Hello dear friends and readers!! :D Thanks a lot for your votes and comments on You've Got A Way, YSTO Book 2. Love you for your support and kindness.
So many people are also reading and voting on You're Still The One, Book 1 of YSTO series... the first book of this one which was written on Brandan and Emma's love story. Thanks to you guys too!! :D

Here's chapter 9. Enjoy...

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Hollering down in lightening speed Ramona, Harry and Billy reached the parking lot where the mugger was now on top of his victim, punching him away like a maniac. The poor guy flailing his arms beneath the a**hole was now bleeding from his nose.

Soon they had picked up the mugger off of the man getting beaten. Harry and Billy took out their pent up frustration on Evan over the jerk. And Ramona helped them as much as she could.

But then... something else, which was really weird in this kind of situation caught her eyes as she moved a little to tuck her disheveled hair behind her ears while breathing heavily. She turned her head to watch properly... and clear enough, the man who almost got mugged was running off like fire was set in his butt. He had even left his duffle bag behind.

Now that was a little confusing, actually a lot.

Why would he run like that when "the help" had arrived.

"Guys! Hold on a sec...," She called out to her two very energetic companions who were enthusiastically still beating the low-life.... or was he?

When none of them noticed her voice she whacked on their shoulders hard. Now, that caught their attention.

"Whoa! Why're you hitting us instead of him?" Harry yelled irritatedly as Billy too hissed being annoyed at the interruption.

Ramona nervously pointed at the retreating back of the guy who was now far... far away from their reach. "Why do you think he's running guys? Especially leaving his bag over here..." She motioned with her eyes towards the duffle bag lying forgotten on the ground now.

"Because...," The man they were beating enthusiastically a few seconds ago moaned in pain before continuing from his sprawled out condition on the ground. "That bag belongs to me."

A long minute of silence fell over the trio while the man picked himself up onto his feet grunting and groaning. "And I'm going to fight for it till my last breath, you scums, don't even think that this well planned attack of you local gang - geeks is capable of scaring 'The Mighty Oliver'."

Ramona closed her eyes tight while biting her tongue inside her mouth.

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"So you guys aren't any local smuggler-gang members and were just trying to save someone from getting mugged, while whom you three actually saved was the mugger himself ... and beat the poor - me in stead?" A very amused Oliver exclaimed - after ten long minutes of arguing over the misunderstanding and mis-saving of the year.

"Uh - look, we're extremely sorry about that but you've got your bag safe over here, right?" Ramona apologized for the three of them. Harry and Billy nodded robotically at her words.

Quiet and deep in thought, Oliver stood staring at his bag for a long time... and then he cracked a smile. "Well, that's true."

Ramona and the other two visibly exhaled long held breaths as Oliver went to pick up his possession.

"Look, we can give you a lift to wherever you want to go - as a compensation." Ramona shrugged pointing at the pair of bruises forming on Oliver's face.

"You would?" Oliver asked with hope shining in his eyes. "Well then I want to got to Sheriff of this town, I won't let the mugger in the guise of a cab-driver rest in peace."

The man was childish in many ways with no skills of concealing his emotions, Ramona figured out. But her concentration on the stranger and the conversation he was having with Harry, was soon interrupted with the light breeze that blew past her flicking a few strands of her hair lightly.

Fear.

Unknown and unhindered fear hit her strongly. She stood stiff and rigid as all the noises were banged off of her ears and the vacant spaces were filled with a heavy buzz of her own blood flow that increased to a maddening level.

The feeling of being hunted was signaled through her intuition... and how familiar this feeling was.

Frantically she looked around, eyes searching for the unknown predator. But there were none.

Absentmindedly she walked towards their car with the discomfort of someone's eyes boring into the back of her head. And the next moment, the fear... the feeling of being watched... were gone , just like that.

Thinking of it to be a random fit of paranoia, Ramona slumped back as the car pulled out the parking.

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She had changed. The man standing in the shadows behind a parked truck thought silently. His eyes without a single blink staring at her for a while now.

Despite of the failure his plan faced this night the ever present smirk on his face never faltered.

Soon. He silently promised himself. Soon, he would have her where he wanted her to be.

"My sweet, sweet Ramona." He whispered... and the slow breeze picked up the determination coated on her words towards her. He watched as she stiffened as the light breeze brushed her colorful strands of hair.

He narrowed his his eyes at the condition of her hair. Did she really thought that those pathetic attempts to disguise herself would hide her from his search? Shaking head he sighed a pleased breath. Couldn't she understand that unknowingly, she had just made this game even more interesting for him?

As the three of them with the new guy that just arrived in the town walked away talking among themselves, he too backed off into the darkness of night.

Soon. He repeated his promise again. Soon, the moment will come.

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Evan had been just fallen asleep on the couch in his living room with the TV on and mute. Julius was fed and put to sleep for the next two hours. Evan didn't even had to set up an alarm or anything to wake up at time in order to do the baby duties several times at night. Like a automatic alarm had been built inside his mind by itself which would wake him up, always in the right time. And he was pretty proud of that realization.

But this time, it wasn't that invisible alarm in his mind that woke him up or it wasn't even a real alarm for a change.

It was the rhythmic knocks on the front door of his house.

Evan found himself spring up straight into a sitting position on his couch before his brain could even register anything coherent from the blur of sleep.

Swiping up those few strands of hair that fell on his forehead due to his awkward sleeping position on the couch, Evan went to find out who the heck had the guts to annoy someone at such a god forsaken hour of night. He opened the door preparing to yell at the person but stood frozen in his spot finding the last person he expected was standing at his door... with that annoying grin spread over his face, very swollen and bruised face.

"What brings you here, Oliver?" Evan asked seriously as he sat on a stool in his kitchen and watched his sister Emma's fiance's most trusted employee and best buddy... gulping down all the food laid out in front of him like he had never eaten before.

It took a few moments for Oliver to swallow all the food in his mouth in a rather disgusting manner and speak. "Well, I'm alright Evan. Actually I was getting mugged by my cab driver and when I had almost beaten the a**hole out cold... these three weird people appeared out of no where and saved the criminal thinking I'm the mugger in stead. And that's how I got these bruises. Thanks for asking Evan, you're so kind."

Then Oliver went back to eating again making Evan scowl in his direction with intensity. It irritated him to no end that Oliver didn't answer him but what put fire to this irritation was the fact that moments after this guy had entered the town he'd managed to get himself into trouble somehow.

Evan's plans about leading the rest of his life with his son in peace and without any troublesome incidents, seemed seriously in threat of falling apart. And this was not sitting well with him.

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After checking on Julius as he slept in his crib, Evan begrudgingly now went to check on Oliver too who was also passed out in the only spare bed room in his little one family house.

The irony of fate, Evan thought. He had this weird feeling settling in his stomach as if there were two babies now in his house as he walked away from Oliver's room.

In fifteen minutes he found himself standing on the porch of Ramona's house again. As a long minute passed by in awkwardness Evan finally raised his hand and knocked on the door.

He could hear noised from inside, so he was sure that they were home this time.

The door opened after the third knock. Evan watched a shocked look crossing across Harry's face and as the first waves of that shock went past, the door was slammed shut like a thunderbolt in his face.

Evan took a confused step back but then he began knocking again, with determination. He wasn't about to put this apology on due any longer. He would never admit it to another person but it was eating him alive inside since he realized that he had gone too far that night in the hospital.

The door opened again, but this time there were Harry and Billy standing there - with two baseball bats.

Seriously?

Evan couldn't help but feel amused. "Are you boys planning to beat me up with those?" He motioned with his eyes at the bats.

Harry and Billy seemed damned serious when they answered. "It will be an act of self defense."

Uh-huh, so they're scared of me... Evan controlled the urge to laugh at their faces. In stead he just smiled politely at them which was probably taken by the boys as a very suspicious activity or some kind of premonition as their fingers tightened around the bats.

"What do you want?" Harry and Billy asked in unison.

Not wanting to walk around the bush anymore and play with "baseball players's" nerves, Evan thought to cut it out straight. "I came here to apologize." He said simply and sincerely.

But apparently, his sincerity wasn't taken so simply.

"Yeah, like the last time." Harry narrowed his eyes at Evan. "I'm not going to let you anywhere near my sister, you've hurt her enough."

Evan narrowed his own eyes at Harry. With that baseball bat in hand the kid was finding himself mighty enough to talk to him in that tone. He would be more than pleased to let them know that, those bats were nothing but splinters in their inexperienced hands. But that wasn't what he came here for.

Evan sighed. "Look, just call Ramona and let me..." He couldn't even complete his sentence as the door was once again slammed shut on his face rather unceremoniously.

He kept pounding on the doors unmoving wooden surface for a long time with no avail. At one point he thought of kicking this whole motherf***er of a door down and do what he came to do. Unfortunately that wouldn't look good and reasonable.

Besides, the last time he pulled a similar kind of stunt, nearly a year ago, things didn't quite turn out well for him in the end.

So seething in frustration of not being able to apologize to Ramona, he returned back to his own home. He walked inside the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee only to find Oliver making pancakes, wearing an apron.

Now watching Oliver as he hummed around in the kitchen, made Evan want to hit something. He still had no idea of Oliver's sudden appearance at his door. But by the looks of things, something seemed wrong.

Sitting Julius strapped up in a high chair Evan and Oliver proceeded to have their breakfast. While Evan ate grovelling in silence on his failed attempt of an apology, Oliver talked endlessly about everything existing under the sky. Julius seemed to be his only listener as the boy kept watching Oliver blabber with his mouth hanging open, clearly mesmerized.

Evan snapped his head up at sound of his name being called by Oliver. "Evan, dude! What's up with you? I've been calling you for a while now, eh," then with a teasing smirk he added just because riling people up was quite a fun way to begin a day besides a lovely breakfast. "By the way, I saw you almost knocking down the poor door of your neighbor's house. There's something seriously bugging you and by the look of you sulking around since then, this is probably a - girl bug -, right? So who's the lucky chick? Come on man... now tell me all about her, and did you guys do it already?"

Evan's nose flared as Oliver kept on with his assumptions. "It's nothing like that Oliver." He bit out, gritting teeth. Any sensible man would've backed away at the hint of threat in Evan's tone. But of course, Oliver had his senses buried among the dead somewhere a few seconds later he was born. So Evan didn't feel surprised when Oliver raised a teasing brow at him that suspiciously felt like a promise of continuous annoyance until the truth was out in the open.

Evan groaned in frustration. "I just wanted to apologize to Ramona for my misbehavior earlier." In anger, Evan spilled it all out.

Oliver was looking at Evan like he had grown three heads on his shoulder. "But..." Closing and opening his mouth for a number of times, Oliver tried saying something - anything... but nothing seemed to come out of his mouth.

Evan knew though, what Oliver wanted to say.

It was only two other girls Evan had ever apologized to before. Zess and Emma, his wife and sister... and to no one else.

And now Ramona was going to be added to that list, soon. Staring blankly at the pancakes Oliver made, Evan tried figuring out the itching confusion surrounding him about the mysterious Ramona and how easily she had managed to step into places not everyone was allowed.

Was it that wrong of him to be so weary about her? Had he been just paranoid to guard his boundaries like a madman in every waking second? When a crazy neighbor - also add drunk and mis-savior with that, was hell bent on conquering some forbidden land - quite unaware about it by herself... could a man be blamed to freak out even thinking about what would probably be her next battering step.

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            Passing a whole night sleepless yet once again, Ramona tried clearing her head in the bright daylight. She tried wiping off the nagging, probably unreasonable fear that she was feeling in variety of waves since last night in the parking lot. 

As she watered all the plants in her little garden, in the front yard... she waited for this burden of fear to lift up and leave her in peace. But sadly it didn't. Not even her usual therapy - a bottle of beer or vodka from her secret closet could help her in this case last night when she came back home. Her time alone with the plants too didn't quite seemed to be working.

She had just been done with watering all her favorite plants to hearts content, when, suddenly... like last night, the still nagging fear in the back of her mind - intensified to the max. An uncontrollable urge to run and hide somewhere rose in her so strong that she almost buckled to her knees.

Heart beating rapidly, she looked around already knowing that there won't be anyone. She was just paranoid, nothing else. And surely, there really wasn't anyone. 

But still, why did it strangely felt like someone was watching her? Like she was prey, like she was being hunted.

As she took a step backwards to get herself inside the safety of her house, surrounded by walls and warmth to lessen this fear and insecurity. The back of her body collided into something hard, yet so soft at the same time. It took her brain a few seconds longer than it normally would have taken to realize that it was a human body she just collided with. And that just made her erratic heartbeats jump to some other level making her physically jump away from the warmth of that body.

Ramona turned around instinctively, although some other part of her brain just wanted to not know who it was and just run from this sudden interference of her personal space.

It was his chiseled chest that first caught her eyes, because of his tall height of course. Then her eyes went up to look at that handsome face which she had seen most of the time sporting a scowl of irritation and last time of hatred and disgust. But this time that very face was scrunched in worry. For her?

No. How could that be? He hated her guts, right?

"Why were you so shaken up?" He asked with concern, maybe faking it. Ramona thought.

So she turned around briskly. No need to expose herself like that to this jerk. He would probably just use it against her in some wicked way when the next time he was pissed or having a fit of his usual mental attack. 

"Because you startled me, you dumb-a**." She spat out facing away from him. Somehow she managed to bring out her voice firm but not quite steady. If someone noticed closely enough and carefully, they could see how her hands were shaking... matching her tone. 

She hoped Evan would take the hint that she wasn't interested to undergo his stupid interrogation and leave her be. But hardly things happen like we want them to be in reality.

So Evan not only stayed but decided to carry onto his questionings. "But you looked pretty scared before you even ran into me."

Ramona took a few more steps away from him as she heard his voice now getting close. "Oh please! It was you who ran into me."

                 Evan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. She was again trying to annoy him and in the way slip past the main topic. And he would let her...

Yes, he would. Because he hadn't snuck up on her to raise another argument with her which would surely end up with him watching another one of her tears stunned and feeling pathetic. He was here to apologize and... apologize he would.

"Listen..." He began speaking only to have to see Ramona begin walking away. Grinding his teeth he marched after her in determination. This apology thing wasn't his cup of tea and this girl and her looser of a brother and that other guy had kept him waiting for too long. Did they not know that he didn't like waiting? Oh yes, they didn't know and he didn't even was interested to make them know. It would be messy.

Gripping her wrist, this time he remembered to hold her gently, he spun her around to face him. 

"What the f***ing hell's wrong with you?" She yelled at his face.

Okay, she was mad at him and considering how he treated her after she had just saved his son... she had every right to be. But she wouldn't be this mad after he was done apologizing, he was sure of that.

"Would you please stop being a brat and just listen to what I want to say?" He didn't want to but