And when she told him the rumor she’d heard around town that the adjacent acreage between this road and the bay might soon become available as well… Maybe it wasn’t a sign from God, exactly, but it sure lit a fire under his butt. With the right timing, he could use the money from the sale of this place to buy the strip of Magnolia Bay waterfront land that ran behind all five estates on this dead-end road.
He could subdivide the bayside marshland along the existing estates’ property lines, then sell each parcel to its adjoining estate. If he had enough money, he could build nice elevated walkways from each estate to the marsh-edged bay, maybe even haul in enough sand to make a community beach complete with boat docks and shaded pavilions.
Maybe he was dreaming too big. But he couldn’t stop thinking that with perfect timing on the sale of the estate and the availability of the waterfront land, he could make an easy-peasy fortune for not too much work. And—dreaming big again—the ongoing maintenance for five private boat docks would give him a steady stream of income doing seasonal repair work that he could depend on from here on out.
Quinn parked his bike on the cracked patio around the back of the sprawling bungalow-style house and killed the engine. Expecting silence, he was assaulted by a loud racket of braying, mooing, and barking.
“Are you kidding me?” He walked to the hedge separating his property from the annoying clamor. When he’d toured the property with Delia, it had been as peaceful as a church. She hadn’t warned him it cozied up to Old McDonald’s farm.
Or, maybe more accurately, Old Ms. McDonald’s farm. He’d glimpsed the crazy-looking woman hiding in the shrubbery with her wild mane of honey-brown hair, ratty bathrobe, and cowboy boots. How the hell would he get top dollar for a house with an eccentric animal-hoarding neighbor next door? He stalked to the overgrown hedge between the properties and bellowed at the animals. “Shut. Up.”
The noise level escalated exponentially. “Fork it,” Quinn said, forgetting that without Sean here, he could’ve used the more satisfying expletive.
The multispecies chorus ramped it up. Parrots screeched loud enough to make the donkeys sound like amateurs. Parrots? “What next? Lions, tigers, and bears?”
Fine. He would work inside today. Quinn planned to get the pool house fit for habitation in time for Sean’s scheduled visit next weekend—unless the kid canceled again, claiming homework, football practice, school projects, whatever.
All great excuses, but was that all they were? Excuses?
Did his son really hate him so much that he never wanted to see him again?
The thought hit Quinn in the solar plexus with the force of a fist. If it had been a woman treating him that way, he’d have gotten the message and moved on. But this was his son. His heart. The kid was fifteen now, so Quinn had only three years of court-mandated visitation to compel Sean to keep coming around.
Three years suddenly seemed like a very short time, given all the inattention and absence Quinn had to make up for. And yet, it had to be possible for him to retrace his steps and rebuild the bridge between him and his son.
Quinn was a carpenter, after all. He knew how to build anything, even a rickety, falling-apart bridge. And he would rebuild this one, no matter what it took. The fight for Sean’s time and attention generated its own list of obstacles, but Quinn had ordered the first round of obstacle-climbing tools online:
Cool guy furniture.
Flat-screen TV.
Premium cable and internet.
Xbox game system.
Paddleboards (secondhand).
Quinn knew of only one way to close the distance between him and Sean that compounded daily—worse than credit-card debt—because of his ex-wife Melissa’s subtle sabotage.
He must become the best weekend dad he could afford to be.
***
“Got you another one,” Abby announced above the sound of the screen door slapping shut behind her. “Saw her run into the culvert when I took the trash up to the road.”
Reva came into the kitchen, dressed in Birkenstocks and a tie-dyed hippie dress, her prematurely silver hair secured with an enormous jeweled barrette. “Oh my Lord.” She set her suitcase by the sliding glass doors and reached for the kitten. “Just this one? No stragglers?”
“She’s the only one I saw, but I’ll keep a lookout in case there are others.”
Reva held the kitten like a curled-up hedgehog between her palms. Her magic touch calmed the kitten, who immediately started purring. Reva closed her eyes, a slight frown line between her arched brows. “She’s the only one.” Reva opened her hazel-green eyes, her gaze soft-focused. “But kitten season has begun, and folks’ll start dropping off puppies next. Are you sure you can handle this place by yourself all summer?”
No, not at all. Abby had only recently mastered the art of getting out of bed every morning. But Reva deserved this break, this chance to follow her dreams after years of helping everyone but herself. “Yes, of course I can handle it.” She glanced at the kitchen clock. “Don’t you need to leave soon?”
“No hurry. My friend Heather will pick me up after she drops her kids off at school, so rush hour will be over by the time we get into the city. And the New Orleans airport is small enough that I can get there thirty minutes before departure and still have plenty of time. It’s all good.”
Abby gave Reva a sideways look, but didn’t say anything. Abby knew her aunt was excited about her upcoming adventure but equally afraid of reaching for a long-postponed dream she wasn’t sure she’d be able to achieve. She might be stalling, just a little.
“What can I do to help you and your suitcase get out the door?”
“Would you get a big wire crate from storage and set it up for this baby?”
“Sure.”
Cradling the purring kitten, Reva followed Abby through the laundry room to the storage closet. “Litter box is in the bottom cabinet, cubby for her to hide in is on the top shelf.”
Abby hefted the folded wire crate. “Where should I put it?”
Reva closed her eyes again, doing her animal communication thing. “Not a big fan of dogs—or other cats either. Wants to be an only cat.” Reva smiled and stroked the kitten’s head. “You may have to adjust your expectations, little one, just like everyone else in the world.”
Not exactly an answer, but Abby knew Reva would get around to it, and she did. “She’ll need a quiet place away from the crowd for the first few days. Let’s put the crate on top of the laundry room table.”
While Abby set up the crate, Reva gave instructions. “Take her to the vet ASAP; she’s wormy and needs antibiotics for this road rash. You can use one of the small travel crates for that. But other than the vet visit, keep her in here until next week, Wednesday at the earliest. Then you can move her crate to my worktable in the den. That’ll get her used to all the activity around here. When she’s had all her kitten shots, you can let her out into the general population.”
Abby put a soothing hand on her aunt’s arm. “I’ll remember.” She knew that Reva secretly thought no one else could manage the farm adequately—with good reason. This place was a writhing octopus of responsibilities. Critters to feed, stalls to clean, and two more weeks of school field trips to host before summer break. Even in summer, there would be random birthday parties and scout groups every now and then. No wonder Reva was having a hard time letting go; hence all the detailed instructions on how to handle the newest addition to the farm’s family. “I promise I’ll take good care of everything.”
Reva gave a yes-but nod and a thanks-for-trying smile. “I’ll text you a reminder about the kitten, just in case.”
Of course you will. Reva had already printed a novel-length set of instructions on everything from animal-feeding to tour-hosting to house-and-barn maintenance. Smiling at Reva’s obvious difficulty in releasing the need to control everything in he
r universe, Abby filled a water bowl from the mop sink and placed it inside the crate next to the food dish. “All set.”
“Call me before you make that decision.”
“What decision?” Reva had returned to a previous train of thought that had long since left the station in Abby’s mind.
“About when to let the kitten out. She might be more squirrelly than she looks. Let me check in with her and make sure she’s ready. Don’t want to have her hiding under the couch or escaping into the woods through the dog door.” Reva paused with a just-thought-of-something look on her face. “But I’d totally trust you to ask this kitten if she’s ready to join the herd. This summer at the farm will be a good opportunity for you to practice your animal communication skills.”
Right, well. Abby didn’t trust herself, even though Reva had been tutoring her since Abby first started spending summers here as a child. “I’ll call first. I’d like to keep the training wheels on a little longer if you don’t mind.”
Reva laughed. “Training wheels are not necessary. You just think you need them. You’re a natural at animal communication.”
Abby didn’t feel like a natural at much of anything these days. The fact that Reva trusted her to run the farm all summer attested more to Reva’s high motivation to get her license to care for injured wildlife than to Abby’s competency. Three months of an internship at a wild animal refuge in south Florida would give Reva everything she needed to make that long-deferred dream a reality. Abby was determined to help out, even though the responsibility terrified her. It was the least she could do.
Reva tipped her chin toward the open shelves above the dryer. “Put one of those folded towels on the lid of the litter box so she can sit on top of it.”
Abby obeyed, and Georgia started barking from outside. “That’s probably your ride, Aunt Reva. I’ve got this, I promise. You don’t have to worry.” She held out her hands for the kitten.
Reva transferred the purring kitten gently into Abby’s cupped palms. The kitten stopped purring, but settled quickly when Abby snuggled it close. “About time for you to go, right?”
Reva gave a distracted nod. “Don’t forget to make the vet appointment today. You want to go ahead and get on their schedule for tomorrow, because they close at noon on Saturdays. But call before you go. I don’t know why, but everyone at Mack’s office has been really disorganized lately. The last time I went in, they had double-booked, and I had to wait over an hour.”
“I will make the appointment today, and I’ll call before I go.”
“Oh, and don’t forget to drop that check off at the water department when you’re out tomorrow. Those effers don’t give you a moment’s grace before cutting off the water.” A car horn blasted outside.
“I won’t forget.” Abby put the kitten in the crate and shooed her aunt out the door. “I’d hug you, but I’m all muddy.”
“I know I’m forgetting something.” Reva glanced around the room one last time. “Oh well. I’ll text you if I remember.” She leaned in and kissed Abby’s cheek. “Bless you for doing this for me.”
“I’m glad we can help each other. Don’t worry about a thing.” As if Reva wasn’t the one doing Abby a big favor by giving her a place to stay when even her own parents refused, for Abby’s own good. They were completely right when they pointed out that by the age of thirty-three, she should have gotten her shit together. After all, they’d had two good jobs, a solid (if unhappy) marriage, a kid, and a mortgage by that time of their lives.
It wouldn’t have helped to argue that up until the moment she didn’t, she’d also had a good job (dental office manager), an unhappy relationship (with the philandering dentist), and a kid (the dentist’s five-year-old daughter). Okay, so she didn’t have a mortgage. Points to Mom and Dad for being bigger adults at thirty-three. Whoopee. It was a different economy back then.
After Reva left, Abby showered and dressed to meet her first big challenge as the sole custodian of Bayside Barn—ushering in three school buses that pulled through the gates just after 9:00 a.m.
When the deep throb of the buses’ motors vibrated the soles of her barn boots, Abby tamped down the familiar flood of anxiety that rose up her gut like heartburn. The feeling of impending disaster arose often, sometimes appearing out of nowhere for no particular reason. Only one of the reasons she’d come to stay at Aunt Reva’s for a while. This time, though, she had reason to feel anxious. These three buses held a total of ninety boisterous kindergartners, enough to strike fear in the stoutest of hearts.
Abby hadn’t forgotten Reva’s warning about the timing of her tenure as acting director of Bayside Barn. Two weeks remained of the school year, and those last two weeks were always the worst; not only did schools schedule more trips then, but the kids would be more excitable and the teachers’ tempers would be more frayed.
Abby hurried to get Freddy, the scarlet macaw, from his aviary enclosure. “You can do this,” she muttered to herself, remembering the Bayside Barn mission statement that Reva made all the volunteers memorize: Bayside Barn will save the world, one happy ending at a time, by giving a home to abandoned animals whose unconditional love and understanding will teach people to value all creatures and the planet we share.
If that wasn’t a reason to get over herself and get on with it, nothing was.
Chapter 2
Abby stroked Freddy’s feathers on the way back to the parking lot, soothing herself as much as him. She could do this. She had helped Aunt Reva host school field trips several times. And five seasoned helpers were here, women who knew the drill from years of experience. The choking sense of anxiety drifted down and hung like a fog, somewhere around the region of her kneecaps.
With the huge parrot perched on her shoulder, Abby joined her helpers—two retirees and three student-teachers from the local college. Each wore jeans and rubber-soled barn boots; each wore a different-colored T-shirt with the Bayside Barn Buddies logo on the front.
The ladies had already directed the bus drivers to park in the gravel lot between the light-blue farmhouse and the bright-red barn. Ninety boisterous kindergartners spilled out of the buses, and the donkeys brayed a friendly greeting over the barn fence. Freddy clung to Abby’s shoulder with his talons and hollered in her ear, “Welcome, Buddies!”
The teachers and parent chaperones in the first bus corralled their kindergartners into small groups. The hellions that had spewed from the other two buses yelled and chased each other around the roped-off gravel parking area. Feeling more relaxed now that the field trip experience was underway, Abby gave the kids a minute to get their wiggles out, then removed a gym whistle from her jeans pocket and blew three short, sharp blasts. Everybody froze.
“Listen up.” She tried to channel Aunt Reva’s stern school-teacher voice. “Before we can begin, I need each of the teachers and parent chaperones to gather the kids in your group.”
After a bit of shuffling, the crowd coalesced into small clusters of five-or-so kids surrounding each of the adults. A small swarm of kids milled around looking worried. Abby held up a hand. “Kids who aren’t sure which group you belong to, please line up right here in front of me.”
Within five minutes, every child had found the right group, and Abby’s helpers handed out color-coded stickers, badges shaped like a sheriff’s star surrounded by the words, I’m a Bayside Barn Buddy.
Abby blasted the whistle again. “Welcome to Bayside Barn. In a moment, you’ll follow me to the pavilion where we’ll watch a short video about the animals you will meet here today. Then, each group will go with the guide whose shirt matches your star. Together, you will learn and explore for the rest of the morning. We’ll meet back at the pavilion at noon for lunch, and then you’ll have another two hours of fun before you head back to school. Sound good?”
Abby allowed the chorus of excited talking to continue another minute. “Okay, everyone. Follow me to the p
avilion.”
She led the way with Freddy on her shoulder and Georgia walking alongside. A small hand crept into hers. A tiny, pigtailed girl with brown eyes as big as buckeyes skipped beside her. Abby swung the little girl’s hand. “Hello there. What’s your name?”
“Angelina. I like your bird. I ain’t never seen a bird that big. Can I hold him on my shoulder like you’re doin’?”
“I’m sorry, Angelina, but that wouldn’t be safe. Freddy’s a good bird, but if something startled him, he might bite.”
“Where’d you get him?”
“All the animals at Bayside Barn came here because their families couldn’t keep them.”
Angelina stopped skipping and tugged Abby’s hand. “My family couldn’t keep me either. Can I come live here too?”
Abby’s heart squeezed with the familiar breathlessness of regret. Regret for promises she’d made to a child she had loved completely and yet failed to save.
A frazzled-looking woman grabbed Angelina’s arm, mumbled an apology, and towed the child back to her group.
Abby kept her eyes on the pavilion and kept walking. The fresh scratches the kitten had made on her hands and belly stung with every movement. But her small pains were worth it, since the kitten was safe and secure in the darkened laundry room with a clean litter box, a soft blanket, and plenty of food and water.
Abandoned kittens could be saved.
Abandoned children, not so easily.
***
Quinn backed out from under the kitchen cupboard and shut off the shop vac. He sat back on his heels and listened. What the hell…?
He opened the sliding doors and looked across the pea-green pool water to the house next door. Over the tall hedges, he saw the tops of three school buses.
School buses, parked next door?
“Shit.” That would account for the high-pitched screams and squeals. What kind of place had he moved next to?
Secrets in the Sand Page 17
