WHEN IT RAINS
Illiandyanndra

Stephanie Plum

Pairings: Stephanie/Ranger & Merry Men(Core Team)

Spoilers: Anything & everything up through Sizzling Sixteen is fair game…I can never remember what book what stuff happens in.

^^Thoughts^^

^Spoken Aloud Thoughts^

"Speech"

AN: Yes Spanish is still English in Italics. I cannot speak it, nor write it, so I won't torture you with any attempts.
Please take a moment and Check out my Yahoo Group: Illy & Anni and website, the links are available on my profile.

AN2: Thank you to all my reviewers. Make me smile; tell me your favorite funny line from this story. Or tell me your favorite moment from it

Lester Point of View

We'd originally told Stephanie that it would only take us a week to get all of us free to take a break with her, but it didn't work out that way. First, Bobby and Ranger decided to pull second shift's physicals forward rather than pushing them back. Then Stephanie introduced us all to her nursery solution. It kind of sucked that she would have to give up her personal space, but when we considered that she rarely ever slept there…we much preferred to have her with at least one of us rather than sleeping all alone…I guess it wasn't really such a big deal. Anyway, once that decision was reached, Ric immediately wanted to move on it, so that pushed our time off back some more. Then we realized that none of us wanted to just spend our break in Trenton so Tank took charge of making the arrangements. That forced us to push it back until after her next doctor's appointment.

Given the size of pretty much all of us prospective fathers and the fact that there were two babies, Dr. DiBenditti wanted her monitored pretty closely so he had her meet him at St. Francis for an ultrasound with the good machines. They did the weighing and he was happy with all of that. But when he did the ultrasound with the hospital grade machines, he stopped, called in another OBGyn with their usual ultrasound guy and conferred with them, wrecking Bobby's nerves. Forty-five minutes of conferring and looking over the pictures they had printed out, Dr. DiBenditti came out and asked us to text the others and when they got there he would explain what he'd found. "It isn't anything bad…it just wasn't something we noticed before. Well, that isn't exactly correct either. We noticed this earlier; however, the conclusion we ascribed to the data has proven to have been erroneous."

"Where is Maddie when I need her to translate?" our beautiful woman groaned before addressing the doctor more directly. "But you promise that it there isn't anything wrong with the babies?" Beautiful asked, squeezing Bobby's and my hands in hope and despair.

"There is nothing at all wrong with the babies, as far as we can see at this point," he assured her with a grin.

I shook my head, "that probably would have been more reassuring without that whole 'as far as we can see' shit," I groused.

"Yeah, but then if something happened down the road, he knows that the first words out of our mouths would be…'but you said everything was fine'," Bobby reasoned. It seemed like we had barely begun our usual take-Beautiful's-mind-off-things-by-making-her-laugh banter when Tank and Ranger rolled in, dragging the upper echelon banger they had gone after that morning. He had skipped out on a multi-million-dollar bail for running drugs and guns in and out of New York and New Jersey.

"Babe?" Ranger asked as he pushed the skip into a seat and held him while Tank cuffed him to the bolted down waiting area chair.

"Nope. First of all, I don't know because Dr. Di, won't tell us anything before we're all here and second of all because you can't walk in here dragging a skip, and 'Babe' me…I should totally get to 'Ranger' you." Beautiful shot back.

Ranger shook his head at her playfulness. "We were on our way to the cop shop with DeMonte Rhodes when we got the text. Wanted to make sure that everything was okay, but couldn't let this asshole out of our sights…"

She nodded. The best thing about our woman…other than her incredible sex drive and amazing ass…was that she understood exactly why we did most of what we had to do. Before she could do more than physically indicate her understanding, Hector, Cal and Hal came rushing into the waiting room outside the ultrasound room where we were all congregated. Bobby went and knocked on the door to let Dr. DiBenditti know that we were all there. The doctor came out with his colleague and ushered all eight of us into the room. As I passed I heard him say something bone chilling to the skip, "If you even think about running, I will sign you up for as a test subject for the think tank trying to advance science to the point where men can perform surrogacy services." I shivered in terror at the very thought that such a thing even existed.

As soon as we entered the room, and saw the display on the wall, all thoughts of the skip or the testing flew out of my mind. There, projected on the wall was a 3D Image that was far more detailed and high quality than the one we had on the video he'd given us the month before. A forty-five second clip was running over and over. As the ultrasound moved around it was suddenly clear. It must have been as clear to at least one of the other men as well because we all watched it maybe twice then there was a loud thud and the room shook a little as a big ass body hit the floor. "Nobody turn around…I've got five bills on the fainter being Cal," I called out.

Cal's voice broke through the quiet. "Sorry, Lester, but you owe me five hundred bucks."

Steph laughed quietly. "For a second I thought it was me. But look, I'm still standing. But, ya know what…I think I do need to sit down." She said in that far off voice that always means she isn't talking to anybody but voicing her thoughts out loud. Tank rushed around the very last body we expected to see on the floor to lift Beautiful up onto the hospital bed in the room.

"Damn Carlito," I moaned. I had never, ever, ever seen my cousin pass out. Bobby finally moved to take care of getting him onto his feet. Once Ranger was back in fighting form, I looked over at him and whispered. "Carlito…you owe my ass five hundred bones. I cannot believe you passed out. Punk."

"Mats o-seven hundred, Primo," he whispered back.

I shook my head. "Nope, remember no mat time for insubordination that does not happen on company time or property. Only way this thing can work," I shot back. That had been an agreement that we'd all reached very early in our relationship. While it was all well and good for Ranger and Tank to be our bosses at work, we all had the right to be able to just relax and be ourselves in the sanctity of our home and private hours.

"He's right, Ranger. Besides, I saw it and I didn't pass out." Beautiful chuckled.

"There are three babies up there. You said twins. Three babies are not twins. How are there three babies up there?" Hal finally blurted out.

Dr. Di nodded as if he'd had some mysterious question answered by Hal's outburst. Then again, that may have been the first time Hal said anything in his presence. Usually Maddie was there and she scared the hell out of Hal, so he kept his mouth shut to avoid drawing her attention to him. "I can only assume that what I'd been seeing as a larger than normal baby was one baby hiding in the shadow of the other." The ultra sound technician changed the view. "As you can see you are having identical twins, both boys, and their smaller, but no less well-formed sister."

I was proud of Beautiful. She didn't hyperventilate. She didn't freak out. What she did do kind of confused me a little bit at first, though. She grabbed her phone and dialed a number from memory. "I hate you. You may well be my best friend…but I am really going to have to hate you." I guess that she had called Mary Lou. "No, you did this to me. Oh yes, you did. When I called you because I was having that three am freak out two nights ago…what did you say? I'll tell you exactly what you said; you said that I should be happy it was only twins. What do you mean? No, It's not twins its three…three babies at one time." she shouted into the cell phone. "You made me have to push three babies out of my hoo-haw at one time. Wait…you mean that I won't have to do the work?" Mary Lou must have told her something that calmed her down. "Is she right— does this mean that I'll get to have a scheduled C-section?"

Dr. Di laughed at the hope in Beautiful's voice. "Yes, we do usually prefer not to deliver multiples above twins vaginally."

Beautiful smirked, "Okay, I can do triplets then. But Tank, that means that we need to get Ms. Lavonia here like now." She went totally into command mode. "Ranger, the unused part of the sixth floor…we need to open that up for her and the babies to stay in the building with us when we're working. Because we'll get nothing done if our minds are at the house. Maybe later we can help her open up a daycare center somewhere near the building on Haywood. A daycare center that is secured by Rangeman and secure enough for us to send our kids to; it will have a waiting list a mile and a half long."

"You may want to move on those goals quickly. Twins tend go pretty close to term. With the additional fetus, that could move the time table up anywhere from two weeks to a month. I will do everything in my power to make sure that you do not deliver before your thirty fourth week. If we can get you all the way to thirty-seven weeks, then the babies will be able to leave the hospital when you do."

Bobby nodded. "Just let me know what we will need to do to help you get her to the thirty-seven week mark."

I had a sudden, kind of sucky thought. "Can we still take her on the getaway we had planned?"

"As I told you before, Stephanie can fly until she reaches her twenty-eighth week. While the additional fetus is a complication, it is not one that will create any complications that will necessitate changes in your plans. Bobby has gone over everything with me and he has the list of the requirements to keep Stephanie and the babies healthy. I'd probably increase the water per diem by at least an additional forty-five to fifty percent, but other than that, I don't see how this changes anything."

"Our flight is the day after tomorrow. We return in two weeks," Ranger said, just to make sure that the doctor really was good with that.

"Given the new parameters of the pregnancy, I will want to see her when you all get back and every two weeks thereafter," Dr. Di said reassuringly. "It is entirely possible that she will need to go on bed rest within the next two months or so…but if it comes to that, you all can borrow Maddie in the evenings."

"Yeah…no. She has broken more of my men than all of Babe's crazy FTAs combined," Ranger said stridently.

I shrugged. "Actually, as I understand it, Zero made it forty hours alone and then he and Zip made it the full forty-eight hours. Probably they would have made it even longer, but Turner had to work," I pointed out. "I think Cranberry finally found the right combination."

"Which kind of makes you wonder how Lenny does it all by himself?" Cal asked quietly.

But apparently not quietly enough, "I'm pretty sure that Mary Lou is normal but then again, in high school those two used to go at it like sexing each other was their job. So maybe they are just as bad as each other," Beautiful chuckled.

Dr. DiBenditti wrapped up with us and when we walked back out into the waiting room, it was to find Rhodes sitting as still as a statue. He looked like he'd been too scared of Dr. Di to take a deep breath. It was hilarious. Ranger and Tank both kissed Stephanie, grabbed Rhodes up and uncuffed him from the hard plastic chair before taking him on to the precinct. Hector and Hal left immediately thereafter to go back to the install they had deserted to respond to Bobby's call, but not before getting their own kisses from our woman. Cal had come by himself and he had to return to his errands, and we were very careful not to tell Stephanie what those errands were, lest she decided that she wanted to join him at the, dun dun daaaa, mall. Which would totally have ruined the surprise of the trip. She had no clue where we were taking her, Ella had done all her shopping and packing and all was in readiness, but she would not have any clue as to where we were going until we got there.

Over the next day and a half, we had dinner with Albert and the girls, we had lunch with Papi, Uncle Cayo, Frank and Helen, and we had what basically amounted to high tea with Abuela and Edna. Their friendship frightened me more than any mission I'd ever gone on…ever. I left an updated Mazur protocol with Ram, Junior, Zero, and Zip who were running the Trenton office in our absence. They were to closely monitor both grandmothers' information and trackers so that if they were arrested or got into any trouble at all, someone from Rangeman was there to get them out as soon as possible. But not, Adrien…he seemed to want to grow up to be Edna Mazur…everyone went out of their way to make sure those two had as little time as possible together. That little French motherfucker was a total Edna enabler, I'm pretty sure that he took her shopping behind all our backs.

Our game was so tight that we had the transports packed the night before. While Beautiful was taking her second post-coital nap of the day, we had meticulously gone over every possible detail. "Alright, Jacker and Flex will meet us at the airport, they will act as both our pilots and extra guards for the vacation. The eight of us, plus Ella and Luis, fly out of Newark tomorrow at ten- fifteen. Bobby said that Little Girl shouldn't be in the air for too long without giving her some time on the ground to get her feet back under her. So, we'll land in Charlotte and give her an hour or so on the ground. Then the next hop will take us to Dallas/Fort Worth. The lay over there will be long enough for her to get something real to eat. Then we'll fly into LAX and stay there overnight. We have two connecting Luxury Suites at The Westin at LAX. Then we fly out of LAX first thing Wednesday morning and arrive in Kahului at approximately ten-seventeen am. We are scheduled to check into the Travaasa Hotel Hana. The eight of us have one Waikoloa family suite and Ella, Luis, Jacker and Flex will share the family suite immediately next door. I have arranged for Stephanie and Ella to have any and every spa treatment they would like for the entire time we are there. They have adventure and fitness experiences if any of us are interested and culinary and cultural experiences that we all know Little Girl and Ella, and probably Luis, will love."

"And beaches, plenty of time for Angel to get her beach on," Cal pointed out.

We all nodded, knowing how much Stephanie Plum loved the beach. "I've already arranged to have a serious amount of sunscreen delivered to our suites Wednesday afternoon. Stephanie will need to drink at least eight ounces of cool water every hour when we are on the beach. A full bottle would actually be better, but eight ounces is the least possible amount. Sunscreen will need to be reapplied more frequently. There will be NO spray sunscreens used around Bomber. At all and definitely not on her." There were a shit ton more rules. But thankfully he'd turned them into a PDF and put them on our Nooks. There was certainly an eye roll attached to that thought.

I had to say though, more planning went into the trip than went into some of our missions, but it all proved to be for the best. Nothing went wrong at all on Tuesday. There were no traffic accidents to throw off our arrival time at Newark Airport. The two SUVs we were traveling in didn't even get split apart on the highway. Hell, despite it still being rush hour, we made it in under two hours. Since we were traveling domestically and on a private plane, there was little to no trouble. Beautiful was looking incredible in a pretty blue maternity dress that stopped above her knees and had a deep V neck with a twisty detail between her boobs. Dr. DiBenditti had taken her heels the office visit before the ultrasound, but Beautiful cheated with wedges. For our travels, she put on a pair of silver T-strap thong sandals had a strap that buckled around her ankle. It was a compromise that she and Bobby had worked out with Cranberry. Bobby and Dr. Di weren't unhappy. Our Beautiful was happy, and walking behind her made me happy so all was right in the world.

Anytime we expected Stephanie to experience negative emotions, we placed her with Ranger. The one avenue none of us had quite managed to catch up to him emotionally was his ability to keep her calm no matter the situation. She loved flying—the taking off and landing-not so much. So for the 'seatbelt fastened, tray tables in their upright positions' portions of the flights, Ranger would be snuggling and soothing Stephanie to make sure that her blood pressure wouldn't be adversely affected. Newark to Charlotte was a short, two-hour hop, and our hour long layover was the perfect length for Beautiful to walk around, grab a snack and answer nature's call. The Charlotte to Dallas/Fort Worth leg of the trip was just under three hours long with an equal length layover. Which was perfect because for us it was dinner time. III Forks Steakhouse was pretty damn awesome. They had something to satisfy Beautiful's iron craving—at least we were all pretty sure that was why she was suddenly eating T-Bones like one of us owned a cattle ranch.

The flight to LA was another three hours. But we didn't bother to eat again before heading to our hotel rooms. It was better that way, because though all the clocks read seven thirty-five pm, our bodies were feeling the ten-thirty it was on our home coast. Besides, Beautiful was getting belligerent since it had been over twelve hours since we'd gotten her off. All of us had tried to convince her to spend some time with us in the bedroom on the jet, but Tia Ella was too close for Stephanie's comfort, so no mile-high nookie for any of us. But with Ella in the other transport for the two mile ride to the hotel, Beautiful pushed her way into the front seat, had Tank's dick off and was riding him while looking for all the world like she was sitting on his lap because there were too many people in the vehicle. Thankfully, Ranger was driving and we didn't get stopped, because Tank's hands were under the skirt of her dress, making our woman scream and beg and cum at least four times in the short trip. Ranger went and checked us in. Since Tank needed to have his back, our largest friend passed me our precious treasure. Hearing the delicious sounds that Steph had made over dinner and then the even more pleasure-filled moans moments before, I was as hungry for her as she was for us. Given the limo tinting on the windows of the back seats, I was very comfortable moving our clothing and pulling her down on my weeping erection. In no time at all, Beautiful was clenching and quivering around me and I was turning my balls inside out, emptying myself into her.

Just in time too. We'd no sooner righted our clothes when Tank knocked on the window to let us know we could head up to the room. Beautiful's pretty legs were a bit on the wobbly side as we helped her into the lobby and up to our suites. The rooms were nice. But the most important thing about them as that they had big, beautiful beds. It was three am, east coast time, before Stephanie and all of her Justice League were fully sated and able to sleep. The alarm rang way too early but we were able to get Stephanie moving by telling her that once we got to the plane, we'd share at least a general area of where our ultimate destination was. Hal and Bobby helped Stephanie shower and lotion. She was killing the cocoa butter and shea butter industries trying to keep the stretch marks at bay. There was some success, but there was a lot more fun had by the seven of us guys rubbing the creams into her body every day.

One of the things that had finally made Stephanie appreciate her rather modest B, borderline C, cup pre-pregnancy breasts was that even at a little over six months pregnant, she was still able to buy regular bras. She'd looked at the maternity bras and not been impressed. Instead, in planning for the trip, the only thing we'd told her was that she needed to go ahead and get comfortable bras. The putting it off had gotten pretty damn ridiculous. So she'd just had one of those professional bra fit sessions done the other day. Not that she need to. I could have told her that she'd been a thirty-six B before and right now she was a thirty-eight D…though I gave that another month tops. Soon, she was going to have to crack on the maternity bra issue or move up to the DD cup bras. She grabbed out one of the white, strapless, gel bras that she'd been over joyed to see came in her new size. She had the damn things in every color. Primo and I had been with her for that mall visit. Me, because I could hang better than anyone else…and Ranger because she refused to use the credit card he'd gotten her. If he didn't want her to use her own money, he had to be there-with backup to distract her while he paid. She'd asked if we thought she should forgo the pushup bras. Maybe Hector or Bobby would have answered differently, but neither my cousin nor myself were fools.

So as she dressed that morning in the semi-quiet hotel room, she adjusted her beautiful breasts into the pushup cups of her white bra, pulled on some pretty well matching white cotton and lace boy short panties before slipping into a sexily adorable red and white stripped, maternity, maxi dress that went down to her feet. It had a drawstring that tied under her boobs and really shouldn't have looked as hot as it did considering that at twenty-five weeks pregnant, she kind of looked ready to pop. Not that I would ever be stupid enough to say that out loud. The white wedges she put her feet into and had Hal fasten for her looked almost exactly like the ones from the day before. It took no time at all to pack the stuff we'd pulled out over the course of two showers and a night's sleep. Where we'd all left Trenton looking like Rangemen, when we dressed that morning, we were definitely dressing as ourselves. Ranger was still in all black, wearing a black tank top, black and dark gray board shorts and black Converse low tops…but he had a sick love of the color. That was why we'd gone behind his back and had Ella pick him up a few things while she was shopping for Stephanie.

Tank looked more normal, desert camouflage cargo shorts, a tee shirt that had been a part of our desert camo BDUs and some whiter than white Air Force Ones. I was never sure where the hell he found shoes in his size, but he always had some seriously nice sneakers. Cal looked about like he had whenever we had a classroom scene play time; cargo shorts, Converse all-stars, rock band tee-shirt. I couldn't talk I was wearing red board shorts and a Flash graphic tee with some worn comfortable Vans. Ever since Beautiful had christened me as her Flash, I'd been investing more in the character's books and merch. I'd been a Green Lantern fan for most of my life. But I was definitely adaptable. Hal's outfit was text book Hal. He was wearing khaki shorts with a freaking crease in them. They straight up looked like they were part of a uniform for a charter school or something. He'd at least worn a tee shirt, granted it was the Green Arrow shirt I'd gotten him as a gag gift, but it was better than the polo I'd been expecting. Hector looked a little like Ranger's mini-me, though his shorts were just plain black basketball shorts. That thought was something else I'd never say out loud.

It was a little surprising that Bobby was actually the last one dressed. He looked like he had looked up resort wear on the internet or something. Dude was dressed as if he'd bought out Abercrombie and Fitch. The pastel plaid shorts were so going to end up on my ass at least one day of the trip though he could keep that pale green polo and the docksiders. A brother in docksiders just seemed wrong. But I had to give it to my bro, he was working it. We double checked and made sure that we were leaving nothing at all behind and then headed out. Ella and Luis were waiting on us in the hall. Jacker and Flex had already taken the bulk of the luggage -which had stayed in their rooms because our Beautiful was nosy and she would have woken up early to snoop- down to the SUVs. The ten of us made our way down to the hotels' Daily Grill Restaurant and Bar, the only one of the hotel restaurants that served a full, sit down breakfast. It took Beautiful fifteen seconds to rattle off half the menu. Bobby nixed about a third of what she ordered, but she was still ultimately so full she claimed she couldn't take a deep breath. None of us pointed out that the massive amount of babies she was carrying could have had something to do with that. When we were done being tortured by our woman's food-gasms, we made the quick for LA two miles in twenty minutes' drive back to LAX. We still arrived in enough time for Jacker and Flex to complete the preflight check list and us to get off the ground around the seven-thirty time frame listed on our flight plan.

The second we took our seats Beautiful glared at each of us in turn. "I've been good. I've put up on the smug looks from every single person I know in Trenton. Even Eddie knew and wouldn't tell me, which I really need to know what you bribed him with because he is the worst unimportant secret keeper in the history of the world. I want to know where we are going." Her pout was so cute.

"Eddie was amazingly easy to bribe and he filled a need for us at the same time. They are spending next weekend at a cute little B&B on Martha's Vineyard, and Caesar and Chet are watching their boys while they are gone." Tank told her with an evil grin.

"Oh…Caesar asked about our sex life again?" Hal asked him.

"No. He had Randy Briggs and somehow let Randy convince him to take him to the strip club before he took him to PD. The only reason we aren't taking him to the mats is that we agree with him that Gaspick should never have run Randy in for his knife again in the first place." I answered.

"So what did Chet do?" Steph asked still giggling at Caesar's foolishness.

Bobby rolled his eyes so hard I could feel them across the aisle. "He ate one of Mooner's brownies the day before his physical, so he pissed hot. The punishment might be a little excessive…but he was the only other person needing disciplinary action right now and none of us think Caesar can handle the Gazzara boys by himself."

"It's funny how you all just talked through takeoff, and I am still no closer to knowing for sure where we're going." Beautiful grumbled.

I decided to be kind to her, after all we were still keeping one hell of a secret from her about what her friends were planning back home while we were gone. "We're spending the next two weeks on the beautiful island of Maui."

"Holy shit," she breathed. "I have wanted to go to Hawaii since I saw the Brady Bunch go there."

"Frank told us. We were looking at the Caribbean…but he changed our minds."

Her smile was even more amazing after we mentioned her father. It was definitely a new experience for her to have her dad, the one parent she has always felt had her back and was on her side, actually like and voluntarily spend time with the other men in her life. I could see that she was about to go into full blown tell me more, tell me now mode, "No. We promised to tell you where we were headed. Let us surprise you with the rest."

"Okay, fine, but only because I love you." She pouted so cutely, then the food and the excitement got to her and she was out like a light. The five-and-a-half-hour flight was the longest of our whole trip. It was also the only leg of the journey that experienced any real turbulence at all. Unfortunately, the turbulence was bad enough to wake Sleeping Beautiful and scare the devil out of her, so for the last two hours of the trans-Pacific flight, we had to 'keep her entertained in a completely non-orgasm inducing way'. Which somehow resulted in my cousin bringing out the embarrassing childhood stories. Not his own, of course. No, he told mine. He was halfway through the story of the time I'd gotten into a fight with my older sister's boyfriend, because I saw him kissing Rosita Flores at the burger joint when he was dating said sister. "So this guy is at least three years older than Lester, about seven or eight inches taller, but Primo doesn't care. He walks right up to the pendejo, puts his hand on his shoulder and turns him around, totally destroying the kiss he'd been laying on the obnoxiously bucktoothed Rosita. Lester punches him dead in the face, right. Got a couple of good, surprise punches in, before the guy remembers that he is bigger and older and starts punching back. He had Lester down…but he must have forgotten that the family hadn't let Lester out alone on a Saturday since the day he'd managed to build a volcano in the work sink in the back room of a CVS. We still can't even figure out how he got back there, let alone what he used to make the water react like that. Guillermo and I jump in and when Lester comes back up, he comes up swinging. In no time guy was laid out. Best part, absolutely the best part, is when the guy is laying there knocked out. Lester goes over to Rosita and looks her in her face and says, 'I'd say I was sorry for interrupting your date, but he was dating my sister. I couldn't let him hurt and disrespect both of you. So Rosita takes his hand and next thing Gui and I know they are walking off into the sunset."

"You finally decide to show Beautiful that you can string together more than seven words at a time and that's what you decide to say," I growled at him. But then again, the way Stephanie was looking at me made me feel ten feet tall and bullet proof. So maybe Primo was not actively trying to embarrass me with that one. But the one when we were five or so and I took off all my clothes to run through the sprinkler because I was hoping to avoid taking a real bath wasn't necessary. I hid a smile though, Rosita had had a pretty significant overbite. But she'd known how to use that imperfection like she had been Freddie Mercury in a previous life. "He didn't know he had it easy. We just beat him up. By the time Della and Rosita were done with him he couldn't get a date in our school to save his soul."

"Didn't sound like he had much of one to save," Beautiful blurted out. "I wish I had had a brother in my life to beat up Morelli and Dickie."

"Oh, Angel, all you have to do is just say the word." Cal offered. "I'm not your brother, but as one of the men who love you more than life itself, it would be an honor to pound either one of those two idiots into the ground."

"Well, actually, I guess it's okay. I did hit Morelli with Daddy's Buick and killed any chance Dickie ever had at a political career."

"If you change your mind, just let us know. Your father would be happy to help us make sure their bodies are never found." Hal chimed in.

Beautiful looked contemplative. "I kind of always wondered why Daddy never did anything to them."

All of us were pretty sure that we knew the answer, but it was actually Luis who spoke up. "Poppet, your father couldn't. He has the same training Ranger and his men have. To use that against a regular civilian could have seen him in jail. To even try and punish them for their treatment of you when there was little chance that he could achieve an emotional distance and detachment, would have almost assuredly ended up with them dead and Frank in a federal prison. Besides, as you said, you took care of it."

"Wow…" she breathed. "I love my Daddy…and I think I already knew that…knew that if he'd touched them it wouldn't have been good for him."

The rest of the flight flew by and soon we were stepping out of the jet into the warm, beautiful Hawaiian air. Tank had decided that Beautiful would enjoy driving from Kahului to Hana and since it was only ten am local time, even if we stopped along the way, we'd have plenty of time for sightseeing. Ranger had rented two eight seaters SUVs…he even managed to get black cars in Hawaii. All of the luggage except our overnight bags, Ella, Luis, Jacker and Flex would be riding in the second one. Beautiful and the seven of her JLS rode in the first. We left in our Escalade as soon as we were able. Jacker and Flex would load their Yukon and get under way as soon as they finished putting the jet in the hanger and their post flight check.

Even with the supposed head start, they caught up with us in Pa'ia. We stopped for brunch at Hana Ranch Provisions and that was certainly not the first stop. Probably we should have given Stephanie the camera after we got to the hotel. What was supposed to be a two hour drive took us almost twice as long. There may have been some thought of complaining, but Stephanie looked so happy and relaxed we just couldn't. It took me the better part of the drive to realize that the tension she'd been carrying for so long it'd become normal was gone. I thought through every training session on micro-expressions and reading body language I'd ever had before I understood that the missing tension had been her fear. It was only when she ran a hand over her greatly expanded belly and the expression returned for barely an instant, I got it. Our beautiful, giving, wonderful, caring basically-wife was scared of being a mother.

When we stopped at Ke'Anae for Steph to take some more pictures, I pulled Ella and Ranger to the said to share my discovery. Neither of them seemed surprise. "Having children is always scary," Ella explained. "For the first months, many women are even to scared to get excited, and those women don't have the Burg constantly berating them for their actions and their choices and telling them for their entire lives that a woman is nothing until she has a child and then she is nothing if she doesn't follow all of their crazy caveats and rules. Stephanie also has to deal with her own fear of hospitals and her fears of disappointing one of you or her father. Then there are the fears associated with carrying multiples. She will be okay, just take a moment and let her know that you love her and as far as you are concerned she could never disappoint you."

Ranger and I both nodded. "Maybe we should look into adding a few dates to our stay so that we can each have some one-on-one time with her. Let her know how much we love her and already love our babies, no matter who's they are or whatever." I suggested.

"I wonder if we could rent an extra room at the resort where we can each spend some time showering her with love, or a place where she can even go if she needs a little time to herself." Ranger asked Ella more than anything else.

"That will be very nice. Stephanie will love having some time with each of you alone as well as having time for all of you together." Ella agreed.

By the time we got Beautiful back into the Escalade, Ranger had already managed to work his magic with the hotel. When we got there, check-in was seamless. Of course, Tank had gotten us the all-inclusive package so we could each simply pick what we wanted to do each day. Heck the way it was structured we could go to the spa every single day. Something told me that Beautiful had noticed that and was planning accordingly. We were shown to our room, electing to walk and allow Ella and Luis to ride with the luggage on the golf cart. Our suites were the last two on the strip, as far from the rest of the resort as possible. Jacker, Flex, Ella and Luis would act as a buffer between us and any actual families in the third suite. This was definitely shaping up to be the best vacation any of us have ever had.

Trying to find my legs with this story. Any and all feedback will be greatly appreciated.

There will be 30 chapters of this story total. So I'm in the wrap up stage. I hope and pray that I can do it justice and make Illy proud.

She is working so hard that I just hope that I can do something to brighten her day.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Ladies.

Please let me know what you think.

TTFN,
Anni