growing moss on his north side.
Not to mention keeping the Dooley woman from embarrassing his aunt and bleeding her dry. As far as Stone was concerned, Billy could clean up his own messes, but Billy wasn’t the only one who stood to get hurt this time. Women of his aunt’s generation were poorly equipped to deal with the tabloid press and sleaze TV. It would kill her to have the Hardisson name dragged through that kind of mire. If it was in his power to prevent it, he would.
Saltwater dried on his shoulders, and he flexed them, liking the contrast between the sun’s heat and the water’s coolness. Liking the feeling of utter and complete relaxation that had begun seeping into his bones even before he’d checked into his cottage, stashed his gear and stepped out of his shoes.
Stone was an accredited journalist. Affiliated for the past nine years with IPA, he had covered most of the major conflicts and natural disasters around the globe. Although he tried to avoid political campaigns—most of which were natural disasters of major proportions. A guy had to draw the line somewhere.
He’d been covering a humanitarian aid convoy in East Africa when a stray bullet from a sniper’s gun had struck the gas tank of the vehicle he was riding in. His photographer had been killed outright in the explosion. His driver, who’d been thrown clear, had broken his little finger. Stone ended up with a severe concussion, several broken ribs, a torn lung and an assortment of scrap steel embedded in various parts of his anatomy.
He’d been incredibly lucky. He could have ended up spread over several acres of desert. Instead, here he was a few months later, armed with nothing more lethal than a pair of binoculars and a birding guide, floating around on an inner tube, soaking up Carolina sunshine and watching a squadron of pelicans flap past.
At least, he thought they were pelicans. He was going to have to bone up on his Audubon if he didn’t want to blow his cover. He’d considered bringing along his laptop to work on the series of articles he’d been doing on spec. One of the major syndicates had put out a few feelers after his series on archaeological piracy, and he’d been flattered...and interested.
At the last minute he’d decided against it. He wasn’t ready to go back to work. His brain was still lagging about two beats behind his body, possibly because he hadn’t had a real vacation in more years than he could remember.
Or possibly because he’d come so damned close to checking out permanently, he’d been forced to face up to what his life had become.
Which was empty. No ties, no commitments, nothing to show for his thirty-seven years other than a few yellowed scrapbooks and a few awards packed away in storage with his old tennis racquet.
In that frame of mind, he had impulsively put a call through to a guy he hadn’t heard from in over a year. Reece was the brother of the woman Stone had almost married once upon a time. A woman who’d finally had the good sense to marry some decent nine-to-fiver who had offered her the home and kids she wanted. Stone had lost touch with Shirley Stocks, but from time to time he still heard from her brother. The kid had thought Stone was some kind of hero, always flying off to the world’s hot spots at a moment’s notice.
Reece was currently studying journalism at UNC. As it appeared that Stone would soon be headed south to the Old North State, it had seemed like a good opportunity to get together.
Bird-watching! Thank God Reece didn’t know the depths to which his hero had sunk. It had been his aunt’s idea, the bird-watching cover. Evidently she’d mentioned it when she’d reserved the cottage for the summer, and the real estate agent had mailed him a bundle of birding data along with directions for finding the place. Rather than bother to explain that he didn’t know a hummingbird from a hammerlock, and couldn’t care less, he’d let it stand. But this whole drill was beginning to strike him as slightly bizarre. Not to mention slightly distasteful.
Reluctantly, Stone began paddling himself back to shore. His shoulders, his thighs and his belly were starting to tingle. Sun had never been a particular problem before, but a few months of holding down a hospital bed had a way of thinning a guy’s skin right down to the nerve endings.
The cottage wasn’t luxurious, but it was comfortable. Better yet, it was quiet. Best of all, it was his alone for the next two months—books on the shelf, cigarette burn on the pine table, rust-stained bathtub and all.
All it lacked was a Home Sweet Home sampler nailed to the wall. He’d already taken the liberty of rearranging some of the furniture and was considering dragging a cedar chaise longue into the living room from the deck, just because he liked the way it smelled.
Home sweet home. Maybe it was time he thought about getting himself something more permanent than a mail drop, a storage shed and a series of hotel rooms. The last real home he could remember—and the memory was fading like a cheap postcard—was a white frame house with a wraparound porch and three pecan trees in the backyard that were home to several platoons of squirrels.
Decatur, Georgia. They had moved there when his father had gotten a promotion, just in time for Stone to enter the first grade. Before the year was out, that portion of his life had come to an abrupt end.
As for the Hardissons’ Buckhead mansion, the only time he had felt at home there had been when his aunt was off on one of her jaunts and Mellie had let him eat in the kitchen with the help. He could still remember sitting on an overturned dishpan in a chair and stuffing himself with her Brunswick stew and blackberry dumplings.
Jeez! When was the last time he’d thought of all that? This was what happened when a guy had too much time on his hands, Stone told himself. Ancient history had never been his bag.
After making himself a couple of sardine sandwiches and forking his fingers around a cold beer, he wandered out onto the screened deck. Still wearing his trunks, he took a hefty bite of sandwich and turned his thoughts to his unlikely assignment. He’d been in the hospital when Billy had won the primary last month, else he might have heard something. Not that Georgia politicians were of any great interest at IPA. At least, not since the Carter days.
Senator Billy?
God, the mind boggled. Stone hadn’t seen his cousin since their great-uncle Chauncey Stone’s funeral in Calhoun, several years ago. Billy had been flushed and smelling of bourbon at eleven in the morning. He had escorted his mother into the church, but Stone had seen the bimbo waiting in his red Corvette farther down the street.
Family. Funny how it could influence you in ways you never even suspected. He didn’t particularly like his cousin. He didn’t know if he loved his aunt or not, but he’d always recognized her strength, and strength was something Stone had been taught to admire. Strength of character. Strength of purpose. His aunt had both. And when he thought about her at all, he admired her for what she was, and didn’t dwell too long on what she wasn’t.
Sipping his beer, Stone let his mind wander unfettered across the tapestry of the past thirty-seven years. After a while the empty bottle slipped to the floor and he began to snore softly in counterpoint to the cheerful sound of screeching gulls, scolding crows and gently lapping water.
* * *
Lucy watched the odometer roll over a major milestone. She flexed her arms one at a time, then flexed her tired back and wondered how far it was to the next rest area. She’d been driving for eight solid hours, stopping only for gas and junk food, and to wolf down a bacon cheeseburger and a large diet drink for lunch. By the time she’d gotten as far as Kernersville, she was already having second thoughts, but it was too late to turn back, even if she’d wanted to. Her gas was turned off, her mail and paper deliveries stopped.
Alice
