A/N: In Finger Lickin' Fifteen where Ranger helps Steph catch Cameron Manfred, he and Manfred have an exchange in Spanish and I couldn't help but wonder whether what Ranger translated for Steph was really all he said to Manfred. And Voila – a story idea was born. Initially this was supposed to be a oneshot, but kind of took on a life of itself.

All usual characters belong to Janet Evanovich, I make no money with this, it is purely entertainment. Though the character of Rosa belongs to me – or my imagination.

"What did he say?" I asked Ranger.

"He said if I let him go, I could have his girl."

"And your answer?"

"I declined."

(Excerpt from Finger Licking Fifteen)

Truth was when I asked what his answer had been I might have held my breath for a moment, not sure whether I really wanted to know. Deep down I guess I knew what he might have said, seeing that somehow I didn't see Ranger with someone as cheap as Maureen – and no I didn't say that out of jealousy. Why should I be jealous anyway? It wasn't as if I wanted Ranger in any… ok that was a lie. I wanted him, badly and quite honestly I suspected my constant hiccups with my relationship to Morelli might have something to do with Ranger.

Truth also was that I didn't quite believe his answer. It wasn't that I didn't believe he declined, no, I actually knew he said more than that. I was certainly not having a clue about Spanish. All I could say was Ola, Gracias and Hasta la vista. Maybe a few more words but that was it. But I knew despite my lack of Spanish that whatever he said was way longer then I decline. And since Ranger was a man of few words I suspected chance were slim that he just sugar-coated his answer for Manfred.

Of course I could have simply asked Ranger, but I suspected his "I declined" answer was all he was going to give me. Even if I asked twice more. Since I didn't speak Spanish and I was anyway not being able to repeat to someone who might speak Spanish what had been said, I guess we'd never find out.

At least I had a somewhat good story to tell Lula and Connie, who I just remembered wanted to let me know at what club they ended up tonight. Thing is we wanted to go out and have a girls night. My plans with Ranger and Manfred kind of interfered with that slightly, but I assured them I'd join them later when we had Manfred taken care of. Connie, knowing how much money Manfred was worth was not going to argue.

Looking at my display I figured why I didn't get a message from Lula so far. My storage was full and the message on my display was advising me about that.

Why was my storage full? I hardly had anything on my phone, other than the occasional E-Mail or an app or two. But it certainly wasn't App Central with hundreds of icons on my screen.

That's when I realized an icon on the top of my screen, right next to the heavily blinking battery icon. Apparently I was recording something. I guess when trying to knock out Cameron Manfred I must have somehow accomplished to activate it by mistake.

Thinking about that for a moment I realized that it might have recorded what Ranger had said to Cameron just a few moments ago.

After we had gotten Manfred to the station, I had gotten my body receipt and managed to drag myself back to RangeMan in order to clean myself up from all the flour I remembered my phone again and its possible recording.

I fished my phone out of my bag, made sure I was alone and looked for the voice recorder. A moment of pressing around and not having a clue what I was doing and I found my phone indeed had a roughly five minute recording. I played it and heard mostly rustling, probably the fabric of my pants and me moving, trying to hit Manfred. I fast-forwarded a bit until I got to the point where Ranger reappeared. A moment later and I had confirmation that I indeed had a recording of Ranger's conversation with Cameron. It was not the best quality but I was certain to someone who spoke Spanish it might make some sense. Problem was, I didn't know anyone besides Ranger who actually spoke Spanish.

Well, I could ask Ella or her husband, but…they worked for Ranger. I assumed they'd hear right away that Ranger was the one talking. And since I didn't know what he had said I sure as hell didn't want someone who knew him to hear. Why that was I wasn't entirely sure.

Technically everyone I knew who actually might speak Spanish was employed by Ranger or RangeMan. Not an option. I knew who these guys were loyal to. And when it was between me and Ranger, I'd lose without question.

None of my friends or family spoke Spanish – or at least not better than what one could pick up in a few years at high school, which made things difficult.

I also didn't want to walk into one of these translation offices, since … well, I didn't know what was said. For all I knew it could have been just a longer version of "No thank you." And I surely wasn't paying some translator's outrageous fee just to have him or her tell me that it was exactly that. Or some dirty joke.

There had to be someone….

"What has you so cranky?" Lula asked a few days later when I stepped into the bonds office. Connie looked up from whatever she was doing and agreed. "Yeah, what's with that frown?"

"I need someone who speaks Spanish to help me with a recording I have," I explained and both looked at me with blank expressions.

"So? Ask Ranger."

"Ok, let me rephrase that. I need someone who speaks Spanish, who isn't Ranger."

At that both looked more than just intrigued.

"What happened? Did you guys have some… falling out?"

"Did Morelli once again decide that he didn't like your contact with Ranger? Cause if he did, I'm gonna slap him…"

"No, and no," I said to both of them. "And why would you think Ranger and me had a falling out?"

At that both looked at each other as if they knew something I didn't.

"Because you ask Ranger for all sort of help…" Connie said.

"I do not," I protested.

"You do. When you need a car," Lula said.

"Or some place to stay," Connie went on.

"When you need to be picked up right after your car was destroyed, stolen or blown up."

"When you need training."

"Or help with an FTA."

"When you need cash, or rather a second job."

"When you know you need to shot a few rounds just for practice."

"When Morelli annoys you."

"When you don't know what else to do."

"When you burned down your place again"

"When…."

"Ok stop," I finally said, getting their point. Somehow I had a feeling they could have gotten on with that for a while longer. The way they said it made me sound like I relied a lot on Ranger – and maybe I did. But not this time.

"So…?" Lula asked, looking expectantly.

"So what?" I asked back and saw her rolling her eyes.

"Well, why can't you go to Ranger? Speaking Spanish after all is one of his many talents," Lula said, with Connie snickering at her comment. Was it just me or did everyone started speaking double entendre these days? I mean, Ranger was king in that category without probably even trying too hard.

I chose to not say anything, mainly because I didn't know what to say. Not that it was necessary, Lula was on a mission and I guessed it wouldn't take her long to get a clue.

"You are keeping a secret from him," she deducted after a few minutes, just to reverse her idea. "No, wait. That is ridiculous. You can't keep no secrets from da man. He always knows where you are, what you are up to and what you seem to think, white girl. Keeping a secret would be impossible."

"It's not a secret I'm keeping," I reassured her. And technically it wasn't a fib.

"Then it is about him," Connie concluded at which Lula looked at her surprised. "Well, it was the only other option," Connie shrugged before returning her attention back to the files on her desk.

I stared at Connie. Lula stared at me and nothing was said for several minutes. Finally I cracked. "Maybe" I said vaguely. But who was I kidding? I might have as well said yes.

Connie and Lula just smiled without saying anything. Odd. Usually these two were all over Ranger and me in that regards.

After a moment of just looking at each other, Connie handed me a stack of files I needed to work on and Lula announced she'd be riding shotgun. Guess things must have been slow in regards of filing. Not that Lula was doing much filing these days anyway. Either she was having breakfast/lunch/dinner, or she did her nails. When it was neither food nor beautification she was shopping.

We took Lula's car, seeing that mine was the Buick for the next few days and you couldn't really blend in with Big Blue. Not that Lula's was any less obvious, but it was doing slightly better.

We seemed to have a run and managed to capture two of our FTAs before lunch, which Lula insisted we have at a diner down the road from the bonds office. Apparently she was on a new diet. Again. There wasn't a week Lula wasn't on a strange and obnoxious diet. None of them ever worked – shocking – but that never stopped her for venturing into newer and apparently more effective ones. This week she was on what she called The Sides diet.

"So, what is the diet all about?" I asked her after we had ordered and I didn't see any diet-related items on her order.

"Well, you only eat the sides and not the actual stuff. Like… when you go to Cluck-in.a-bucket and order extra crispy chicken, you eat the extra crispy crust, but not the chicken."

See, obnoxious.

For a moment I was wondering whether I should point out that the extra crispy skin was probably the fattiest and unhealthiest part of a bucket of extra crispy, but I decided against it. The past has shown that when it comes to diets Lula had set her mind on knowing stuff and whatever you said, she was not listening.

"And what do you do with the chicken?" I asked curious. Seeing that of the 8 bucks you paid for a bucket, 7 were probably for the chicken and one for the extra crispy I wondered what she did with the stuff she actually paid most for.

"I freeze it until I can eat it when I'm done with the diet."

Of course she did. When the food was delivered I spent a moment watching Lula parting her lunch between Can eat and Can't eat. Weirdly enough the can't eat portion was a lot smaller then what she actually could eat.

"Ok, gurl. Play it," Lula all of a sudden declared, catching me off-guard and not being certain what she was talking about. "Your Spanish stuff…. Play it. Maybe we can catch a word or something that sounds familiar and makes sense," Lula explained, sipping in her milkshake.

"How do you know I have a recording and not some …piece of writing?" I asked curiously.

Lula just looked at me. "White girl, this ain't a stupid ex-ho," she said at which I just raised my eyebrows. "ou said something about a recording back at the office. Also…If you had it in writtin' you'd just do that google-shit and get it done."

I have to admit for a moment I was surprised. That was actually… well thought.

I sighed, knowing this would lead to nothing. I had replayed the message for myself for felt like a hundred times. And I wasn't able to repeat any of it. Even the audio version of Google Translate which you can speak to in order to get a translation didn't work. But then again I figured the quality was just too bad for the software to catch anything really.

I looked at Lula for a moment, before sighing once more and hitting play. Throughout the audio it became obvious that Lula didn't understand a thing.

"Men like that don't exist anymore," our waitress said all of a sudden. She had the rest of our order in both hands and looked almost rueful.

Looking at her confused for a moment I finally asked what she was talking about.

"That recording," she answered, nodding towards my phone. Her name tag identified her has Rosa.

"You understood what was being said?" I asked surprised. Talking about luck.

"Sure. I might not have gotten every word but… most of it. That rustling sound makes it sometimes hard to understand," she answered nonchalantly, looking at me, before she all of a sudden looked slightly panicked. "I mean… I wasn't eavesdropping. Just… um…."

"It's fine. Actually it's…. great. I was looking for someone who could translate that for me."

At that Rosa seemed to be relieved and grinned at me. "You don't know what he says?" she asked curious and amused.

I shook my head.

"I get a feeling you know the guys that are talking."

"One of the guys," I said.

"You asked him what he said?" she asked, still smiling.

I nodded. "Kind of. I mean… I did ask when they initially had that conversation, but I get a feeling he wasn't telling me the whole… story. He said he declined to whatever offer the other guy made."

I looked at her expectantly, when it occurred to me that she didn't even know who of the two guys I knew. But then again I guess Ranger's Babe might have clarified that pretty much.

"Ooooh," she more or less swooned. "Declining he did."

"What did he say exactly?" Lula asked, curious as well.

That got us a grin from Rosa. Seriously, if she kept standing there smiling any longer I was afraid someone was going to call her out and reprimand her to get back to work and I would never get to the bottom of this.

She looked around for a moment. I wasn't sure whether she did to make sure no one was about to go off on her for standing around, or whether she wanted to make sure there weren't any witnesses.

"I'm assuming you are the one he's talking about," she finally said.

"He's…talking about me?" I asked surprised.

"Oooh, that he does. In a way."

Great, could Rosa be any more cryptic?

"To hell, gurl. What is he saying?" Lula said, losing patience as well.

"You see that one guy tells the other guy that if he lets him go, he could have his girl," she said. And no surprise there, I already knew that. Ranger had volunteered that much.

"And what did he answer?" I asked slowly. I saw her grin at me, shaking her head softly for a moment. This was seriously going to kill me.

With my luck someone would just call her now and I'd never get an answer.

And then she grinned at us. "Well…."

TBC…

Sorry about the cliffhanger. But… well….

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