Free Tainted Love by Melody Mayer Page B

still dressed for golf, were approaching, laughing together about something. “I'll tell you more later,” she added quickly.
    “I'd like that.”
    A moment or two later, the colonel and Anya joined Kiley and Susan, unslinging their golf bags and plopping heavily down on two deck chairs.
    “How did you play, dear?” Susan asked, reverting instantly to marine-wife mold.
    “Like Tiger Woods!” the colonel boomed. He was tall and thin, with the perfect posture of a career military man, close-cropped gray hair, and a chiseled chin. He wore bright blue golf pants with a knife pleat and a white golf shirt with the Marine Corps logo emblazoned on the left chest.
    “Like Tiger Woods on bad day with blindfold!” Anya hooted in her Russian accent.
    To Kiley's shock, the colonel laughed heartily at Anya's dis.
    “I shot an eighty-five,” he admitted.
    “And me eighty-three,” Anya added proudly. “I beat him. Lucky for him we were not playing streep poker!”
    “The actress?” the colonel joshed. “Meryl Streep poker?”
    “Very funny joke!” Anya slapped him on the back and grinned broadly.
    “You're a card, Anya,” said the colonel. “Streep poker? A card? Get it?”
    Anya roared with laughter. “A card? Like joker? You very funny man!”
    Kiley stared at them in amazement. Not only was it the first time she'd ever seen Lydia's dour employer laugh, but it wasalso the first time she'd ever heard the colonel make anything approaching a joke.
    He looked at his wife. “We're going to go get a beer. Susan, can you join us? Kiley, where are the children?”
    “You should see them in the restaurant. They went in for a hamburger about fifteen minutes ago.”
    The colonel smiled, and winked at Anya. “Very good. If they're eating contraband, it's seven years in the stockade for them.”
    Anya roared with laughter again. Kiley looked at Susan, who wore a stiff smile as she slid off the chaise lounge and put on a terry cloth cover-up.
    Anya clasped her hands together. “As your past president once said to our past president,
‘Doveryay, no proveryay.'
”
    “Trust, but verify!” the colonel translated.
    Anya clapped him on the back again. “You are smart man.” She turned to Kiley. “If you see Kat—she is on putting green— you tell where we are.”
    “Those are orders, McCann,” the colonel barked.
    “Yes, sir.” Kiley had learned the hard way about not responding directly when the colonel asked her something.
    Anya laughed again, and the two golfers headed off toward the restaurant-and-bar complex, with Susan bringing up the rear. Kiley was appalled. Never, ever would she marry a guy who treated her the way the colonel treated Susan. Never, ever,
ever
.

“You can hang out right over there.” Jonathan pointed to a bank of monitors under a canopy that was set up in the parking lot of the rustic-looking convenience store in Topanga Canyon.
    It was the very first day of production on
Montgomery
. The cast and crew would be at this convenience store, and the log cabin home located behind it, for the next week. Though still nominally inside the boundaries of Los Angeles, the convenience store and surrounding area had the look of small-town Alabama, where
Montgomery
(named for the main character, not the city) was set.
    “You're sure it's okay?” Esme eyed the monitors and the handful of people sitting on black canvas director's chairs in front of them. They were laughing and chatting with one another; obviously at ease, which was definitely not how she felt on the walk down the hill from the movie's “base camp,”where the cast and crew parked, equipment was stored, and the stars had their dressing trailers.
    “Absolutely. They'll give you headphones, so you can watch and listen.”
    Esme felt fortunate to be able to visit the set on this week-day morning. Steven Goldhagen was working and Diane had taken the twins to a birthday party at the Museum of Television & Radio on North Beverly Drive. The