A response to Rena's bored challenge, only because I'm so desperate for AWT that I've come out of lurkdom to post this story that I wrote as quickly as I could this evening. Rena, you don't know me, but let me just say that I personally think this should count as at least two responses—one, because it's nearly 2500 words long, and two, because I never in a million years thought I'd be writing, much less posting a story. Please forgive any mistakes, this is my first Plum fanfic, and it was hastily written (in desperation, remember.)

Contains a little language and sexual innuendo. Nothing terrible. Thanks for reading!

I yawned. Again.

Ranger sighed. Almost.

I, Stephanie Plum, hated stakeouts, and if Lula had only come through picking numbers on the lottery tickets we both spent our last few dollars of "mad money" on, and if I had enough cash to pay this month's rent, there was absolutely no way I would have been sitting in a black Ford Explorer in the middle of a perfectly fine-for-doing-any-number-of-other-things morning waiting for some loser who skipped bail to show up so that me and the incredibly hot, mercilessly hard-muscled Cuban sitting beside me could schlep him back to jail. Okay, so maybe this is exactly where I would be. I still don't like stakeouts.

"How much longer are we going to wait for this Smitty guy to show up?"

"Smithy," Ranger corrected. "We're going to wait until Smithy shows up and we have the opportunity to apprehend him."

I had a feeling that's what he'd say. "How long till you think we'll have that opportunity?"

Ranger flexed his neck and shifted his eyes momentarily upward toward the upholstery lining the roof of the Explorer before he resumed staring at the open end of the alley we'd backed into about an hour and half earlier. Probably it was the Ranger-version of burg eye-roll, or maybe it was a silent prayer to God for continued patience with me. It was hard to tell with Ranger.

Anyway, he was in his zone, watching with almost-unnerving sharp-eyed concentration the doorway to the run-down apartment building across the street from what I'd come to think of as our alley.

I was watching the doorway, too. And the paint-chipped wood trim around the doorway. And the broken sidelights beside the doorway. And the crumbling concrete steps leading to said doorway. Thrilling work I'm doing here, really.

I was getting hungry. "I'm getting hungry."

Ranger shot me a short, but amused, glance—that expression I can identify. I sort of get it a lot from him. "Hungry? Since I picked you up this morning, I've watched you drink a large McDonald's coke and eat two Boston crèmes and about dozen cough drops you dredged up from the bottom of your purse."

Thank God for the cough drops or I'd never have made it this long. "It's my Hungarian metabolism…and it's almost lunch time. What's our plan for lunch?"

Ranger shook his head. "It's 10 in the morning. It's not even close to lunch time."

"I like to plan ahead. And it looks like Smitty's not coming."

"Smithy," Ranger said on a sigh. "And when do you ever plan ahead?"

"I plan ahead all the time. Like right now as we speak I'm planning ahead to lunch. Besides, how do even know your skip will show? We've not seen a soul walk past the whole time we've been sitting here. He may decide he's not in the mood to visit here today." Smitty—I mean, Smithy—was known to visit an "establishment" that did business inside the apartment building we'd been staking out.

In fact, it was his frequent visits to this establishment and others like it that had landed him in jail in the first place. Turns out our guy was what has been known since the days of the first Clinton administration as a sex addict. Only he had to pay to play. Hey, who am I to judge? I've often thought my deep-seated desire for pineapple upside-down cake should be classified as addiction. What other explanation for the complete disregard of my personal well-being and 

sanity could cause me to brave regular dinners with the Plum family? Of course, my "addiction" didn't get me arrested for being a perv. Although, come to think of it, being in jail might at least be more exciting than sitting here in a darkened alley starving to death. I wonder what mom's cooking for dinner tonight? Shit. Poor Smitty.

"Babe, Smithy's always in the mood. His bond was set at 100,000 because he's been caught multiple times and his latest arrest was by the feds when he transported prostitutes across state lines. Vinnie forfeits the bond at the end of the day, so we've staying put until the pervert shows."

"Which one? Smitty or Vinnie?"

Ranger just smiled.

I huffed. Just once I'd like to go on a stakeout where the target had the courtesy to arrive before my ass numbed. "What about reinforcements? Backup? Changing of the guards?" Maybe I sounded a little desperate. "Delivery?"

Ranger had the decency to actually look at me as he explained. "Bobby and Lester are doing a job across town, Tank's leading a team on special security project in Boston, and I'm having to put extra men on the monitors at the office because of some increased security concerns of several of our more elite clients. That's why I asked you to work this with me…it's just you and me, babe, till this is done. "

Just me and him…that sounded nice. Wait. "Wait. You make it sound like you were desperate and I was your last choice for this assignment." And, just like that, Ranger was back in his zone. Smart man.

I don't think I have a zone. When Lula and I go on a stakeout, it's usually just an excuse to kill time while we figure out what we really need to do, or a code word for a doughnut run. I mean, you can't really enjoy doughnut if you're trying to drive a car, right? Parking and eating was our version of FTA-surveillance.

About 30 more minutes passed, and thinking about Lula and stakeouts made me remember how hungry I was. "Maybe I could just walk and pick something up for us. We passed a deli about three blocks from here. You don't even really need me, anyway."

"I always need you," Ranger said as he shook his head at my request. "Besides, you're not walking alone in this neighborhood even if it is mid-morning and daylight."

I'm a reasonable woman. "Then you go."

Ranger rested his forehead on the steering wheel, just for a second. "It's protocol to have two men on surveillance at all times. If I break protocol, my men will think it's acceptable to break protocol, and that's not going to happen. We'll eat when Smithy is back behind bars. I'll even take you to Pino's."

Umm. Pino's. "Hand me his file."

Ranger looked puzzled. "Why?"

"Jeez. Just hand me the file." I reached out and took Smitty's file from Ranger's hand as he pulled it from where it was tucked behind the driver's side sun visor.

I flipped through several pages of police reports before I found what I was looking for. Ick! -- this guy made Vinnie look like an altar boy, I thought, as I dug around in my purse for my cell phone.

Ranger eyed me with a hint of curiosity. "What are you doing?"

I started dialing as I answered logically, "I'm calling this guy to see where he's at and when he's going to get here."

"Babe."

He had the phone out of my hand and snapped shut before I even got all seven numbers punched. "Hey…give that back!"

"You can't call a skip and ask him to hurry up to come be detained."

"Why not?"

Ranger looked pained. "It's not a method."

"It's not your method, you mean. I've been at this bounty hunting for a while, now, and I typically get some good results with my own 'methods'." There was the amused look again. I was starting to get annoyed. "Listen, you have your talents, and I have mine."

"I know a lot about your talents, babe."

"Shut up." There was a time I wouldn't have said that to Ranger, and probably, there was no one else on the planet besides me who could even get away with saying it. But that time I wouldn't say it passed a little more than half an hour ago when he made the implied crack about my eating cough drops. "What I mean is that you are good at some things, and I'm good at others."

I think he might have been a little taken aback at my rebuke, because instead of making another suggestive comment, he only asked me to explain what I was talking about.

Here goes. "You're good at sitting here like a cat waiting to pounce on its prey, no matter how long it takes, whereas I am less good at that."

He didn't look impressed. "Go on."

"When I'm after an FTA, I'm good at a more creative approach. Like, for instance, when Lula and I captured Stan Skisinski by engaging him in a role-playing activity. We were able to locate, apprehend, and return him to the cop shop in less than half an hour, without one hint of violence…or death by boredom."

Ranger grinned. "Stan Skisinski. Isn't he the elderly man who got collared for indecent exposure because he believes he's a baby and he tried to get some lady on the street in front of the assisted-living home he's been at for two decades to change his diaper? Babe, you got his address from his FTA file and pretended you were taking him to Mommy-and-Me class at the YWCA." He was full-on laughing now. Damn annoying. "Costanza said you pulled up to the police station in Big Blue with Skisinski sitting on Lula's lab sucking his thumb."

I glared. "Your point?"

The jerk was still grinning. "My point is that we're waiting here until Smithy decides to come get his rocks off."

"Well, my point is that even though things don't always work out smoothly, I have a good track record of getting my guy. It's part of my whole 'Seize the Day' method, as opposed to your 'Snooze the Day Away' one." He didn't respond, so I took that as a good sign and kept talking, "I mean, when you want something, you've just got to reach out and take it. You can't sit around and wait on it to come to you, because it might not. And if you wait too long, you might miss out on what you want altogether."

Ranger voice dropped and he asked me seriously, "What do you want?"

"A pizza and some beer."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I was ready to accept my defeat and prepare to sit in this SUV until I passed on from hunger or despair. Hey, so I've got a clear philosophy on action, but in terms of stamina, I'm not exactly a never-say-die kind of girl. I figured that between me and Mr. Goodbody beside me that I would be the first to go. I was idly beginning to wonder if Ranger would call off the stakeout if I slipped into unconsciousness, when he dropped my phone back into my open purse and then surprised me by reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out another cell phone. "Use this one. It's blocked. I don't think you want a guy like Smithy to have your number on caller ID."

I bounced in the seat on my numb ass with delight. Pino's, here I come. I found the contact page in the file again and immediately dialed the latest phone number listed. Smitty answered on the fourth ring. He sounded sleepy. Bastard's been sleeping this whole time. There's two hours of my life I'll never get back.

"Hello? Sir? Uh, this is Steph--" I faltered only for a minute, "—uh, Stefan's, uh, Escort Service. Yeah, Stefan's Escorts. I'm calling because we've started a new venture in the Trenton area, and your name came up as a potential client." I made my voice go all sultry. "We're trying to build our client base, so we're willing to offer you a free sample of our services."

Ranger watched me as I was listening to Smitty's response. He whispered, "Smithy." Damn ESP.

I giggled impishly into the phone, and described some of benefits of being a customer at Stefan's. Ranger didn't look so smug now. "Ooh, Mr. Smithy, you can put it wherever you want." Ranger's eyes darkened and his knuckles on the steering wheel went white. Huh. What about that?

"Well, you see, Mr. Smithy, Stefan's is unique. We pride ourselves on being, well, discreet…" I explained breathily. "Instead of you picking your escort up for a 'date,' we come for you." I paused while he answered. "I knew you'd want take advantage of my limited-time offer. Just give me the address you're at now, and I'll come pick you up right away." I grabbed a pen from Ranger's console and jotted down the information.

"Just look for a black Ford Explorer outside your place in about 10 minutes. Come on out and hop in the back, and I promise you an experience you'll not forget." I hung up the phone and turned to look at an open-mouthed Ranger. Score for Stephanie Plum. I don't think I've ever seen him this close to shocked before.

"Un-fucking-believable."

I just smiled my I-told-you-so-why-did-you-ever-doubt-me smile.

In fifteen minutes, we were on our way to the police station with our skip out cold in the back of the Explorer. Ranger had even let me stun the pervert as he hopped eagerly into the backseat. We dropped Smithy off at the cop shop before he even came to. Poor guy will never even know what happened. I almost felt sorry for him.

After we ordered at Pino's, Ranger looked at me with what seemed like a new sense of appreciation. "Babe, I've been thinking about what you said back there during our stakeout."

"Really? Which part?"

"The part about reaching out and taking what you want. You've convinced me works, so I'm going to give it try."

I must have looked confused, because he explained as he gently reached his hand to lift my chin and softly gave me a kiss sent waves all through me, "I'm seizing the day."

The End. :-P