Lots of times I'm not crazy about the writing, but I keep moving ahead and somehow it gets better. The important thing is to move forward.

Ranger appeared in the bathroom doorway and I was too relieved to be embarrassed. "I appreciate you coming out in the middle of the night," I said. Ranger smiled. "I didn't want to miss seeing you chained up naked.

You'd tell me if we were getting married, wouldn't you? I mean, you wouldn't just appear on my doorstep one day and say we were due at the church in an hour.

As Stephanie and Lula were going after the bad guys, Lula was making preparations from the trunk of her Firebird. Stephanie looked inside and stopped breathing for a beat. "That's a rocket launcher!" "Yep," Lula said. "It's a big boy. I got it at a yard sale in the projects.

Ranger plays by his own set of rules, and I don't have a complete copy.

THE NOTE said the first clue was "in the big one." I looked at the jumble of letters that followed, and I saw no pattern. Not such a surprise, since I was missing the puzzle chromosome and couldn't do puzzles designed for nine-year-olds.

The dancers finished thier set, and one immediately strolled over to our table and straddled Ranger. Want a private party?" she asked. Not tonight," Ranger said. He handed her a twenty, and she left. What about the cat-feeding theory?" I asked him. Out the window.