Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay

by Babette de Jongh

  Quinn opened the scooter and set the safety latch, then rolled it back and forth. “Good as new.” He helped her up and put her and the scooter in an out-of-the-way spot next to the hose connector. He took the lead rope from her and hung it with the others. Georgia’s collar—still fastened—hung from the lead rope’s snaffle. He unclipped it and tossed it in her lap. “Why is Georgia’s collar attached to a lead rope?”

  She turned off the spigot. “I was trying to bathe her. And you know what? The wolf dog came out here. He looked at me and then ran off.”

  Hands on hips, Quinn gave her a pointed look for trying to change the subject. “And how’d the scooter end up halfway across the barn if you were bathing her in the wash stall?”

  “My stupidity.” Abby blushed. “Like I said, I was trying to bathe Georgia, and she was trying to avoid getting a bath. So I stupidly clipped the lead rope to her collar and tied the rope to the scooter’s handlebars. She got away from me, taking the scooter with her.”

  He shook his head. “You.” He pointed at her. “You need a keeper. Do you think you can manage to sit right here”—he pointed at the floor under the scooter—“in this spot, without moving, while I feed the animals?”

  “Yes, sir.” The expression on her pretty, heart-shaped face seemed sincere and contrite.

  But he didn’t like her placating tone, nor the fact that she’d tacked on the word sir, which made it seem like he was being unreasonable, which he was not. He shoveled the animals’ food into buckets. What if he’d been away from his house? What if this had happened after feeding time when he’d already gone back to the pool house? What if she’d been really hurt? She might have lain here for hours, in pain, without any way of getting help. “Did you even bring your cell phone out here with you? Not that it works under this metal roof anyway.”

  “Yes, I did. My phone is in my back pocket. If I’d been hurt, I would have called you for help.”

  He scoffed. “Unless you’d been knocked unconscious when your hard head hit the concrete.”

  “Are you saying I’m hardheaded?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” She didn’t have a comeback for that, so he finished setting up the stalls with food and water in silence. He glanced over at her once. She was scrolling through her phone, pretending disinterest. Fine.

  “I’m going to bring the equines in now. Stay put.”

  “Yes, sir.” She didn’t look up from her phone.

  Bringing in the equines was easy; Quinn left their stall doors open, then opened the gate to their pasture. They all knew where to go, no problem.

  The problem was Abby’s hardheaded insistence on doing stupid things—her words, not his—by herself when she should know better than to put herself in danger. Maybe he should just move over here for the duration—at least until she got free of that damn scooter, which was a danger in itself. He’d seen it come close to tipping over a half-dozen times when he’d been nearby to grab the handlebars and steady the damn thing. What if it happened when he wasn’t here?

  He followed behind the line of trotting beasts and closed each of the stall doors. It really seemed like he had no choice but to stay with Abby and save her from her own foolhardy attempts to do things for herself. “Bathing the dog,” he muttered.

  She looked up from her phone. “What?”

  “Nothing. I’m done here. You coming?”

  She turned around and put her knee on the scooter, then hopped down the barn’s aisle. “Spaghetti for dinner,” she said over her shoulder. “I hope that’s okay. I wasted a bunch of cooking time on that bad little dog.”

  Up until Abby broke her foot, he’d been having beer and chips for dinner most nights. “Whatever you want to cook will be fine.”

  He held onto one of the scooter’s handlebars while she navigated the flagstone and pea-gravel walkway. She was doing better at navigating rough ground with the scooter, but he wasn’t about to tell her that, given her predisposition toward biting off more than she could chew. “Speaking of a bad little dog, where’d she go? She scratched at my door and howled to get my attention, but I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Hiding under the front porch, probably. That’s why she got in trouble in the first place, for digging and getting herself dirty. Did you see the wolf dog? It almost seemed like she went to him for help.”

  “Nope, didn’t notice. Just heard the howling and scratching and knew something had to be wrong over here. I came running and didn’t look back.”

  “How’d you know I was in the barn and not the house?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just had a feeling, I guess.”

  When they went inside, he poured a glass of wine for Abby, then opened a beer for himself. Abby browned a pound of organic beef, sauteed all sorts of chopped vegetables, and sprinkled on all sorts of spices before she even opened the jar of sauce. He hovered behind her, helping when she let him, but mostly sipping his beer and watching to make sure she didn’t hurt herself.

  Okay, to be honest, he was watching the way she moved so gracefully, as if cooking was an intricate dance she did with herself. Watching the way her cropped top rode up when she bent over, exposing the tantalizing dip and curve of her spine. Watching the way her wavy, sun-streaked brown hair fell forward unless she tucked it behind her ear.

  “Hey, I need a cookie sheet from the cabinet next to the oven.” She moved aside and pointed to the cabinet where vertical dividers kept an assortment of flat pans upright and separated from each other.

  He lifted out the pan and set it on the counter. “We’re having cookies?”

  “Buttered garlic bread.” She lined the pan with parchment paper and turned on the oven. “You get to do the honors; there’s a loaf of French bread thawing in the fridge. Slice it lengthwise and butter both sides with the garlic butter—it’s in that blue bowl.”

  While he did that, she made a salad to go with: not just lettuce, but lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers and sliced olives and feta crumbles. While her back was turned, he tasted the sauce and just about moaned in pleasure. Abby’s version of spaghetti beat any restaurant’s spaghetti he’d ever had.

  If he did decide to stay here—and if she decided to let him—he would have to make a point of exercising every day so he didn’t gain too much weight because of her excellent cooking. Then again, shoveling stalls qualified as exercise. And he had earmarked tomorrow morning for yard work; the grass needed mowing and edging, another thing Abby couldn’t do because of his stupidity.

  Thinking of stupidity, he resolved not to fuss at Abby about her little mishap today. Instead, he would offer to stay and look after her. Because really, he had to, right? He owed her that much for leaving that roll of wire in the pasture—because he knew better. He had just forgotten to pick it up the next morning as promised.

  “Abby?” He was about to make the offer to move in, but when she turned and looked at him, he changed his mind. Maybe he would wait till after dinner. Top up her wine and get her settled all cozy on the couch while he cleaned the kitchen, then propose—no, nix that word—suggest that it would be best for her safety and his peace of mind if he were to move in temporarily and take care of her while her foot mended.

  “Yes?” Her wide hazel eyes were so pretty, gold around the pupils surrounded by a starburst of turquoise that melted into a deep, mossy green outlined in brown.

  “Um…” He swigged the last sip of his beer. “I think I’ll switch to wine for dinner. Will you scoot over so I can reach the glasses?”

  * * *

  An hour later, Abby topped up Quinn’s wineglass, emptying the bottle they’d shared during dinner. He leaned back in his chair. “Dinner was amazing, as usual. Thank you for cooking.”

  Abby sipped her water. “You’re welcome. Thank you for taking care of the farm.”

  “I’m gonna mow the yard tomorrow.”

&nbs
p; “Aw, you don’t have to—”

  “You wanna get snakebit, too, on top of everything else? You think I’ve got time to take you to the emergency room?”

  She laughed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I have a hard time accepting help, as you may have noticed.”

  “You need help,” he said. “I didn’t realize how much until today. You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt.”

  She set her glass on the table and spread her arms. “As you can see, I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, and it could just as easily have gone the other way.”

  What was she supposed to say about that? I’m sorry? I should have known better? Yes, she’d been stupid, but what good did it do for him to beat her over the head about it? “Well, I guess I’m just lucky.”

  He stood and started gathering up plates and silverware. “I’m not sure I want to trust your luck to hold out any further.”

  “And I’m not sure what you’re getting at.” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the scooter’s backrest. “I promise that I’ll try not to do anything stupid again, but I can’t promise not to be human. What do you want me to do?”

  He took the stack he’d accumulated to the kitchen and set the dishes in the sink. “I want… No, I need…” His voice trailed off and he turned the faucet on. “I think you need more help here than you have right now.”

  Abby turned around on the scooter. “I’m not going to tell my aunt to come back home.” She hopped into the kitchen and maneuvered the scooter between Quinn and the dishwasher. “This course she’s taking is very important to her. It’s something she has always wanted to do but put off for years. I won’t take that from her.” She held her hand out for the skillet he was scrubbing. “Give me that.”

  He rinsed the skillet and handed it to her, and she stacked it in the dishwasher.

  “I’m not suggesting that you ask your aunt to come back home.” He rinsed the sink and wiped it clean.

  She dropped a pod into the dishwasher. “Well, what, then?” She held her breath for his answer; whatever it would be, it felt like something big.

  He took a few haphazard swipes at the butcher-block counter with the dishrag, then turned to her. “I think I need to stay here—within shouting distance, at least—and take care of you until you get that cast off your foot.”

  “Oh.” What was she supposed to think about that? “I’m not sure what to say.” Or even what to think. Abby had been sleeping in the guest room. He could stay in Reva’s room, but was that really necessary?

  And more important, was it a good idea for her and Quinn to be that close? They would probably wind up in bed together if they started living in a pseudo-marriage situation. Alarm bells in her rational brain clanged, but the joyful peals of anticipation in her erogenous zones did their best to drown out any warning. “What sort of arrangement are you suggesting?”

  Chapter 17

  Quinn squeezed out the dishrag and spread it to dry over the central divide of the massive farm sink. (Melissa would have gone crazy over this huge antique cast-iron-and-porcelain sink; it was probably worth a couple thousand dollars.) He met Abby’s eyes and set aside a niggling sense that no matter what story he told himself about his desire to move in with Abby—temporarily of course—he might have some ulterior motive, such as getting her into bed with him. “I don’t want to come here one day and find that you’ve had some sort of accident and needed help I wasn’t here to give.”

  “So,” she repeated, “what are you suggesting?” She closed the dishwasher door and got it running. The low hum of circulating water filled the empty space between them.

  “I’m thinking I should move in here, with you. In case you need me.” He held his breath, partly hoping she’d say no, but mostly hoping she’d say yes.

  “What about Sean? What about when he comes on weekends?”

  “His next overnight stay won’t be for two weeks.” Quinn cleared his throat. He hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. Abby could stay at the pool house with him just as easily as he could stay at the farm. But Melissa would pitch a fit if Quinn had a woman staying over during Sean’s overnight visitation. Melissa didn’t want Quinn, but she didn’t want anyone else having him, either. “Two weeks is a long time. Your foot may be much better by then.”

  Abby nodded, and Quinn noticed that a blush had spread over her cheeks. “Okay,” she said. “You can stay in Reva’s room. Go get your stuff.”

  That was easier than he’d thought. “All right. What are you gonna do while I’m gone?”

  “I’m going to go out on the front porch and call Georgia. It’s not like her to stay away so long, especially when there’s food involved.”

  At the pool house, Quinn quickly assembled what he would need for the night. He could get more tomorrow. As he shoved his shaving kit down on top of everything else in his battered duffel, he wondered what the hell he was getting himself into. But he had already been spending a lot of time with Abby. Staying overnight, sleeping at opposite ends of the same house, wouldn’t make that much of a difference, would it? The more he thought about it, the more he figured that not much would change, really.

  Two hours later, when Abby came out into her aunt’s living room with her dewy skin and her just-washed hair and her cropped pajama top and lace-edged tap pants, he knew that everything would change. He shifted position on the couch to cover his body’s strong involuntary reaction to her presence.

  “Has Georgia not come in yet?” she asked. Her voice wobbled with worry, because it was clear that the little dog hadn’t made an appearance.

  “Nope.” He muted the TV and patted the couch beside him, inviting her to sit. “Sorry. I tried to call her, too. Maybe she went across the street with the wolf dog.”

  Abby sat beside him and took her cell phone from the scooter’s basket. “I have to ask Aunt Reva.”

  Abby sent a text, and a few minutes later, the phone rang. He watched and listened while Abby told her aunt that Georgia had run off after a failed attempt to bathe her, and she hadn’t been seen since. She left out the part about Georgia causing her to fall. Then, leaning back and closing her eyes, she listened. It almost looked like she was falling asleep, but he knew she wasn’t, because she held the phone to her ear. After what seemed like forever, she said, “You think?” Then she got quiet for a minute before speaking again. “Okay, yes, I can see it, but I don’t trust myself. Are you sure?”

  This was the strangest phone conversation he’d ever witnessed.

  “Okay, okay.” Abby sat up, eyes open, acting more like a normal person having a normal phone conversation. “I will. Thank you, Aunt Reva. I love you. Yeah, okay. Bye.”

  She ended the call and put the phone back in the basket. Then she looked over at him and noticed his reaction. “I guess that phone call may have seemed a little strange.”

  He couldn’t help but grin at her understatement. “A little.”

  “Aunt Reva says that Georgia is hiding out, either under something or in something, like a cave or a den. And Wolf is with her. We think they might have dug a hiding place under the front porch.”

  Quinn chuckled. “And you’ve determined all this how?”

  “Telepathy.” Abby sat up and gave him a challenging look. “If you must know.”

  He grinned. What a bunch of horseshit.

  Abby scowled. “Don’t laugh. I’m serious. And it would make sense, because Georgia’s feet were dirty today. It’s why I wanted to give her a bath.”

  “Okay, Ms. Pet Detective.” He made a straight face, though an indulgent grin kept wanting to break through. Her obvious irritation at his teasing was kind of cute. He held up the first three fingers of his right hand. “Scout’s honor, I won’t laugh.”

  “You already did laugh, but okay. I know you don’t get it.”

  “You’re right. I don’t get it, so please explain it to
me. Your aunt knows all this from five hundred miles away how?”

  She took a breath and let it out. “My Aunt Reva is a telepathic animal communicator. She can connect with animals and know what they’re thinking.”

  He couldn’t help himself; a snort of disbelief escaped him before he knew it was coming. “Okaaay.”

  “Shut. Up.” Abby really looked mad now. She bolted to her feet and wrestled the handlebars of the scooter around, obviously prepared to flounce away, only too bad for her, flouncing wasn’t easily done when she had only one foot on the ground and had to hop behind a scooter.

  The very thought of her trying to make a huffy exit behind that scooter made him chuckle. “I’m sorry.” But his funny bone had been tickled, and now he couldn’t stop laughing.

  “Don’t you dare make fun of this just because you don’t understand it.” She stormed out of the room, hopping as fast as that stupid scooter would go. Boy, she really was mad.

  “I’m sorry!” He went after her, laughing even harder. If she knew how silly she looked right now, she’d know he wasn’t laughing at her aunt’s crazy ways, or even her own. He was simply laughing because she was so damn cute. He should’ve made her mad long before now, because watching her hop around in a fury was so entertaining. He bit his lip and tried to sober up. At her side now, he refrained from touching her. He was pretty sure that if he reached out a hand, he’d draw back a nub. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to get a flashlight, you…” She looked over at him, so pissed that she couldn’t think of a word bad enough to call him. “You asshat.”

  Shit. He had to laugh again. “So now I’m an asshat. I’m wounded that you would call me such a terrible name.”

  She wrenched open a kitchen drawer and took out a foot-long metal flashlight. “Shut the fuck up.” She turned on him with such a daggered glare that he backed up a step in case she was thinking of beaning him over the head. “Get out of my way.”

  He held up both hands. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. Where are you going?”