. Now he knew the power he had over her, the power to destroy her.
Eventually the tears subsided and her breathing slowly retuned to normal. She felt too heavy to bother moving from her seat in front of the door and was too shattered to move.
She had to find a way to gather herself together and go on with life and, especially, to go on without Ranger in her life. Most likely he had left and, if she were to check, she was certain she’d hear he was already “in the wind”.
Doing her best to force her pain away, Stephanie searched within herself, looking for some scraps of her soul, of her self, of her self-respect that she could hold onto and slowly begin to weave together to protect herself, to remake herself. Maybe in time the huge gaping hole that was the place where Ranger had been would fill. But she doubted it.
A line of poetry that she had heard once came back to her. 'Where you used to be there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in daytime, and falling into at night.' (1) Somehow, she knew that would sum up her life until she had recreated enough of herself to get past this.
“But how do you get past losing your heart and soul?” she whispered to the darkness.
Wiping her eyes, Stephanie forced herself up, took a few staggering steps to her bed and fell on top of the covers. Without bothering to remove her makeup, her clothes or her shoes, she fell asleep.
Stephanie woke suddenly with a gasp. She was shaking from the nightmare. It had started off the same way as the argument had, but Ranger had been so different, deliberately cruel instead of angry, calculating and evil. He had still wrung her confession from her, but instead of escaping, he had caught her arm. What happened next sent a chill down her spine.
Despite knowing that Ranger had things in his past she was better off not knowing, she knew that he would never hurt her like she had dreamed he would. Despite everything, she was certain of that.
Looking at the window, she noticed that the light was a soft gray color. A glance at the clock told her it was just about dawn. She let out another sigh, but knew she wouldn’t get back to sleep. The best thing to do would be to start her day and hopefully ignore the huge hole where her heart used to be.
With a distinct lack of energy, she pushed off of her bed, gathered some clean clothes, slipped out of her shoes and opened the door.
She made it one step through the portal when she froze in her tracks. Sitting on a chair, staring at her door sat Ranger. He looked about as rough as she felt.
Her flight instinct filled her, causing her to want to run back into her bedroom, slam the door shut and pretend he wasn’t there.
That inclination soon passed, however. She stood frozen in place, captured by the eyes of the man looking at her.
Though it would take her longer to consciously realize it, it was the emotion in his eyes that held her entranced. There was no sign of Ranger in the man sitting and staring at her. She was seeing Carlos completely unshielded for, she realized, the second time.
The first time she had seen Carlos freed of his Ranger persona, had been in the early hours of the night they spent together as her payment. That revelation was what made his rejection the next day so much more painful, even if he had only been stating the reality of their situation.
Ranger’s eyes were usually unreadable, but Carlos’ eyes burned with emotion – hope, fear, pain, need, kindness and, most of all, a deep, abiding love.
She watched as he stood and took a few steps closer to her. He stopped about a foot away, his eyes still locked on hers.
Reaching up, he tucked a curl behind her ear. He took a breath as if to speak, but seemed to freeze, as if words were hard for him. Licking his lips in a nervous motion she had never seen before, Carlos finally said, “You aren’t left with nothing, Stephanie.”
She shivered as his voice, rough and emotion laden, caressed her.
“You have all of me,” he admitted quietly.
A sob welled up from within at his words and her knees buckled.
Carlos wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her up until she could stand on her own, He then led her to the couch where they both sat and waited, searching for the words, wondering what came next.
“My life isn’t easy,” he admitted. “I’m not like anyone you know. You’ve heard before that I’m a mercenary, but that’s not entirely true. I’m mercenary by nature. I evaluate my interactions based on the gain I will receive from it. That’s how I run my business, that’s how I run my life. Money is a thing; it can’t betray you. People can. That’s why I don’t let people close to me.”
Stephanie felt fear pierce her heart once more. She couldn’t believe he was dumping her again.
“You are the one anomaly I could never explain,” he continued, his hands tightening on hers, as if he knew what she was thinking. “I receive no increase by teaching you, associating with you. Beyond that first day, I had no obligation to you.” He paused again, making sure he had her full attention. “It took me far too long to realize that in our relationship -and, yes, Babe, we do have a relationship and have for a long time – it wasn’t you who was coming out ahead in gain; it was me. Only, what I gain from you isn’t anything material. From you I gain all the intangibles that every successful person wants and so few get.”
Stephanie gasped at that revelation. She knew Ranger – Carlos – was different than any other man she knew and she never understood why. His honesty in his previous words suddenly made many of his actions and words more clear. He was very different than what she was used to seeing, but not completely foreign. She would never think the way he did, would never fully understand, or even agree, with all of his decisions, but knowing what she did would bring them closer together. She searched for words, but couldn’t find any. Extracting one of her hands from his, Stephanie reached out and cupped his face, stroking her thumb over his lips and then across his cheekbone.
Ranger lifted his free hand to cup the hand caressing his face. Turning his head slightly, he gently kissed her palm. “I’m never going to be the type of man you’ve grown to expect. Our values are too different. We approach the world and each situation completely differently, that’s not going to change.”
Stephanie let out a laugh. “I think we have enough things in common to make up for those differences,” she replied. “I know you don’t always understand me. I don’t always understand me, but, I’m willing to work with it. I’m willing to give it a try.”
Ranger nodded. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to offer you marriage or children, I don’t see the benefit in those things.”
“Can you offer me a committed, monogamous relationship?” she asked.
“That I can do,” he agreed, a small, relieved smile on his face.
“OK,” she said, her eyes drifting to his lips. She unconsciously leaved forward, closing the distance between them. “I love you,” she whispered a moment before her lips touched his.
The kiss was light and soft, yet it communicated her love and devotion to him as well as his love and devotion to her.
A bargain had been struck. It may last a lifetime; it may not. But, however long it lasted, both Stephanie and Ranger realized they would be the better for it.
End
(1)Edna St. Vincent Millay