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

She declined to respond to that one. “I guess you need to vent, Quinn, so go ahead. I’ll listen till you’re done.”

“Your lack of candor has caused me a big problem, and you need to fix it.” If he couldn’t sell this place, the money he had squirreled away for renovations wouldn’t be worth a thin dime. “Tell you what. I’ll pay you a ten-thousand-dollar bonus when you sell this estate for double what I paid for it. That’s on top of your normal commission.” He paused for a minute to let that sink in. “And remember that other little property you told me about.” Quinn gazed out over the landscape where a hundred acres of marshland met the bay. “If and when it goes up for sale, we can both quadruple our profits. Now. Can you, or can you not, make the zoo next door go away?”

He heard her take a breath, then let it out.

“Well?” He took another pull at his beer, only to find that the bottle was empty.

“I’ll do what I can,” she said. “If I can.”

“Fine. I’ll trust you to handle it, for your benefit as well as mine.”

“I will,” Delia answered. “I’ll handle it.”

“Good. Keep me posted.” Now that he had vented, he felt much more relaxed and easygoing than he had a half hour before. He strolled into the pool house, dumped the empty bottle in the kitchen’s recycle bin, then went to wipe down the bathroom tiles.

He hummed and scrubbed, clinging to his pie-in-the-sky vision of the retired couple who would enjoy their happily-ever-after lives in the dream home he was determined to create here.

* * *

That evening, Abby dumped the day’s trash bags into the can by the road, thinking about the For Sale sign the motorcycle dude had discarded in the weeds in front of the neighboring estate. She had completely forgotten to tell Aunt Reva, and maybe that was a good thing, because Reva deserved at least a few days of bliss before hearing that the animal shelter she’d been campaigning for would never happen. Abby slammed the trash-can lid. “Oh well.”

Reva had begged the Magnolia Bay City Council to buy the abandoned estate next door and convert it into a much-needed animal shelter for the city. She had even offered to run the shelter as an extension of Bayside Barn, since all the strays got dumped there, anyway.

Abby looked down at Georgia. “Any bright ideas from the canine quarter?”

Georgia, as usual, was on it. She tunneled through the tall grass toward the downed sign. Her gray speckles and black spots disappeared in the vegetation, but her white-tipped tail waved above the tasseled grasses, setting dandelion seeds free in the warm Louisiana air. After a minute or two of consideration, she came back grinning as if a direct line to the powers that be assured her everything would be okay.

Abby wasn’t so sanguine, but Reva’s dog encouraged her to take the long view. “You think the city will buy the marshland behind here instead?” Not likely, since the bayside marshland behind the estates on this road wasn’t for sale. In addition, the water-soaked bog filled with snakes and alligators was unsuitable for anything but a great view unless someone had a fortune to spend on fill dirt.

In other words, the land was unavailable, unsuitable, unattainable. Sort of like the men in Abby’s life.

Bored with the ongoing conundrum, Georgia crossed the blacktop and sniffed at a tangle of smothering vines that edged the easement. While beautiful, cat’s-claw could strangle every living thing for miles, and it had made a good start here.

Georgia growled and peered into the vine-covered forest with her hackles up.

“What’s with the mean fur?” Abby imagined a pair of predatory gold eyes staring through the vines, watching. A chill poured through her. The fine hairs on her arms rose and she shivered. Cat walking over her grave, Reva would’ve said.

Abby scolded herself the way her mom always had. “Abby Curtis, your imagination is as wild as your hair. There are no cougars or wolves in Louisiana.”

The eerie feeling of being watched wasn’t just Abby’s imagination, though. Georgia felt it, too. The little dog barked at whatever was hiding in the cat’s-claw, threatening it with a don’t-make-me-come-in-there-and-get-you tone.

“Come on, girl,” Abby coaxed. “Let’s go home.”

Without warning, Georgia darted into the forest, sounding an alarm that would make most animals exit the scene immediately. But Georgia’s barking came from a fixed location now. God only knew what poor creature cowered on the receiving end of her scolding. Not more kittens; Georgia never barked at cats. Probably a snake…

Abby’s ever-present stream of worry escalated into a roaring river of panic. “Georgia!”

* * *

Wolf sat on his haunches under the canopy of vines. The little multicolored dog shot into the cat’s-claw forest and charged at him. Hackles raised, she lowered her copper eyebrow spots into a fierce scowl and growled. “You don’t belong here.”

Wolf looked away, showing deference.

Georgia advanced. “What are you doing here? Go away.”

Wolf hunkered down and crawled backward, retreating farther into the shadows. He refused to meet the challenge in her intelligent brown eyes, but he tried to use his body language to send a message of peace. “I won’t hurt you.”

“You aren’t supposed to be here,” she insisted. “Go home.”

He eased back until his tail brushed the front wall of the half-roofed house hidden beneath the grasping vines. He’d been sheltering here ever since his human caretaker drove him far from home and shoved him off the back of the truck.

Discarded in disgrace.

He didn’t understand why, even after days of hunger and thirst and thinking, thinking, thinking.

The woman’s voice called out. “Georgia. Get back here, now.” Beneath the command was fear, concern, love. His chest felt as heavy as the water-filled doormat he had once—in his exuberant puppyhood—dragged off the porch and torn up.

The dog named Georgia looked back but didn’t retreat. “You don’t belong here. Go home.”

Wolf