[JonPop]

26.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. Jennifer told me that she and Heather had concocted that little episode with the tears while I was in the bathroom, just to get back at me. Jennifer is quite an actress, I sure believed those tears and felt like a total ass hole. Yeah, they got me good and the girls had a big laugh at my expense.
Rob and Heather had gone back to the bedroom to take a nap and Brett was getting a little hands on experience in the co-pilots seat with the controls. Jennifer was leaning against me with her head on my shoulder and we were both kind of dozing. Bret came into the cabin and said, "Is Rob still snoozing? I said, "I guess, he hasn't come out of the bedroom."

Bret said, "We'll be coming into LAX in approximately 45 minutes and Rob said to come get him when were about an hour out. I got caught up in flying this crate and lost track of time." He headed off down the hall and I heard him knock on the door and say, "Rob, Heather, you awake?"
I'd been wanting to ask Jennifer this for a few hours now but hadn't felt that the timing was right so I turned to her and said, "I know you were just playing, with the tears and all, but did Bret really knock your lights out?" She gave me a big smile and a kind of pixyish look and said, "YES!" She didn't offer anymore, so I didn't pursue the question.

Rob came down the hall stretching and yawning and said, "Hey guys, looks like we'll be touching down in a few." Heather, behind him, waved, turned and went into the bathroom.
About 30 minutes later, Bret came into the cabin and said, "Strap in, we'll be landing in about 10 minutes."
He came over to where Heather was sitting and buckled his belt and said, "Well, my parts done."Heather looked at him and said, "Jennifer told me that you knocked her socks off. Next time we go over to the mansion, I'm going to find out for myself." And chuckled. Bret, I swear, blushed and stammered, "She told you that? Wow, sure Heather, any time."

The right wing dipped sharply and we were pushed against our belts. I looked out at a beautiful night time scene of bright lights and busy highways. We leveled off and I could feel the descent in the pit of my stomach, like when you crest a hill and quickly start down the other side. The runway came up fast and Kenny did an excellent job of touchdown. No bump, just a slight feeling of heaviness, as the full force of gravity pushed us down into our seats.
We did what seemed to be a very short taxi to our parking space and Kenny shut down the engines. It was so quiet after all the hours of noise that every movement and rustle seemed overly loud. I went back to the bedroom and started getting my and Jen's suitcases.
Brett came in and said, "John, thank you for letting me share Jennifer, she's fantastic." I said, "No need to thank me buddy, from what I heard you rang HER bell." Bret laughed and said, "I'll give you guys a hand with your stuff." And proceeded to grab several bags and headed out the door.

One of the airport employees had found a luggage cart for us and we loaded all our stuff on the cart. Quite a pile. I asked Jennifer where she was parked and she pointed at the fence at a Silver BMW Z4 Roadster, parked behind. I thought, "I love that model Beamer, classy, like Jennifer." My Ford F-150 was parked only a few spaces away.
We all said our good byes and talked briefly about the fun we had at the mansion, hugged, kissed and shook hands all around.
Rob said, "The next time they went over to the mansion, that he'd love to have us join him." Both Jennifer and I said, "We'd love to come."

I started pushing the luggage cart toward the gate in the fence and looked back to see Jennifer and Bret in a big hug. Again, that little twinge of jealously.
Jen caught up with me and held the gate open and I, after much knocking the posts with the cart, got through and headed toward Jen's car.

She walked up and checked her car and deactivated the alarm. She said, "This thing is absolutely filthy." I agreed, parking by a runway, kicks up a lot of dust. She put her keys in the ignition and activated the trunk motor. I loaded her bags in the trunk and reluctantly admitted to myself that, indeed, the adventure was over.
I said to Jennifer, "Next month, I'm going to work the Baja 1000 as a member of my buddy Ivan Stewart's race team, going to take the motor home and spend a couple of weeks down the peninsula in Mexico and would she like to join me for another adventure?" She said, "I'd love to go to Mexico with you, but I don't know if I can get away for that long." I said, I can always have someone bring you back across the border if you have to leave." She said, "I'll call you and let you know."
She tilted her head up and gave me a big kiss, hugged me in a very tight embrace and said softly, "I had a great time and you were absolutly the best." I said, "And you were too."

Jennifer got into her Beamer, started it up and let it idle for awhile. Cleaned the dirt off the windshield with her washers turned on her lights and with a wave and a blown kiss drove off. I watched her tail lights until they turned and went around the building, let out a big sigh and headed for my truck, pushing the cart.

The End.