Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay, Babette Jongh [book club books txt] 📗

fur and rubbed her ears, causing her to moan in joyful surrender. Heather’s cheeks had gone back to their normal rosy pink, but her wide eyes still looked slightly stunned.

Quinn clapped his hands. “Let’s get busy, shall we?”

Adrian stood, and he didn’t even brush the dog hair off his slacks. Points to him. He glanced at Heather and smiled his easy smile but looked away too quickly. This guy with such polished social skills seemed almost nervous around Heather, who abruptly folded the dish towel she was still holding onto and hustled off to the safety of the kitchen.

But Reva wasn’t about to allow Heather to make herself scarce just because the presence of a fancy new rooster in town was ruffling her feathers. “Heather, since you’re in the kitchen, would you please bring us a pitcher of lemon water and a stack of cups?” It was high time Heather’s feathers got fluffed.

No point in letting him off easy, either, she decided. “Adrian, would you mind giving her a hand? We might need two pitchers of water, now that I think about it.”

Leaving those two to stew in their own juices, Reva handed a black pen to Quinn. “Assuming that the edges of the page are the boundary lines of your estate, can you draw roughly where the existing structures are on each of those pages?”

“Sure.” While he did that, Reva stuck another sheet onto the wall and wrote: Dog runs. Fenced play yards. Cat room with attached outdoor enclosure. Puppy room. Laundry. Office. She turned to the group of people who had settled at the table again. “Everybody grab a pen and use those posters to draw your ideas of what should go where at the new shelter. I’m making a list of things you’ll want to consider.” She looked at the list she’d written so far and chewed on the cap of her pen. “Y’all help me out. What else do you think the shelter will need, and how can we make the best use of what’s already there?”

“Kitchen,” Edna yelled out. “Gotta have a kitchen.”

Reva wrote kitchen.

Mack said, “Infirmary with a quarantine area. You’ll want to keep any sick animals away from the others.”

She wrote that, too. “Great idea, Mack.”

Quinn handed over the black pen. He had drawn outlines for the pool, the pool house, and the main house on each of the other pages. “We need to decide what to do about the pool. It’s leaking around the steps, so it’ll need to be fixed if there’s a reason to keep it. Otherwise, we’ll need to fill it in.”

“Oh, we’re keeping it,” Reva said. “We can use it for rehab when injured dogs come in.”

“And for playtime, too,” Abby said. “I’ve seen videos of a bunch of dogs playing ball in a pool together. It’ll be great for exercise and socialization with other dogs.”

“I dunno,” Quinn said. “I’ve tried to patch those steps, but they still keep leaking. We might need to go so far as to tear them out and put in new.”

Mack got up and started drawing on one of the sheets. “You could extend the pool’s shallow end to make a beach-style entrance. A lot of dogs won’t go in the pool if they have to walk down steps, but they will if it’s a gentle slope.”

Edna started drawing on another sheet. “You’ll have to put a fence around the pool, for safety.”

Sean stood next to Edna and drew a bunch of dogs playing ball—not exactly Reva’s idea of architectural planning, but fun. “We’ll get the dogs a tennis-ball launcher,” he said. “That way, they can play all day long whether there’s someone to throw the ball or not.”

Before long, everyone was standing together at the windows, tossing out ideas and drawing their vision for the new shelter on their posters. Reva stood back and watched, hugging herself to contain her excitement. Seeing everyone’s ideas on paper made the dream feel more real than it ever had. Maybe this time, it would really happen.

“Reva,” Edna said, “I know that in the past, you and Grayson offered to run the shelter, if the city would build one. But I don’t know how you’ll be able to do all that by yourself and still run Bayside Barn, too.”

“Let Abby run the shelter,” Mack said, turning to look at Abby. “You have office management experience, right?”

“I do.” Abby’s whole face brightened. “Do you think I could get the job?” Then she looked over at Reva. “Unless you want it, Aunt Reva?”

Abby was clearly trying to dim her excitement in case Reva wanted the job for herself. But honestly, she didn’t. She was more than happy to pass that torch along. Reva put a hand on Mack’s burly shoulder. “That’s a great idea, Mack. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”

Then she smiled at her niece. “I’ll be around to help out, if you need me. But I’m going to be busy with the barn and my new wildlife rehab thing, plus taking care of any farm animals that we’re keeping for the shelter.”

“And Abby,” Mack added, “since Reva’s back home now, and the shelter won’t be open right away, I sure could use your help at the vet clinic. I’m short one office manager these days.”

“Really?” Abby’s smile lit up the room. “I’d love that, Mack. When can I start?”

“Yesterday would be good,” Mack said. “That is, if Quinn doesn’t need you on-site to supervise the building project.”

Quinn put an arm around Abby. “I think I’ll be able to let her go at least some of the time.”

Lord, those two were so cute together. They reminded Reva of herself and Grayson back in the day. And look at Heather and Adrian, the attraction between them a palpable thing, though they could hardly bring themselves to look at each other. They’d chosen to draw their brainstorming ideas on Post-it posters at opposite ends of the room, and Heather kept slinking off to the kitchen to