Dear Readers,



I would like to say first that I appreciate your comments on my first version of this story. They helped me focus on a few things that needed attention which encouraged me to write this revised edition.



If you have read the previous version, please read this one. I would like to know your take in a sort of "before and after" snapshot on whether the story flows better or not.



By all means, keep the comments coming. Also, if you’d like, please send me a private message to discuss the story structure in more depth. I am more than receptive to constructive criticism.



Favorite Aunt

Chapter 1

Related History



My marriage wasn't much of one. It felt more like a partnership than a marriage. I was on the road a lot to make ends meet while my wife worked part time, being the homemaker and raising our daughter. Needless to say, we both were pretty miserable without being able to spend much time together.



Then the unthinkable happened. While traveling through Kansas toward a South Carolina destination, I got a call from my sister that no sister should have to make. My wife and daughter perished in a car wreck caused by a drunk driver. I thought I was living a lonely life before but now....well, needless to say I was now living a nightmare.



I was near the company’s terminal and hauled the load into the yard to drop the trailer and catch the earliest flight home I could. It was the longest, most nerve wracking and depressing day of my life.



After the funeral and a couple of weeks off to take care of the details and such, I reluctantly flew back to pick up my life as a driver. The holidays during the first year are the most depressing. They brought back the fact my family wasn’t there to enjoy those good times with me anymore and the pain reined me in to a near catatonic state. When I would go back to the house and try to take a break from the road, it always felt empty and lifeless. It was hard to stay more than a couple of days as the memories haunted me. Even after nearly a year and three months had passed, I couldn’t stand to go back any longer. The pain and depression became far too great to bear. So on my last home-time I kept a few mementos’, cleaned up the place and hired a realtor to sell it. I told him to take whatever offer would pay it off and any fees and taxes owed. I didn’t care about the money as it probably would be another reminder of what I’d lost. Their lives were priceless and I couldn’t handle having profited from the sale of the house. The house sold in three days.



Now a little more than a year later I’m dealing with the death of my last living grandparent. It wasn't as much of a shock since she was ill for a long time. It was more of a relief than anything else that she was no longer suffering. When Aunt Jean called to give me the news I was in North Dakota heading to Texas. I wasn't able to make the funeral and really couldn’t handle much beyond driving. I had lost my parents as did my wife in one of the worst tornado outbreaks in recorded history before our daughter was born. There seemed to be no end to the bad news. At 46, I felt the loneliest person in the world with nothing to show for the life’s experiences, accomplishments, hopes and dreams I once had.



When Grandma was first becoming ill, I started conversing with Aunt Jean more often after her first couple of emails and a phone call just to see how I was doing. I hadn’t kept in touch since visiting during Christmas one year a few years ago. But since those first conversations and reconnecting, we kept in touch through email. I always enjoyed talking with her when we happened to have the time. I loved her southern accented voice and couldn’t get enough so I started calling more often. Many of our conversations centered on the good and not so good things that were going on in our lives. After a couple of months, she started suggesting I come and see Grandma at least once more. I thought that might be a good idea since I had no family of my own anymore and might be the last time I did get to see her. So I scheduled time off to spend with them during July. Aunt Jean was happy I would be coming and we started talking about old times growing up when I visited as a child during Independence Day celebrations.



Aunt Jean had always been my favorite out of the two Aunts I had. She is the last of her immediate family on my dad’s side. As I said, my dad had died. He had a younger brother by two years but died of cancer just before his 15th birthday when Aunt Jean was 11. She was the baby of the family and was only fourteen years old when I was born. Now she was alone. Her kids were living their own lives half way across the country and only occasionally writing or calling.



A month or so ago in one of our conversations, Aunt Jean said the house she was building was just getting the final touches and asked if I could come see her so she could show me around. “Over the river and through the woods…” you might say from where Grandma’s house was. You see, she was able to build the house when Grandma was pronounced incompetent to manage her own affairs. Her Living Will was enacted by the attorney and power of attorney was handed over to Aunt Jean. One statement in the Will said the attorney was to turn over a safe deposit box she hadn’t known existed. The contents of the box were several documents relating to investments and land nobody knew about and were to be dispersed to the living descendants. As I said before, Aunt Jean was the last and she wound up with all of it. To her astonishment, buried in the documents was a trust set up over sixty years previous following the war by her parents. Grandpa’s military retirement pay fed the trust automatically and any interest gained was rolled back into the trust if no interest withdrawals were made within thirty days of the disbursement. For more than sixty years, this trust had been building on itself to take care of her and her two brothers should anything happen to their parents. Now she discovered it all went to her and she found herself thrust into a situation of wealth that changed her life overnight. She could care for Grandma with the best caregivers without worry! In addition to caring for Grandma, Aunt Jean’s CPA certification and training became invaluable in actively managing the estate and rich investment portfolios she suddenly found herself with. She paid off the debts and liquidated the stale investments and assets. She also reconfigured the trust to build a new self-sustainment trust for her to live off of using current economic models to eventually Will off to her kids, cousins and other extended family members as well as charities and medical research foundations. All told, she was very well off now and lacked for nothing. Almost.



The one thing that I remember very clearly about her was that she always seemed bubbly and happy no matter the situation. I had a crush on her for the longest time growing up. She was only five feet tall, very dark brown hair that she always kept midway down her back. She had cut it to a little longer than shoulder length by the time of the Christmas visit I mentioned. Getting back in touch with her and getting to know her as an adult has been nice. I didn’t feel so alone anymore.



Though Aunt Jean was petite and only five feet tall, she sported an attractive 33-23-34 figure with a large B or small C cup bust and might have weighed all of 100 pounds soaking wet. That was how I remembered her when I was much younger. The few times I had visited in my teen years she had always looked good and we had fun driving around in her old Porsche 914 while we blasted down the back roads! In reminiscing about her, I now realize she might very well have been the first woman I fell in love with.



Today, I have those fond memories and decided to take her up on her offer of a grand tour of the new place. I myself have had a couple of years driving my truck without many expenses beyond keeping the truck maintained and a small mortgage I’ll pay off in about thirteen years. I’d saved enough to put money down on a few acres of land and put a house on it near Wilson, NC. I can park my rig on my land and could make an easy trip to the Outer Banks or up to the mountains when I wanted. I spent a lot of time emailing, texting and talking with Aunt Jean all this time and said I would be down to see her. When I got home I didn’t even go into the house. Instead, I grabbed my pre-packed suitcase that I put together while on the road, climbed down out of the truck, hopped into my Jeep and pointed the nose South toward Georgia.





Chapter 2

Curious Pursuit



I honked the horn enthusiastically when I drove up into Aunt Jean’s driveway. She came running out to meet me, ecstatic that I could make it. I was glad she seemed to have stayed in good shape all things considered. I still had this nagging expectation she should be walking slow and less mobile for some reason. As soon as we embraced, she broke down into sobs thanking me for coming. She felt so alone having to take care of Grandma before she passed away. After several minutes of hugging and comforting each other, we went inside her new house to talk about how things are going. She fixed us some coffee and we talked about the stuff in storage that was left to be shipped to living relatives based on the Will. At least those that could be found still living. It was a slow process with such a large extended family. We talked for hours with good memories and bad coming back to us about growing up. We talked about the few times I visited during the early summer for Independence Day celebrations when I was little. I remember picnics, watermelon, peach tea and sneaking sips of Mint Juleps Grandma always had available for the grown-ups while us kids got plain old lemonade. Before we knew it, it had grown dark outside and neither of us had anything to eat since breakfast.



"Would you want Italian or Mexican tonight?" She asked in her soothing southern accent I so loved.



"Italian. I don't think my stomach will handle that kind of spice tonight." I replied grimacing.



"Get your boots on and let's go then! I'll be just a few minutes." She said cheerily. "Let's take your Jeep. I haven't had a ride in one of those yet."



“Are you sure Aunt Jean? It’s not the smoothest ride you know.” I said.



“I can handle it.” She winked and went upstairs to her bedroom to change.



I went to my room and changed into an upper-casual set of clothes. Kaki brown trousers, dark green button-down front dress shirt and black dress cowboy boots. After brushing my hair I waited for her in the foyer. Her “few minutes” accounted for thirty as I checked my watch with a grumbling stomach for the hundredth time. I heard a door close then footsteps start descending the stairs a moment later and when I looked up, the thirty minutes were well worth it.



The room seemed to light up and my eyes widened as she took each step in an elegant and very feminine decent down the staircase. She was wearing a white casual dress with a black belt and black three inch spike high heeled shoes. The dress extended to just below the knee and sported a shoulder baring ruffle which hid sleeve loops to prevent them from sliding up onto her shoulders. She had her hair down and was adorned with a white hair band over the top of her head similar to those from the sixties. Coupled with her amazing green eyes she looked to be in her mid-thirties. The look was classic demure elegance. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she looked straight at me and smiled knowingly. She knew she had that effect on men even if she refused to acknowledge her own good looks. She came up to me and with a slender finger, gently lifted my chin to close my mouth. I swallowed a hard dry lump. She looked fantastic and I then remembered why I had such a crush on her waaaaay back when. Apparently, I still did.



"I take it you like my dress?" she asked as she twirled around for me to see the whole thing smiling happily. Her skirt flared out and I could see the white lace garters on her nude colored stockings high up on her thighs raising my temperature considerably. I thought she had good looking legs but I never suspected she wore stockings! I never thought she needed them. Then I simply nodded in answer to her question as anything I would try to have said would either come out cracking like a puberty teen or a croak. She held out a hand, palm down and like a gentleman, I took on the chivalrous role she initiated and looked into her eyes. Her pupils were dilated slightly as I now suspect she saw mine were. With her in hand I guided her through the door to the Jeep, entranced.



Southern nights in Georgia can be quite uncomfortable. Tonight wasn’t one of those hot steamy nights. Instead it was quite pleasant. We still needed the air conditioning but didn’t need it going full tilt. She directed me on where to turn to get to the restaurant and in no time we were pulling up to a very nice one. I parked up close to the building as I could so she wouldn’t have to walk in those high heels which I’m sure she didn’t wear but on rare occasions. I got out and hurriedly moved around to open her door before she opened it. I needn’t have worried. She sat there, a proper lady waiting patiently. I opened the door and held out my hand. She took it, swung her legs over and slid out landing on her feet expertly without getting her dress caught on anything as if she’d done it all her life. She told me that while she was married, her husband always had a full-sized pick-up with large tires. Wherever they went, it was in his truck. She only drove her car when he wasn’t going anywhere with her. This gave her a lot of practice to perfect her ingress and egress technique with a large vehicle.



“I remember that huge Jeep your dad had. It was so high up I was always afraid I’d fall out and eat the ground and told him he needs to install an automatic ladder.” She said. We laughed at that. My Dad had this ‘77 Cherokee Chief with the big tires and lift kit. It was a doozie of a step. Any woman in a dress or skirt would have to hike it up pretty high to manage getting in or out of it. She commented that she liked this one better as it didn’t try to catch her dress and make it ride up. I gave a half-smile wondering why she would comment on that. Upon entering the restaurant, we approached the Maître d’s desk. Looking first at Aunt Jean then me he asked for our names. I gave him mine and he found it on the reservation list and came around from behind his desk and extended a hand. I took it and returned the handshake.



“It is a pleasure to have you Mr. Logan and your lovely wife dine with us tonight. “ He said with a slight European accent and reached for Aunt Jean’s right hand. Gently holding her hand by her fingers, he bowed to her at the hip and kissed the back of her hand. My eyebrows launched upward then I frowned and she quickly turned her head and gave me a barely perceptible shake of her head. When the Maître d’ had risen from his bow, she was smiling again at him.



“This way to your table please.” The Maître d’ said and turned to stride purposefully into the dining rooms with a wine list in hand. I offered my arm to Aunt Jean again and I led the way following in the Maître d’s wake.



On the way to our booth, I caught a few of the men glancing at my aunt. It was fairly easy to tell who was admiring and who was leering. I reacted to the leering in a typical male fashion. My grip on Aunt Jean’s arm tightened slightly as my six foot two inch frame tensed as if readying for an attack. As I made eye contact with the one who was truly leering he undoubtedly saw my threatening expression and understood the meaning pretty clearly by looking at anything but Aunt Jean.



Aunt Jean whispered something I couldn’t process right away in my state of mind at the time. I did relax however, but only a little until we were seated in a mostly unoccupied section of the dining area. A wall separated this room from the main dining area. Heavy looking velvet draperies crossed the open doorway blocking the view and nearly all of the sound from that part of the restaurant. As we took our seats in a cozy booth, I glanced around and took notice that this room was much quieter. Taking in the furnishings with another quick glance I saw rich looking carpet covering the floor as well as velvet draperies on the walls. These were the primary reasons for the subdued sound. Our little semi-round privacy booth was also decorated with similar looking drapes and other materials that trapped noise that also looked to be high class. Sound did not carry in here very well at all so patrons could have comfortable conversations without being overheard.



“My name is Morgan. If I may be of any further assistance, please notify Stephan, your waiter.” He said while handing me the wine list. Morgan bowed again, turned and headed back to the front desk. I started to open my mouth but Aunt Jean was quicker.



“I’m moving over here so I can see the wine list too.” She said as she scooted around to my side of the booth. Still