He allowed the armadillos and possums to stay. They assured him that their only interest was in eating any bugs and grubs they could find in the short grass. Georgia came to visit him after the lights went out inside the house. She cleaned his wound, which didn’t hurt much anymore but itched and burned as new skin grew from the edges inward, coming together to cover the scabbed-over patch. When she finished, she curled up in front of him. They lay like that for a long time, like one leaf curled around another.
Maybe her presence was the reason he’d slept so deeply. He’d been alone for so long, he had nearly forgotten how it felt to relax into the safety of companionship. Georgia went back inside the house just before dawn, and Wolf stretched out on the cool cement patio to doze till morning. He would leave before the dew was absorbed into the grass or suspended in the air. He knew that Quinn—and the young Quinn he’d seen from a distance—would come then, and he didn’t want to scare them.
More than that, he didn’t want to be chased away.
And though Abby had promised not to chase him, Quinn hadn’t promised him anything. A few of the cats came close to sniff him cautiously, and he remained still so they could explore him without fear.
Stillness lured him back to sleep, and he dreamed of rabbits and ground squirrels sleeping with each other the way he and Georgia had: one leaf curled around another. He dreamed that the yard was filled with pillows on top of wood blocks, like the one in the house where the cat slept. He and Georgia shared the biggest pillow, a fluffy, soft one that puffed up around them like a nest.
He didn’t hear the Quinns arrive until they were right on top of him. He barely had time to run around the corner of the house.
“Whoa, did you see that?” He heard the young Quinn say.
“No, what?” The first Quinn knocked on the glass door.
“Nothing, I guess.”
Wolf hid in the den he had dug in the red dirt under the front porch. He hoped it would show Georgia that he could be her home just as much as her people now were. But it also gave him a place to hide in case someone closed the gate and blocked his escape route into the forest. It hadn’t happened, but at least he had options. He wouldn’t stay hidden in the den for long this time, just until he heard the sounds of the two Quinns feeding the barn animals. Then, he would run back to the isolation of the forest.
Chapter 15
Quinn kept Sean busy after chores on Sunday with pool time in the morning followed by lunch with Abby followed by an afternoon paddleboard excursion, just the two of them.
They carried the boards all the way down the driveway, all the way to the corner, and all the way down the dead-end road next to the estate. Quinn figured Sean would complain about the trudge, but instead, he complained that paddleboards weren’t as cool as kayaks.
“I think you’ll like it once you try it,” Quinn said. “Paddleboards are more versatile; you can stand or sit, or even lie flat if you want. In a kayak, all you can do is sit, and after a while, your butt goes numb.”
Sean grinned. “Your butt, maybe.”
They put the boards in at the crumbling old boat launch. Sean stood in the knee-deep brown water and held his board steady while Quinn secured a life jacket and water bottle in the net on Sean’s board, then put the small cooler of snacks Abby had packed for them on his.
“Are you sure this bayou even goes to the bay?” Sean’s voice wobbled uncertainly.
“You’re standing in the bay right now.” Quinn pushed his own board out a little deeper, straddled it, then sat cross-legged and put the paddle across his lap. “All these little bayous around here are part of it.”
Quinn let his board drift while Sean struggled to climb onto his own board without tipping the edges into the water. “Just sit, Son,” he instructed. “You’re gonna get wet regardless, so go ahead and sit.”
Looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else on God’s green earth, Sean sat. “Even if these little backwaters are technically part of the bay, we could still get lost in them, couldn’t we?”
“We won’t get lost, I promise,” Quinn said.
Sean made a frustrated grumbling sound; his attempt to paddle away from the launch was turning him in circles, and he was about to end up in the weeds. “Aaaagh, shoot!”
Quinn knew he’d get the hang of it soon enough, and he didn’t want to start out by giving orders, but Sean held the paddle backwards and was sitting too far back on his board for the thing to be stable. “Scoot up to the middle of your board and turn your paddle so the logo is facing the other way.” Huffing with annoyance, Sean managed to comply.
“Now paddle over here, nice and easy. Don’t dig the oar so deep into the water; that’s it… Let me show you where we are on my phone, and then you’ll see why we can’t get lost.” On a map of Louisiana, Magnolia Bay looked like a small slice of blue water with a smooth and definite coastline. But in reality, the bay’s edges consisted of a multitude of small, interconnected waterways that snaked around acres of marshland interspersed with sandbars and cypress tree islands. The GPS map showed exactly where they were among all the nooks and crannies, bayous and byways.
“See?” Quinn held his phone out to Sean, who gingerly paddled closer to take a look. He leaned over—by about two inches—and glanced at the phone without really looking. “Okay, fine. I just hope you know where we’re going.”
“I do.” Quinn tucked his phone (protected by an OtterBox and secured to his board by a lanyard) back into the bungee net. “I know how to get back, too. Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” They’d barely started paddling down the narrow, marsh-lined channel when Sean freaked out. “Dad! Holy shit! There’s a big fucking alligator on the bank next to us!” Sean started paddling faster, nearly tipping his board over in the process.
Quinn looked back at a huge alligator sunning himself on a small spit of sandy bank just a few hundred yards from the landing where they had put the boards into the water. It looked so much like a fallen log that he probably wouldn’t have noticed it. He hurried to catch up with Sean and reached out to steady his board. “Calm down. He doesn’t care about us.”
“Jesus, Dad.” Sean was a breath away from hyperventilating, his dark eyes so wide Quinn could see the whites all around the iris. “Let’s go back before we get eaten.” He tried to turn the board around by digging the paddle deep into the water, but only succeeded in making the board dip dangerously to one side.
“Sean.” Quinn wrenched the paddle from Sean’s anxious grip. “Look at me.”
Sean’s breathing quieted—just slightly—and he pinned his gaze on Quinn’s, his eyelids flickering with panic. “Shit, Dad,” he whispered, his entire body shaking. “Shit.”
Their boards drifted along with a current that gently guided them farther away from the gator. Quinn had to admit—to himself only—that if the huge-ass alligator had launched himself into the water, Quinn would’ve probably crapped his pants in fear. But the bloated-looking armor-plated creature continued to doze placidly in the afternoon sun.
“Look at him.” He pointed back at the twelve-foot-long alligator who hadn’t so much as twitched. “You see that he’s busy napping in the sun, and that he is completely unconcerned with us?”
Sean turned to look back, his movements jerky with fear. “I guess.”
“Alligators mainly eat big fish and small animals. They don’t go after people, unless those people are flailing around in the water so much that they seem like wounded prey. Alligators are lazy opportunists.” Like some people Quinn could think of. “About the biggest thing they’ll go after is a dog.”
“Can we go back now?” Sean whined. “This isn’t fun. It’s scary.”
Quinn hardened his heart and his voice. “No, we’re not going back. We’re going to paddle to the end of this little bayou, at least. Come here, let me show you.” He held out his phone and showed Sean
the map, this time making sure Sean really looked. “When we get here,” he pointed to a small cypress island, “we’ll paddle around the island, then come back to the landing from the other side.”
Sean’s shoulders lifted toward his ears, and he looked back toward the landing with a yearning expression on his face.
“Think of it like this.” Quinn forced a happy note into his voice. “We’ll be going around the long way, but we won’t have to paddle past old Goliath again.”
“Unless he moves upstream,” Sean replied in a tone of doom. “But okay. I don’t want to give him a chance to change his mind about eating us.”
Quinn handed over the paddle he’d confiscated. “Good deal.”
Assisted by a gentle current, they paddled away from old Goliath, but Sean kept glancing over his shoulder. Quinn pointed out turtles and birds. They stilled their paddles to listen to a heavy rustling sound in the dense underbrush of the swampy island bog between them and the bay’s main channel.
“You think it’s a deer?” Sean asked.
“Or a wild hog rooting around,” Quinn answered. “They’re both pretty nocturnal, but out on these little islands where people don’t go, they feel safe, so you can sometimes spot them during the day.”
They never saw whatever it was making noise beyond the trees, so they paddled on. Eventually, Sean’s shoulders relaxed and he started to engage with the natural environment around them. “Look, Dad! Is that a hawk?”
Quinn looked up at the large, majestic bird gazing out from the top of a dead-looking cypress tree dripping with Spanish moss. “Red-tailed hawk, yes.”
The paddle around the island took a couple hours; they weren’t in any hurry. When they’d made it to the tree-lined shade of the bayou that led back to the launch, Quinn unzipped the soft-sided cooler. “Hungry?”
Sean clutched his stomach. “’Bout to die.”
Quinn handed Sean a sandwich and a bag of chips, and they let their boards drift down the bayou. Quinn took a bite of his pickle-laden chicken sandwich, and it was so good he just about groaned. Pickle juice dripped down his chin, and he wiped it away with his wrist. How had she managed to keep the bread from getting soggy? Must be some kind of culinary magic.
“Dad?” Sean asked.
“Huh?” He took another bite; damn, Abby knew how to make food taste good.
“How come you know about all this nature stuff, even though you grew up in New Orleans?”
The sour taste of regret filled Quinn’s mouth, ruining the taste of the gourmet sandwich. He swallowed, wishing he’d spent more time out in nature with his son when he’d had the chance. “My best friend’s dad had a fishing boat. We spent hours on the bayous outside the city. Even spent the night on the boat a bunch of times.”
“You mean JP?”
“Yep.” JP, his once-best friend and business partner, who’d forgotten all about morality in the pursuit of greed. Quinn tossed a chunk of his sandwich into the water for the fish, then put the rest back in its fancy beeswax-and-cloth wrapping. Then he hoisted his paddle and dug it deep into the tea-brown water. “Sun’s skimming the treetops; we’d best get back now, or the bugs’ll get us.”
Back at the pool house, they hosed down the boards and life jackets, then left them by the pool to dry while they lit the burn pile of branches that had accumulated from Quinn’s land clearing. Before Sean left that day, he hugged Quinn; a real hug, not one of those sideways bro hugs. “I had fun, Dad.”
From way up by the mailbox, Melissa honked the car’s horn again; she had texted Sean that she didn’t want to drive her new car down Quinn’s rutted driveway. Fair enough. Quinn didn’t necessarily want her all up in his business anyway. He patted his son’s back, feeling a rush of love, not only for the child Sean had been, but for the man he was becoming. Quinn might have a lot of problems with Melissa, but the way she’d raised Sean wasn’t one of them.
“I’ll talk to Mom about working here sometimes,” Sean said.
“That would be great,” Quinn answered. “I’d love to see more of you.”
“Me too, Dad.” Sean bumped shoulders with Quinn, an awkward show of affection after years of anger and resentment. A lot of the strife between him and his son had been planted and fertilized by Melissa, but he had to admit, he’d doled out some of the same bullshit fertilizer himself. Hurt feelings on both sides had led each of them to react with hostility rather than to act with love. Quinn walked with his son down the long driveway and vowed to himself that he would make up to Sean—and to Melissa, if she’d let him—for the fact that he’d been an absentee dad too much of the time.
He had worked long hours from the beginning; at first so he could establish a solid financial foundation for his new family. But slowly, so slowly that Quinn couldn’t remember when and how it happened, the reasons for his workaholic tendencies had shifted.
Melissa and Sean had become their own little universe, from which Quinn often felt squeezed out. At the same time, Melissa had started getting snarky about him not helping out enough—but when he tried, nothing he did pleased her. After a while, the only time she asked for his help was when Sean needed more discipline than she could provide. So Quinn became the bad cop Sean dreaded to see coming home some days. Maybe now that Quinn and Melissa were officially divorced and living separate lives, he and Sean could start fresh building a new father-son relationship, unencumbered by the past. This weekend gave him hope that they’d already made a good start.
“Next time you come, we’ll go paddleboarding again.” It occurred to Quinn that he could build a storage shed at the far end of the yard and install a gate so launching the paddleboards or other water toys from the public launch would be easier. “We’ll explore around here some more.”
In a way, Abby’s broken foot had helped Quinn to make more time for Sean this summer. So that he could stay nearby and help with the farm chores, he had taken on a custom cabinet-building job that he could work on in the estate’s garage. All he’d had to do on-site was measure the people’s kitchen, and once he’d built the cabinets to fit, he would deliver and install them.
“I’d like that,” Sean responded. When they reached Melissa’s car, Sean turned toward Quinn. “Dad?” With his back to Melissa’s car, he spoke so quietly, Quinn had to lean in to hear. “Thanks for making my room so nice and everything, and for buying the Xbox and stuff.”
Quinn clapped Sean on the shoulder. “You’re welcome, Son. I’ve missed you, and I want you to know that you can come here whenever you want, as long as your mom doesn’t object.”
Sean nodded. “I do know that, Dad.” He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. He almost looked choked up. Then he turned away, and the moment evaporated. “See you Wednesday,” Sean called over his shoulder as he got in the car.
“Bye.” Quinn lifted a hand to wave, but the tires on Melissa’s car peeled out so fast and loud that Sean could’ve neither seen nor heard Quinn’s goodbye. Quinn turned toward the pool house, though Abby’s presence next door pulled at him like a strong undertow.
Three days ago, he’d have thought that undertow was possibly a dangerous one. But after spending this weekend with Sean and Abby together much of that time, he was beginning to wonder if he should rethink his options. Why couldn’t he renovate this property and just stay? Why couldn’t he see what sort of relationship might be possible with Abby, a beautiful, gentle, sweet woman whom his son obviously liked, and who seemed to like his son? Maybe he didn’t need to flip this estate after all.
* * *
Abby wasn’t snooping. She had just happened to decide to sit on the wraparound front porch that afternoon instead of the concrete patio out back. She had only recently discovered that while the patio was great if you could get in the pool, when you were reduced to pushing a scooter everywhere or hobbling around with crutches, the shaded front porch was the place to be.
From her comfy chair, Abby could see one small sliver of the road in front of the house: the bit that included the end of Reva’s driveway, the end of Quinn’s driveway, and his rusted-out mailbox. A fancy red convertible zoomed past both driveways, slammed on brakes with an audible squealing of tires, then backed into Reva’s drive for a three-point turn that narrowly missed Quinn’s already-bent mailbox pole. The car stopped with the driver’s door roughly even with the mailbox.
The top was down, so it was easy to see—in fact, impossible not to see—the driver, a beautiful (from behind, anyway) woman with long, dark hair and olive skin. Sean’s mother, Melissa, of course. She appeared to be texting, her head tilted down as she focused on the phone in her lap. Then, her chin came up and she glanced around idly, first at the cat’s-claw forest, then toward Quinn’s battered mailbox. Looking back over her shoulder and then into the rearview mirror, she opened the mailbox and peeked inside, then slammed it shut.
“Nothing in there,” Abby muttered to herself. It was Sunday, after all. “Miss Snoopy Pants.”
Stella, the new kitten, hopped onto the porch rail and stared down at Georgia, who had decided it was more fun to toddle around in the shrubbery and snoop under the porch than to sit with Abby. With the front half of the old farmhouse on pier-and-beams and the back addition on a raised concrete slab, there was a lot of naked space under the old part of the house.
“You’d better not be digging under there,” Abby warned. Georgia gave a happy barroo! from an under-the-porch spot directly under Abby’s chair, and Griff stiffened in her lap.
Abby stroked his shaved head. “Poor buddy.” A week after the attack, he still looked like a battered prizefighter, with one eye half-closed (scratched cornea) and multiple stitched cuts on his neck, back, chest, and face, plus one really long laceration on his fat, hanging-down belly. Mack had shaved down all of Griffie’s long, luxurious fur to make sure he didn’t miss any hidden lacerations. The stitches would come out in three days, and the fur was beginning to grow in, a downy-soft covering of peach fuzz on the cat’s porcelain-pink skin.
Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay Page 18
