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

of the house. Smart construction; it would be out of the wind and sheltered from rain not only by the roofed porch but by the foundation itself, and the dirt mound formed a wall that would keep the opening hidden from predators. “Georgia,” he called. “Come here, puppy.”

“Do you see her?” Abby asked, sounding excited.

“No, but you’re right. There’s a den under here.” He shone the light’s beam at the big mound of dirt, marveling again at the ingenuity of the dog—or whatever—that had built it. “She’s not coming out, though, and I can’t see into the den. What do you want me to do?” He wasn’t eager to crawl all the way under the porch and confront whatever might be living in that den. Even if it was, in fact, Georgia and the wolf dog, he didn’t want to risk getting his face ripped off by the bigger dog.

“Come on out.” Abby sighed. “Reva said Georgia will come out on her own when she’s done pouting.”

He crawled back around the porch to the thin spot where he had entered the shrubs and pushed through. Abby leaned over the rail. “What do you have to say about animal communication now, smarty-pants?”

“Pretty incredible, I guess.” When he’d first seen the den, he had felt a thrill of revelation, as if maybe Reva and Abby did have some direct line to the consciousness of those two dogs. But between that moment and this one, his brain had been busy rationalizing.

The existence of a den might have seemed to be some sort of validation at first, but after further reflection, he wasn’t convinced. Abby could have deduced that the dogs might have dug something under the porch because she’d observed Georgia’s dirty feet earlier. He didn’t know how Reva would have known that, but he didn’t hear Reva’s side of the conversation.

For all he knew, that den could’ve been there for years, and Reva probably knew that Georgia liked to hide out there when she was in trouble. The fact that some fresh dirt had been deposited there recently didn’t mean anything. But he wasn’t about to say any of that now, knowing that it would shatter Abby’s satisfied smile, and then she’d probably kick him out.

After stomping the mud off his boots, Quinn came up the porch stairs and handed over the flashlight. “Unless you need me to crawl around in the shrubbery some more,” he said, realizing too late that his wording sounded a tad ungracious, “I want to grab a shower before all the spiders in my shirt decide to bite me.”

Abby’s lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything. She just dumped the flashlight into the basket, grabbed the scooter’s handlebars, and hopped ahead of him into the house.

“Um…” He closed the front door behind them and locked it, then hurried to catch up. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I mean, if it sounded any type of way.”

“You’re in a hole,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Might be smart to stop digging. I’m going to bed.”

* * *

Abby woke just after 3:00 a.m. when Georgia jumped onto the bed. Abby reached down to pet her, then brushed the dirt from her gritty fingers on the thin, summer-weight quilt. “Great, Georgia. Thanks a bunch.”

Georgia licked Abby’s fingers. It felt like an apology. “I’m sorry, too, girl. I shouldn’t have insisted on bathing you when I knew you were scared.”

Georgia licked Abby’s fingers again, then stretched out along Abby’s leg and settled down to sleep. Abby petted Georgia’s sandy head and went back to sleep herself. She was right in the middle of an excellent dream when the house phone—the landline in Reva’s office—started ringing. It rang five times before voicemail picked up. Abby rolled over and burrowed under the covers. She had just-about fallen asleep when it started ringing again.

Who would be calling here this early? Not Reva; she would text first, even in an emergency. Eventually, the phone’s ringing was bound to wake Quinn, though he was sleeping in Reva’s room at the opposite end of the house. With her eyes still blurry from sleep and her limbs feeling heavy and uncoordinated from the pain meds that had put her so far under, Abby slung back the covers. Georgia rolled over and groaned, sending Abby a look of annoyance before closing her eyes again. “Don’t let me disturb you,” Abby groused.

The answering machine picked up, but in no time, the damn phone started another round of ringing. No way would she get there in time to pick up before the machine kicked in. But by now, she knew that the asshole on the other end of the line would try again. “I’ll try not to wake you when I come back to bed in five minutes.” Abby set her knee on the scooter and hopped into the living room, where a weak hint of sunlight was just beginning to lighten the walls. She made it to Reva’s desk when round four began. She snatched up the receiver and yelled into it. “What!”

“Please tell me I didn’t wake you, Reva,” a querulous old-lady voice said. “I wouldn’t be up myself if your big, black cat wasn’t yowling at my window.”

“And who is this?” Abby asked, not bothering to correct the old woman about the multitude of facts—okay, maybe just two—that she’d gotten wrong.

“It’s Mildred, your next-door neighbor?” This said in a tone that suggested Reva might have recently lost her mind. “And the only neighbor who is on your side in your recent troubles, apparently, though I’m rethinking that position.”

Recent troubles? On Reva’s side? Was the old lady suffering from some sort of psychosis that made her imagine things? “Miss Mildred, this is Abby, not Reva. She’s out of town and I’m house-sitting. Reva has a lot of cats, but none of them are black.” Though if there was a feral tomcat in the area, Abby had no doubt that he’d end up here sooner or later. “Do you