October 30th

Angie awoke to the glorious feeling of a warm, naked body curled around hers.  A smile curved her lips, and she sighed happily.  She and Rollie had spent quite a bit of the evening and the better part of the night making love.  She’d lost count of how many times--and how many different ways.  She was now unbelievably sore, but it was a soreness that she was extremely happy to be suffering from.

Equally as wonderful as their night of passion was this, waking up in Rollie’s arms, knowing that last night was only the first of many, many nights together to come.

Angie turned around in her lover’s arms to find him wide awake.

“Morning, sunshine,” he said, gazing at her lovingly.

“Morning.”  Angie reached up and brought her lips to his in a long, satisfying kiss.

Rollie’s fingers brushed her cheek, sweeping away the hair that was over her face.  “How are you feeling?”

“Mmm.  I can’t remember ever being so sore.”  She snuggled up closer to him.  “And I have never felt so wonderful in my life.”

Rollie nuzzled his face into her hair, his hands caressing her back.  “Neither have I.”

Angie looked up into his eyes, smiling.  “Never been so sore or never felt so wonderful?” she asked teasingly.

“Oh, I’ve been sorer, believe me.  Don’t forget that I was a stuntman, and that little rock and roll stunt I did with the stunt car when Wayne Harmon took me hostage didn’t leave me feeling too great either.”

“Hmm.  So, I didn’t give you a good enough workout last night, huh?” Angie said, still teasingly.  She then planted a long, wet kiss on her lover’s neck where his pulse beat.  She felt the pulse speed up underneath her lips.  Rollie’s arms tightened around her.  She looked up at him and saw that his eyes had darkened with desire.

“You gave me the best and most fantastic workout of my life,” he told her, his voice deep and low.  His right hand moved from her back to her breasts, where he began drawing designs with his fingertips.  Angie let out a soft sigh, closing her eyes.  The sigh turned into a full-blown moan when Rollie replaced his fingers with his mouth.

“Rollie,” Angie breathed, letting out another moan as the Aussie rolled on top of her, his mouth still at her breasts.  He slid down her body, showering it with kisses, his tongue branding her.

Angie writhing beneath him, Rollie worshiped her body, exploring it in the most intimate of ways.  The fact that it was Angie he was with, that he was finally being allowed to do what he’d wanted to for so long, was enough in itself to send him into orbit.  But Angie had other ideas.  With a move that took him by surprise, she flipped him over so that she was straddling him.  Then she sent him careening out of orbit and into space with her hands and mouth on his body.  Soon, he was helpless and out of control, his eyes tightly closed, lungs pulling in deep, gasping breaths.

With a choked cry of her name, Rollie fell into the maelstrom of his climax.  After it was over, Angie held onto him as he slowly came back to his senses.  He opened his eyes and looked at her, seeing a self-satisfied smile on her lips.

“Happy with yourself?” the Aussie murmured.

“Very.  I love making you wild.”

Rollie abruptly grabbed her.  In an instant, he was on top of her, pinning her arms to the bed, an evil grin on his face.

“Ditto,” he growled.  Then he swooped down and took her mouth in a blazing kiss.  Moments later, it was Angie who was out of control as Rollie used his mouth and hands to drive her wild with ecstasy.  In a shockingly short period of time, she was screaming Rollie’s name as her climax raged through her like a tidal wave.

Rollie moved back up beside Angie.  He gazed down at her, softly stroking her stomach as she lay bonelessly on the bed, trying to catch her breath.

“If we keep this up, one of us is going to keel over from a heart attack,” she gasped.

A huge grin split the Aussie’s face.  “Uh uh.  Not a chance.  There’s no way I’m going to kick the bucket now that I’ve finally got what I have wanted for so many years.”

Angie matched his grin.  “Well, I gotta tell you.  If I’d known that you were this insatiable and incredible a lover, I’d have pounced on you the day I turned eighteen.”

Expecting a cocky reply, Angie was surprised when Rollie’s expression turned serious.

“It’s only this way with you, Angie.  Only with you.  No other woman I’ve been with has made me feel so alive and so much a man.”

“Not even Dani?” Angie asked lightly.

Rollie sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees, looking away from her.  Wanting to slap herself for saying what she had, Angie quickly sat up and put her arms around him.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized.  “I had no call to say that.  It was stupid and insensitive.”

Rollie met her eyes.  “I didn’t love her, Angie.  I hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, and I was lonely for that kind of companionship.  I truly didn’t think that you and I would ever be together the way I wanted, so, when Dani came onto me. . . .”  He shrugged.  “It felt good to be wanted in that way, to have someone to share my bed with.  And it . . .” he flushed faintly, “it helped relieve the . . . tension.”  The Aussie sighed.  “Looking back on it later, I realized that it should never have happened.  She was just a poor substitute for the person I really wanted.”

Angie rubbed her hand up and down his back soothingly.  “I understand, Rollie.  Really I do.  It’s not like I’ve been a nun all these years.  I’ve had relationships too, often for the same reason you just mentioned.”

“Do you know why I stopped seeing her?” Rollie asked.

“I just assumed that you both decided to end it because Dani was off most of the time doing modeling gigs.”

Rollie shook his head.  “I broke it off with her.  I finally realized that it wasn’t fair to either one of us to continue a relationship that I knew wasn’t going to go anywhere.  She was upset and wanted to know why.  I told her that it was because I could never give her my heart.  That’s when she knew that my heart was already taken, though I don’t know if she guessed it was you it belonged to.”  Rollie swallowed, his eyes looking deeply into Angie’s.  “I want to tell you about Taya.”

“No, Rol, you don’t have to.  I don’t need to know.”

“I want you to understand my relationship with her, Ange.”  The Aussie’s eyes drifted away from hers to the wall across the room.  “Taya wasn’t the same as Dani.  I had deep feelings for her.  That was not a really good time in my life.  I still missed Manny a lot, even though it had been three years.  I missed his guidance and friendship.  I sometimes wondered if I could keep the business running without him.  But more than that was the fact that you weren’t with me.  You had your friends, college, a life that I was not a part of, and I . . . I was alone.”

Angie’s throat tightened.  “Rollie, you were always a part of my life, a big part, even when I was in school and not working with you.  I thought you knew that.”

Rollie looked at her.  There was the ghost of an old pain in his eyes.  “I knew that I had a part in your life, but I . . . I missed you.  I missed you so much.  Up until college, I’d seen you almost every day, but after you started at the university, even though it was right there in New York, I only saw you maybe half a dozen or so times a month.  My brain knew that it was because of school and such, but my heart still ached to see you.”

“Oh, Rollie.  I’m so sorry.  I wish I’d known.  I would have come to see you more often.  Every time I did, you seemed busy with work.”

“Yeah.  I really threw myself into the work.  I’d put in seventeen, eighteen hours or more a day, seven days a week, exhausting myself so that I’d fall into bed and be asleep before I had time to think about how lonely I was.”  Rollie sighed.  “Then I got that movie that took me to Hong Kong.  Taya came into my life at a time when I really needed someone.  I came to care deeply for her.  In a way, I guess I did fall in love with her, even though I was still desperately in love with you.  It was because of all this that it tore me up so much when she vanished out of my life.  It just shattered me that I’d lost yet another person I loved.”

Angie pulled Rollie close.  He laid his head on her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist.

“When she came back in ‘96, I felt some spark of what I’d felt for her before,” Rollie continued, “but the knowledge that she’d left me without any explanation, without even a goodbye kept me from falling for her again.  Besides, by then, I was even more in love with you than I had been before, and I had you back in my life almost every day.  I don’t think I could have fallen for her again, even if I’d been able to completely forgive her.  When she said goodbye and went off to start her new life in the Witness Protection Program, I was sad, but it didn’t really hurt that much.”  He raised his head and looked at Angie.  “I knew that you were the love of my life, that no one would ever, could ever take your place in my heart.”

Angie smiled and gave him a long, tender kiss.  “Thank you for telling me, Rol.  And there’s something I need to tell you.  When you came back from Hong Kong in such a mess, and I found out that it was because of a woman, I was devastated.  I thought that, if you were in love with her, you couldn’t possibly ever be in love with me.  Until then, I had still hoped that you’d come to love me as I loved you, but, afterwards, I admitted to myself that it was just a foolish dream.”

“But you were wrong, Angie.”

Angie stroked his cheek and smiled into his eyes.  “I know.”

Rollie kissed her deeply.  “I love you.  If I had known that you felt the same way, I’d have taken you for my own back when you did turn eighteen, even though your dad probably would have skinned me alive.”

Angie smiled.  “Naw, he wouldn’t have done that, Rol.  He’d have just made you marry me before we started bopping like bunnies.”

Rollie began laughing.  “Bopping like bunnies?”

Angie smiled, her hand sliding down his chest and stomach, then descending lower.  Rollie gave a small gasp.  “I have doubts that even bunnies would have been able to keep up with us last night,” she murmured huskily.

A wicked grin spread across Rollie’s face.  “So, what do you say we go take a shower and give the furry little creatures some more competition?”

Angie’s mouth curled into an equally wicked smile.  “And give the people in the room next door something more to talk about.”  She abruptly threw off the covers and leapt out of bed.  “Race you!” she yelled, then took off for the bathroom.

“Hey!  No fair!” Rollie called after her.  Then, with a smile of pure joy, he quickly climbed out of bed and went to join his lover.

An hour later, they were walking into the café across the street from the motel.  They went to the booth at the far end where they’d have a little more privacy.

“Good morning,” greeted the middle-aged waitress as she placed the menus on the table.  She studied Rollie’s face.  “My, you look much better than you did yesterday morning.  Have a good night?”

Rollie smiled happily.  “As good as it gets.”

The waitress turned her gaze on Angie, seeing the glow on the blonde’s face.  The woman smiled knowingly.  “I’d say you both did.”  Amused at the blushes that stained the two younger people’s face, she poured them both a cup of coffee, then went off to take someone else’s order.  Rollie looked at Angie closely, seeing what the waitress had.

“You look beautiful,” he told her.  “You’re always beautiful, but you’re even more so now.”

Angie smiled her thanks.  She tilted her head to the side, examining the Aussie’s face.  “I could say the same for you.”

Rollie made a face.  “I look beautiful?”

“Well, drop dead gorgeous is the term I was thinking of.”  She paused a moment, her expression growing serious.  “But you will always be beautiful to me.”

Rollie gazed at her in silence for a long moment, feeling her words seep into his heart.  “And you will always be the most beautiful thing in my life,” he murmured.

The lovers simultaneously reached for each other’s hands.  They maintained the contact as they decided what to get for breakfast.  After the waitress had taken their order, they reluctantly started discussing what the day was going to bring.

“I don’t know when Neil Sinclair is going to get here,” Angie said.  “I guess he’ll call when he arrives.”

Rollie nodded.  “I hope he doesn’t want me to go back in the study or any of the other places that affect me strongly.  I’d be too afraid of what might happen.”

“We’ll just tell him that you don’t want to take the chance.  But I don’t think he’s going to do that anyway.  He told me that you shouldn’t be in the house at all.”

“And he’s right.  I know that.  But I also know that I can’t just walk away from it.  I need to put an end to whatever is causing this.”

“I know, Rol.  But whatever you do, please don’t put yourself at risk.”

“I’m more worried about you than I am about me.  If . . . if what happened yesterday happened again. . . .”  Rollie clutched at her hand.

“You wouldn’t hurt me, Rollie,” Angie told him firmly.  “No matter what kind of influence you fell under, I know that you wouldn’t hurt me.”

Rollie stared into her eyes, his own eyes full of fear.  “I wish I could be certain of that.  I had no control over what happened yesterday.  I can’t even remember what happened in the study when I became . . . him.”

He kept looking at Angie, thinking about what might happen if he became Robert Powell again.  Making a sudden decision, he fished into his pocket and pulled out a pocketknife.  He slid it over the table to Angie.  “Take it.  If I lose control again, I want you to protect yourself in any way necessary.”

Angie stared at the knife, not touching it.  Her gaze then returned to Rollie’s.  “No.  I won’t use that against you.”

“Please, Angie.  I need to know that you have some protection.”

Angie kept her eyes on his, seeing the pleading there.  She sighed.  “All right, I’ll take it.  But I won’t use it, no matter what.”

Rollie nodded, relaxing.  “Just as long as you have it.”

Angie entwined her fingers with his.  “I love you, Rollie,” she told him, her voice trembling slightly.  “I don’t want to live my life without you.  I don’t think I could.”

“I love you too, Angie, and I know that I couldn’t live my life without you.”

“We’re going to get through this, both of us,” Angie told him with complete conviction.

The couple were just finishing their breakfast when Angie’s cell phone rang.  It was Neil Sinclair.

“I’m at the airport,” he told her.  “I’ve rented a car.  They told me that it will take about two hours to get there from here.”

“That’s about right.  Do you want to meet us at the motel or the house?”

“The house would be best, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t go inside.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Angie assured him.  She gave him directions to the Powell house.

“How’s your partner today?” the ghost hunter asked.

“He’s fine.  There haven’t been any incidents since we left the house.”

“Good.  I’ll see you there.”

Angie disconnected the call.  “He’ll be here in a couple of hours or so.  He wants us to stay out of the house until he arrives.”

“That’s fine with me.  How about if we do a little gift shopping while we wait?”

“That sounds like fun.”

The couple paid the check and drove to a part of town where they’d seen a couple of gift shops.  Leaving the car, they browsed through the shops, finding gifts for Mira, all of the Gattis, and a few other friends.  They then walked over to a quiet little park that sat on the edge of a stream.  Finding a secluded bench, they sat down to watch the water and the other people in the park.

“This is a nice town,” Rollie commented.  “Everybody is so friendly.”

“Small towns can be like that,” Angie said.  “I guess it comes from living in a close-knit community where everybody knows everyone else.”

“Yeah.  Sometimes, I think that it would be nice to live in a place like this, away from the hustle and noise of the big city.  Docker River was small like this.”

“So was the town we lived in in Cuba, though I can’t remember all that much about it.”

Rollie smiled.  “Well, maybe after we’re rich and famous, we can buy a house in some nice little town where we can spend some of our vacation time, like, say, in Florida, where it’s nice and warm.”

Angie looked up at him, her eyes widening a little.  “A house?  Together?”

Rollie’s smile faded.  He touched her face.  “Yeah.  Together.  I want to be with you all of the time, Angie.  I don’t want to spend my nights alone anymore.”  He slid his hand down her arm to her hand.  Gazing at their entwined fingers, he murmured, “I want to go to bed every night with you in my arms and wake up every morning to the sight of your face.”  He fell silent, waiting for Angie to respond.  When the silence continued for several seconds, he sighed silently.  “I’m sorry.  I’m moving too fast, aren’t I.”  He began to withdraw his hand from Angie’s, but she grabbed onto it tightly.  He raised his eyes to hers and was surprised to see tears shimmering in the blue depths.

“You want us to live together?” Angie asked in a low voice.

Rollie looked deeply into her eyes.  “I want more than that, Ange.  I want everything, the house, the picket fence, the 2.5 kids.  I want it all.”

Angie gasped.  “Rollie, are you saying what I think you’re saying?” she whispered unsteadily.

Rollie’s eyes did not leave hers.  They were gazing at her openly, his love clear to see.  “Yeah, I am.  But we both know that it’s too soon to say the words, to ask that question.”  He touched her face.  “But I will ask it, Angie, when the time is right.  I’ve been wanting to for years now.”

Angie smiled through her tears.  “And I’ve been waiting for years for you to ask it.”

Rollie pulled her into his arms and they shared a long, slow kiss.

The Aussie sighed with regret as they pulled apart.  “I guess we should head up to the house.”

Gathering their purchases, the couple returned to their car and headed to the house, both of them preparing themselves for what lay ahead.