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

up with a solution. The only kibble that stayed out overnight was the cats’ food in the barn. The raccoons didn’t bother those bowls, because the barn cats’ food shelf and all the food bins were near the donkeys’ stall window, and donkeys were fiercely protective of their space. According to the donkeys, cats were allowed; raccoons were not.

“Dad?” Sean’s voice sounded tentative. “Now that you’ve got your own house with a yard and everything, can we have a cat? Or a dog?”

* * *

When Sean asked whether they could have a cat or a dog, Quinn’s heart soared and then just as quickly plummeted back to the ground. He turned off the faucet, and the kitchen went quiet. “Maybe.”

His heart had soared with happiness that Sean would want to stay with him enough to have a pet. And, a relationship with a beloved animal would be another reason for Sean to visit as often as possible. But then his heart plummeted because he hadn’t told Sean, either, that he planned to flip the estate. He hadn’t told anyone but Delia, his real estate agent. Why he was keeping his plans so quiet, he wasn’t quite sure; maybe because he didn’t want to be seen as a failure if his plans didn’t succeed. “I’ll think about it.”

On the way to the barn with Sean, Quinn stuck his phone in his back pocket and shoved the potential problem he may have set in motion out of his mind. The text he’d sent to Delia earlier hadn’t been answered yet. But it was the weekend already, and Realtors had lives, too. If she had taken him seriously and instituted some sort of complaint to the city, he would go to the city clerk’s office Monday morning and pull the plug.

Simple. Easy. Practically done already.

Quinn put his arm around his son’s shoulders. “How did you like dinner?”

“You were right when you said that Abby can cook like nobody’s business.” Sean swung a Ziploc bag of sliced apples Abby had prepared against his leg. “I even liked the broccoli.” He let out a long, manly burp of satisfaction. “She ought to open a restaurant.”

“You should tell her that.”

“She’s a nice lady,” Sean continued. “And pretty, too. Maybe you should date her or something.”

Quinn just about choked. “Or something?”

Sean broke away from Quinn at the barn’s open door. “Whoa!” He ran to the first stall, where the two ponies stuck their heads over the open half-door. “Horses!”

Ponies, horses, short horses, whatever. Quinn couldn’t help but smile at Sean’s enthusiasm.

“Here, give me the bag.” Quinn took the bag of apples from Sean and handed over one slice. “Hold it in your palm with your hand flat, like this.” He demonstrated the way to present the apple and press it up into the horse’s (pony’s, whatever) mouth so it couldn’t bite his fingers. “See?”

When one of the ponies nibbled up the apple slice from Sean’s palm, he giggled like a girl. Quinn loved seeing his kid so happy. “Cool, huh?”

“Yeah!” Sean dug into the bag for another slice and presented it to the other pony. “What are their names?”

Quinn pointed to the wipe-off whiteboard next to the stall. “Sunshine and Midnight.”

Sean scoffed. “Lame.”

“Abby says most of the animals here are rescues; they usually keep the names they came here with.”

Sean stroked the white blaze that streaked up the middle of Sunshine’s butter-colored face. “Usually?”

“Abby says that sometimes the animals want to keep their old names, and sometimes they want a new name to mark a new phase of their lives.” Sounded like twaddle to him, but Sean would probably think it was cool that the animals had a choice in their names. Or maybe he’d think it was twaddle.

Sometimes, Quinn felt like he knew nothing about his son.

Sean nodded. “Cool.” He petted the white blaze on Midnight’s predictably black forehead, then moved down the line to the donkeys.

Quinn handed over another apple slice. “Elijah is the bigger one. Miriam is his mother.”

“Did they choose their names?” Sean asked.

“I don’t know.”

Sean scratched Elijah’s head. “I think they did.”

By the time they had passed out apple slices to all the animals and done the evening feed for the barn animals, full dark had fallen, and the cicadas and tree frogs and crickets roared in the tall live oaks outside the barn. Sean had been brimming with excitement even before Quinn turned on the aviary light. They went inside the lockout and Quinn closed the door behind him. “Don’t rest your hand on the wire,” he cautioned his son before introducing the parrots.

“Can I hold one?” Sean asked.

“Not only no,” Quinn replied, “but hell no.”

“I do want to work here,” Sean said. “Especially if that means I get to eat here, too.” Quinn hadn’t heard this much enthusiasm in his son’s voice since—well, since he couldn’t remember. “Do you think Mom will let me? Maybe she could drop me off in the mornings on her way to work and pick me up on her way home?”

“All we can do is ask,” Quinn replied. His heart soared with hope at the thought of spending so much time with his son, but reality swooped in like a big flyswatter and smacked it down. Melissa was extremely unlikely to allow Sean to spend that much time here, even when it meant he’d otherwise be sitting home alone while she worked at the exclusive boutique she’d bought with her half of the equity money.

“Do you think she’d let me come on weekends, too? And could I bring some friends along to hang out while I work?”

“We would have to ask Abby about having friends along. And maybe we should do a trial run during our scheduled visitation days this summer before asking your mom for more. You don’t want to hurt her feelings.” Because Melissa with hurt feelings was about as dangerous as a wild boar with an arrow stuck in its side. Quinn clapped Sean on the shoulder and changed the subject. “You