Page 72 of Stone
“We don’t and she did. It’s weird, and I don’t want to deal with her. That’s why I didn’t answer.”
“What did she want yesterday?” he asked.
Juliana shrugged. “She spent most of the time telling me about my cousin’s honeymoon.”
“Where she’d go?”
She sighed. “I didn’t really listen. My aunt goes on about all the things her new husband buys her, the number of houses they have, and all the trips they take, but she never talks about her son-in-law as a person. After a while—a very short while—it’s a boring conversation.”
“She didn’t say anything else?” Given everything going on, he didn’t like that her aunt had called a second time. It seemed…odd. Then again, he’d already decided not to like either her aunt or her uncle—or her cousin, for that matter—on principle. Maybe his judgment was clouded.
“She asked if I was seeing anyone.”
Stone’s Spidey senses tingled. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. I stopped telling her anything about my life other than where I work ages ago. I don’t think she even knows where I live.”
A beat later, Juliana shot up, the sheet once again pooling at her waist. “I was too busy wondering about the surprise you were planning when she called yesterday that I didn’t think about it. But it’s weird, isn’t it? That the day afterwe’refollowed, she calls to ask me if I’m seeing anyone.”
He hesitated, not wanting to add fuel to the fire. But he wouldn’t lie. “Yeah,” he said on an exhale. “It’s weird.”
Juliana cocked her head, her long tresses falling over her shoulder. “Lowery and Polinsky already know who I am, but they don’t know who you are. Was she trying to find out?” She paused, her brow furrowing. “But how on earth would Lowery or Polinsky or even Gregor know my aunt, let alone know her well enough that she’d do that for them?”
“I don’t know,” Stone replied. “It seems a stretch, but it also seems weird that she’d call you two times in two days. Has she ever asked you that before?”
Juliana wagged her head from side to side. “She has, but usually only in relation to my uncle. Like I said, she likes to ensure that I toe the line or keep my head down or any number of other idioms that basically mean I don’t do anything that might reflect poorly on my uncle. So while she’s asked in the past, it was usually to make sure I wasn’t dating someone with vocal political opinions that differ from my uncle’s.”
“Any chance your uncle has anything coming up that would prompt her to call?”
She shrugged. Given the topic of discussion, and the potential implications, he really shouldn’t notice how the move had her breasts swaying. But he did. He’d never thought of himself as a “breast man,” but when it came to Juliana, he definitely was. And a leg man. And an ass man. And a hip man. Actually, there was not an inch of her—body, mind, or heart—that he didn’t like.
“Seems like he always has something these days. He’s held his seat for over three decades, but times are changing. The platform he’s built his career on is less and less popular, especially in North Carolina where the demographics are changing.”
“Let’s find out,” he said, sitting up and grabbing his phone. He held out his free arm, and she leaned into his side so they could both view the screen. Pulling up a search engine, he typed in her uncle’s name.
In seconds, the small screen populated with links to recent news and articles. Only they weren’t in any chronological order. Or even close to any order.
“Go to his website,” Juliana said. “It should have his calendar of events.”
He typed in the most logical URL, and sure enough, the site popped up. Navigating to the menu, he found the calendar and clicked on that.
“Huh,” Juliana said after they both read through his schedule for the next two months. What little there was. “That seems on the light side,” she said. “Even for the end of summer.” She stilled, then reached for her own device. “Hold on, let me check something.”
He flicked through a couple press releases as Juliana searched for whatever she was looking for. He didn’t find much. There’d only been two in the past six weeks, one about his daughter’s wedding and another about a visit to a Civil War battle site.
“Here,” she said, tilting her device so he could see the screen.
“What is this?”
“The private family calendar,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if I still had access. It was the bible when I was living with them. We were not allowed to do anything without first checking the schedule—not even attend the annual student/alum football game the day after Thanksgiving. It wastheevent of the fall,” she added.
“What exactly did you have to check for?” he asked.
“There was an elaborate set of rules around when we could make plans and when we couldn’t based on my uncle’s schedule. Things like, we couldn’t go to the football game if my uncle had a speaking engagement that weekend.”
“That makes no sense,” he said.
“It doesn’t, not really. But when a couple of kids in our town drank so much at an after-game party and ended up half dressed in the fountain in the town square, my aunt decided they couldn’t take the chance of that happening to either me or my cousin.”
