Chapter 52

They were in luck, 'The Landing' did offer delivery, after consulting AJ on what he wanted, Mac placed their order. While they waited for the food to arrive, AJ checked out the TV listings for the night and found a cable channel that was running a John Wayne marathon. 'The Duke' had always been one of his guilty pleasures. Mac glanced over his shoulder to see what was on for herself and saw what he was looking at.

"You like 'the Duke'?" she asked in amazement.

He reluctantly said, "Yes," remembering Meredith's look of distaste when she had gone through his video collection and spotted several of the movies he owned.

"Great!" Mac said, "He's one of my favorites. Did you know that someone once said that John Wayne had been in every branch of the military and some of them more than once, even if only on the silver screen?"

"It's true, he was. So which of his movies do you like the best?" AJ wondered if they had the same tastes.

"Well, that depends on my mood," she answered. "If I want to laugh, it's a toss up between 'McClintock' and 'Hellfighters', although the second one there is also on my action list for him, but I love the relationship with his daughter and her boyfriend in that one. If I'm feeling romantic then it would have to be the 'Quiet Man', I've wanted to visit Ireland ever since I saw that one. And of his military ones there is no question that 'The Green Berets' is the best, but 'The Fighting Seabees' is a close second."

AJ had each and every one of those in his collection at home! "Well, they're showing all of those plus five more in the marathon, how about we settle in for the night and have a John Wayne fest?" he suggested.

"Sounds fine to me, but we will have to order snacks from room service once dinner is gone," Sarah added.

He chuckled, "I figured as much!" They settled in for a long night of movie watching, and didn't finally admit that they could not longer keep their eyes open until three in the morning. Reluctantly turning off the television, they went to bed.

That night it was not surprising that their dreams featured the John Wayne movies they had seen that night…Mac was deep into her dream of the 'Quiet Man' with AJ in the starring role and her in Maureen O'Hara's role. Her dream was just getting to the part of the rainstorm…

AJ, on the other hand, was dreaming of the movie 'McClintock'. Again, he and Mac were in the starring roles instead of the actors that had actually been in the movie. His dream had just gotten to the part of the mud fight…

Mac was rudely awakened by landing on the floor!

She was stunned! AJ had pushed her out of bed! She looked up at him, and there he was, smirking…with his eyes still closed…it was clear that he had done it in his sleep…Now the question was, what was she going to do to get him back for it? Standing and rubbing her tush, she looked around the room that had become their home away from home for something that she could do to get back at him.

At first she had been shocked, followed instantly by anger, but that was just as quickly replaced by amusement at the fact that Admiral AJ Chegwidden had pushed her out of bed because of a dream he was having! How she wished that she could have told this story to someone…Harriett would have laughed her socks off, after getting over the shock of the two of them in bed together. No, there was no way she could ever share this story with anyone…not even AJ himself after this mission was over…they would go back to being the Admiral and the Colonel and wouldn't be sharing memories of being in bed together. Although those were some of the most wonderful memories she would ever have after this!

To be continued….