Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay by Babette Jongh (best summer books .TXT) 📗

lowered his elbows to the ground and flattened himself in submission. He sent a silent message to Georgia. “I can’t go home. I am being punished. My people left me here, and I think they will come back for me. I have to wait.”

Georgia sat, panting. “What did you do wrong?”

Wolf didn’t know. He waited for Georgia to ask a different question he might know the answer to.

“Georgia,” the woman’s voice called out, still high-pitched with anxiety but softer and sweeter than before. “Girlfriend, what are you doing in there?”

Her voiceless reply: “I am talking to the gold-eyed dog-thing.”

So. She could tell he wasn’t fully dog or fully wolf. She turned her fierce gaze on him, but the white tip of her thick brown tail flickered a greeting.

“Georgia.” The woman’s voice sounded sharp again, the tone veering between fear and love. “Get back here.”

Georgia stood. “Abby is calling me. I do what I want, but it is time for me to go. You can stay.” She turned tail and trotted back to the woman.

Wolf put his head on his paws and ignored the hungry rumbling of his belly.

* * *

With a last parting shot in the one-sided argument, Georgia bounded out of the cat’s-claw, her gray speckled coat covered in damp yellow petals.

Abby’s concern evaporated. “Did you tell ’em?”

Georgia sneezed, a gesture that looked like an emphatic yes.

“Good. Can we please go home now?” Abby waited for Georgia to trot past, then closed the wrought-iron gate and fastened the padlock. “What in the world were you barking at?”

Georgia danced around Abby’s feet, whining and yipping as if she had important information to share.

Reva claimed that anyone could communicate with animals, and she’d given Abby a hundred-thousand short tutorials. But as Reva had often said, practice and trust were essential ingredients, and Abby had to admit that she hadn’t provided either of them. So if Georgia was trying to say something, Abby didn’t get it. She petted the good dog’s silky head. “Whatever it was, I’m sure you took care of it.”

But an image of watchful gold eyes made Abby’s shoulders twitch. Georgia barked, tail wagging, reminding Abby that daylight was fading fast. “You’re right. It’s time to feed critters and toss the ball.”

In the big barn with its hand-painted sign—Welcome, Bayside Barn Buddies—above the open double doors, Abby poured feed into various bowls and buckets, humming along with the faint melody coming from the new neighbor’s stereo. It played loud enough for her to hear the tune, but not loud enough for her to recognize the words. After seeing him on that motorcycle, dressed in black leather, she might have expected him to be the sort to play abrasive music with abusive lyrics loud enough to rattle the windows.

Maybe he would be a good neighbor to Aunt Reva, who had never quite fit in here in Magnolia Bay. Though she had married a born-and-bred resident of the area, her hippie clothing and unusual talent of telepathic animal communication made most people around here act a little standoffish. When Reva’s husband died two years ago, her chance of blending into the clannish community died, too. A good neighbor next door would be a blessing for Reva, and Abby should do whatever she could to facilitate that relationship.

She should bake a loaf of the secret-family-recipe pound cake and offer it to the new guy as a welcome to the neighborhood. It’s what Reva would have done. Even though she wasn’t really accepted around here, Reva remained unfailingly polite to everyone.

Removing her barn boots, Abby set them in the boot tray inside the back door, then padded into the old-fashioned farm kitchen and poured a glass of merlot.

Georgia sat, front paws in prayer position, a blue tennis ball in her mouth.

“You’re right. It’s ball time. But let’s check on the kitten first.” Abby went into the white-tiled laundry room with Georgia at her heels. The kitten growled and spat and hissed, all the purring and promise of yesterday forgotten.

“Baby,” Abby chided. When she stuck her fingers through the bars, hoping to calm the kitten with a caress, it scrambled into the cardboard hideout, knocking over the food dish on the way. Georgia set the ball down long enough to eat the scattered kibble off the floor. Then she snatched up the ball and streaked through the dog door onto the pool patio.

“Right behind you,” Abby promised. She set her wineglass on the dryer and stripped naked, then threw her clothes in the washer and turned it on. She took her swimsuit off the hook by the door—and had an epiphany. She was alone here! She could go naked if she wanted to. She hung the swimsuit back up and grabbed a towel. Feeling a slightly naughty sense of exhilaration at her secret indecency, she carried her wine outside and eased into the gently bubbling hot tub. Naked. Totally and completely naked.

It seemed like she was the only human in the universe.

So why couldn’t she manage to relax? She ducked underwater to get her hair wet, then slid up onto the seat, tipped her head back, and willed her tense body to let go. Every muscle, every tendon, every molecule was clenched like a fist ready for battle.

Georgia dropped the ball and nosed it toward Abby’s wineglass. Abby tossed the ball a few dozen times, then plunked it into the hot tub where Georgia wouldn’t go. “No more playing.”

Georgia settled on her haunches, elbows to the ground and feet pointing straight ahead in the classic cattle-dog pose. Eyeing the floating ball the way her ancestors had once eyed flocks of sheep, she waited patiently for Abby to make the next move.

Abby sipped her wine and surveyed her aunt’s domain. Three—no, four—cats lounged within sight: Max, the big, gray tabby; Princess Grace, the elegant Siamese mix; Glenn, the black-and-white-spotted feral with a notched ear; and Jessie, another gray tabby with a notched ear. The others were all off doing cat things. Across the fence that