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

to be sitting in front of the TV in his pool house, drinking a beer and watching a WWE match. Spurting blood and the smell of hops might soothe his battered spirit right about now. “Brilliance must run in your family.”

Abby scooted closer to the bins and held one open for him. “Reva is definitely smarter than the average bear. I’m not so sure about myself.”

I’m not so sure about you, either, he thought, until she leaned forward to hand him the next feed scoop, and he got a clear view down the front of her tank top. At that point, his brain stopped working altogether, and he wasn’t sure about anything.

* * *

Abby’s foot throbbed. She looked out the bedroom window at the lights blazing in Quinn’s pool house. He had offered to spend the night on the couch in case she needed help. Of course, she had declined. She could have fed the critters this evening; the knee scooter allowed her that much freedom. But unfortunately, she wouldn’t have been able to shovel poop or empty and refill water buckets.

But she had managed to get ready for bed by herself without incident. Quinn had insisted on waiting in Reva’s living room in case she ran into trouble, but she hadn’t.

Now that she was in bed, she realized that the pain meds didn’t dull the pain; they just made her head so fuzzy that she didn’t care how bad her foot hurt. Hoping the meds would kick in with a little more oomph soon, Abby checked her phone and found a text message from Reva.

Someone brought in an injured mama deer today. She had been hit by a car. Her injuries will mend, but I know that she had babies who are waiting for her to return. She told me where she’d hidden them, but no one with access to a vehicle would help me look for them. Everybody thinks I’m crazy. I can’t stop crying right now. Maybe I should just come home.

Abby didn’t know how to reply. She settled for a sad-face emoji.

She tried to think of something more eloquent or helpful to write, but couldn’t. With a sigh, she plugged the phone into the charger and set it facedown on the bedside table, then turned out the lamp.

Georgia stretched out against Abby’s good leg and groaned. Abby tried to relax, but something still left undone niggled at the edges of her consciousness.

Quinn had done everything; she could relax.

She tried a progressive-relaxation technique, going from toes to ankles to knees, then moving upward, on and on to the top of her head, systematically relaxing each part and parcel of her body, bit by bit. She got as far as the heart chakra when she remembered.

She hadn’t given fresh food and water to the stray wolf dog across the street. She sat up in bed. “Georgia, why didn’t you remind me?”

Georgia wagged her tail and lowered her chin. I tried, but you weren’t listening.

Abby imagined the words of Georgia’s response and knew that even though she couldn’t communicate with animals as well as her aunt did, her impression in this instant must be the truth. Georgia had formed a bond with that stray dog. She would have chosen to feed him, and lacking that ability, she would have tried to get someone else—Abby—to do it. The fact that it hadn’t been done meant that Georgia had tried to tell Abby, but Abby hadn’t listened. Maybe it was time for her to really start trying instead of doubting herself all the time.

“I don’t think I should chance us going outside right now,” Abby said.

Georgia whined and looked toward the bedroom door. Are you sure? He’s hungry, and that water bucket is almost empty.

“I can put a pan of food and a bowl of water on the back patio,” Abby promised. “But you’ll have to tell him to come.”

Georgia leaped down from the bed and ran into the kitchen as if to acknowledge the pact they’d just made. Maybe there was something to this animal communication thing after all.

Abby dished up a bowl of dog kibble and set it on the back porch, then filled a stockpot with water and put it out, too. The whole operation should’ve taken less than five minutes. But now that she had to push herself around with the scooter, the task took a half hour and left the kitchen floor splattered with splashes of water. Thank God she’d gotten the knee scooter with the handy basket between the handlebars.

Back in bed, Abby felt better, more complete. She’d done what was most important to do today. She imagined the stray wolf dog cowering in the forest across the street, and tried to send welcoming vibes to lure him in. Then, while her foot throbbed and the pain medication made her head float several feet above the bed, she dropped into a deep sleep, the descent marked only by a jerking-awake sensation that pulled her up for an instant before she fell even deeper into the abyss.

She dreamed of a wolf dog who swam in the pool out back, retrieving rolled-up newspapers that floated on the surface, then setting them on the edge of the pool. The newspapers held some significance Abby couldn’t quite grasp, and she wondered if there was a message she could read inside them. She picked up each roll and tried to open it, but every time she tried, the papers snapped back as if they were made of plastic. The words she sought were inside, but she wasn’t given access to them.

In the dream, she stacked the papers by the doorway, and the wolf dog sat guard over the growing pile. “What is the message inside these papers,” she asked him.

“The message isn’t inside the papers.” He spoke to her in a human voice that reminded her of Quinn’s. “The papers are the message.”

* * *

The beer and TV therapy Quinn had been looking forward to didn’t have the desired effect.