Lucinda Scott painted the last toe, her little toe with the blood red polish and smiled. No one could paint her nails better than she and she triumphantly rose, cotton balls between her toes and walked toward the RV door. The knock was unmistakable. She opened it slowly and squealed slightly at the bouquet of red roses covering the face of the man she loved.
 
 

"Oh my God! You are soooo sweet! What am I going to do when you go back to New York?"
 
 

She grabbed the roses and then without a care in the world threw them down on the kitchen counter and grabbed him as he stepped up into her R.V.
 
 

"Lucinda! I…"
 
 

"Never mind! I love you!" she squeaked again in a softer tone and jumped up, legs wrapping around his waist as her sudden enthusiasm and weight pushed him against the door and he struggled to gain balance.
 
 

"Whoa, I never know when you’re going to do that!" he countered as she smothered him with a thousand kisses.
 
 

"Oh! My balls are falling out!"
 
 

"Your balls are falling out?"
 
 

Marvin Vanduran looked at Lucinda Scott’s face as she raised one leg from behind him to over his shoulder and pointed up to her foot; " See…my balls…"
 
 

He grinned as white cotton balls were falling around him everywhere and he kissed the inside of her well-shaped calf. He raised his eyebrows expectantly to her.
 
 

"I have to be on the set in fifteen minutes…," she warned.
 
 

"Not a problem…" he responded, his sudden, new found strength pulling her around as he carried her toward her bedroom. After three weeks in California, he had never been fitter.


 
 

Angie slept, the armrest removed between the seats as her head rested in her husband’s lap. Rollie’s hand, from time to time, would touch a wandering strand of hair that fell against her eyelids and brush it back softly. He had not felt as comforted seeing the back of his father’s head from time to time in the seat in front of them. A thousand questions came to mind but then, their code of silence was what always came up and stopped him from asking. Dingo, for his part remained silent except for his usual flirtations with the stewardess.
 
 

Rollie shut his eyes after hearing the pilot announce final descent into LAX. He knew that he wanted nothing more than to get back on his feet, make some movies and get the business back to it’s former life. With all that had happened in the past three years, he realized that he needed the stability, if one could call it that, of the special effects world that he so loved. He smiled down at Angie, placing a fingertip slightly along the ridge of her lash as she fanned at the intrusion in her sleep. Once again, he lightly touched her lash and she opened her eyes, a slight frown forming but realized she needed to wake up as she looked at the warning lights above her.
 
 

"Oh no…how long have I slept?" she asked, blinking, with a large yawn and sat up, stretching.
 
 

"Um, two, maybe three hours…" Rollie replied, kissing her exposed neck as she stretched again.
 
 

She giggled slightly, slightly embarrassed and looked at the back of Dingo’s head.
 
 

"So, did you talk?" she asked, softly.
 
 

He shook his head and gave her the look.
 
 

"Oh, well, some things never change…have you called Luce? Is she picking us up?"
 
 

"I called her about an hour ago…she’s on location and can’t get out to LAX so she’s sending someone else…someone she said we could trust and feel comfortable with…" Rollie replied, smiling.
 
 

"I don’t know who that could be…? Wonder if we did a film with him…probably…yeah well- her surprises are always that!" Angie surmised and scrunched her hair down, making a face; "I look like death warmed over…"
 
 

Rollie’s brown eyes looked down at her with soft warmth as his lips brushed her forehead, sending shivers down her spine. He could make her feel like jelly anywhere with even the slightest touch sometimes, she thought as she grinned and kissed him softly back, savoring his lips longer than she usually allowed herself in public.
 
 

"You two ever stop that lock-lip stuff long enough to realize we’re landing this bird!" Dingo commented without turning around.
 
 

"Jealous, old man?" Rollie asked, with a degree of sarcasm in his voice.
 
 

Dingo chuckled as Angie reddened and muttered under her breath at the feuding Tylers. Would they never get this over with? she thought with anger, and she folded her arms across her chest. If she had to grab them both in the airport and sit them down, she’d do it, she decided. This was going to stop!
 
 

After landing and taxied to the airport, they slowly made their way off the plane to the overwhelming interior of LAX. Dingo was right in front of them as Angie kept a watchful eye on his back. Rollie wasn’t losing sight of him either and as the confusion of arriving and departing people merged in the massive complex, Rollie followed Dingo into the men’s bathroom. He had squeezed Angie’s hand for a second before he left her and she smiled slightly, hoping they would resolve something, anything…
 
 

As Angie made her way into the women’s bathroom, she waited. First, there was a line for the toilet and then a line for the sinks. As she splashed cold water into her face and looked up into the mirror, she blinked in surprise for she thought a woman had passed her that she knew…strange…she told herself…but it couldn’t be her. She shook her head and moved toward the door, coming up short, right into the back of that same woman who was startled by the bump and jumped slightly. The black, shining hair swished Angie slightly in the face and her mouth dropped open. It was Taia! But this woman looked at her with no recognition in her eyes.
 
 

Angie mumbled something softly for an excuse as the beautiful Chinese woman quickly disappeared into the throng of busy people outside in the corridor. Angie looked across the hall to see if Rollie had come out but it was almost impossible to see due to the large mass of people that had just come in from a gate entryway.
 
 

Swallowing hard, she sighed then and crossed through the throng of people to get to the other side. She sighed again, in relief as she spied Rollie looking for her as well. She waved and made it to his side as she looked up into his eyes, eager for what had transpired between him and Dingo but what she saw made her gasp. Rollie was sporting a very fresh shiner under his left eye.
 
 

"My God, Rollie! What happened?"
 
 

"Bloody bastard, punching at someone else in there and I got in between somehow and caught his fist!" he said, touching it softly as Angie raised her hand and touched the swelling skin, her face revealing how bad it was beginning to look.
 
 

"Where’s Dingo? Was he involved in this?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.
 
 

"Lost him…he disappeared on me, damn it! What the hell is he up to?" Rollie said, shaking his head.
 
 

"What about the guy that hit you? What did you do?"
 
 

"Well, I got out of the way, eh…and he told me I should watched where I was going and then, well, he got the bloke he was aiming for and well, decked him out in there. Security is in there now….come on, let’s get outta here. There’s too many people in this bloody place!"
 
 

"Yeah, one too many for sure," Angie murmured, as the sight of Taia’s face had burned a permanent image in her mind. She hadn't decided if she should tell Rollie who she thought she had seen. After all, Taia was supposedly under witness protection and well, Rollie had been so unbearable for months after she had left. Of course, they never talked about Taia…Rollie's first love was an unmentioned topic in their two and a half years of marriage.


 
 
 
 

Marvin Vanduran was standing at the terminal entrance, pacing back and forth. He didn’t quite know how he was going to handle this…Lucinda had made him into a blithering fool with this surprise for Rollie and Angie. He had simply wanted a quiet week before he returned to New York where prying questions and jokes would not be made. With Rollie and Angie here, now- it would surely get back to the precinct.
 
 

He pulled out a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lit it, absent-mindedly as he ran a nervous hand through his hair. He had never felt so out of control. He was not running a precinct or fighting crime…but he was up against the scariest situation he had ever been involved in…true love and it was killing him. He had even started to smoke again.
 
 

He looked out at the sunset starting to appear over the Santa Monica Bay and shook his head. Why had Lucinda said yes to houseguests during this important week in their lives? Of course, she didn’t know what he was about to do…did she? he thought, shaking his head. He realized he had lit another cigarette and still had one in his mouth when two familiar faces came up and shook him out of his thoughts.
 
 

"Captain?"
 
 

Rollie Tyler was standing before him, his arm around Angie and they both were surprised, their faces revealing good old-fashioned shock.
 
 

"Tyler! Let’s get in the car here…the studio lent it to me and it’s double parked so we’d better get going…" he said, briskly, dropping the cigarettes on the sidewalk and rubbing them out quickly with the bottom of his shoe.
 
 

"Hold on! Hey, you’re the surprise?" Rollie asked as Angie grinned and nodded to herself. She was beginning to put two and two together a lot sooner than Rollie.
 
 

"Get in the car, Tyler," Vanduran said to him through clenched teeth as Rollie’s eyebrows raised slightly and did as he was told. The driver put the bags in the trunk and walked around to the driver’s seat as Vanduran got in after taking a deep breath. He stared at the couple sitting across from him and fumbled in his pockets, feeling for the carton of cigarettes. It was empty. He looked up and stared at Rollie’s amused face;
 
 

"Nice shiner, already in trouble in LA, Tyler?"