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

She stepped forward and poked him in the chest with her finger. “You don’t get a chance to explain.” She poked him again, probably wishing that her finger was a gun driving a bullet into his heart. “Because of you…” She poked him again, pushing him back a step. “Because of you, my aunt is going to lose everything.”

She didn’t have to poke him again; this time, he stepped back, feeling her anger pour over him like a raging flood. “Because of you, my aunt will have to rehome her animals—which she won’t do—or sell the farm that she and her husband built together on the property that has been in his family for generations.”

“I’m sorry. I know I—”

She backed up and braced her hands on the doorframe. “I don’t need your excuses, Quinn. If you have anything to offer, anything at all, it had better be solutions, not excuses. If you can’t do something to reverse this disaster you created, I never want to see you again.”

She slammed the door, then turned the dead bolt with a decisive click. “Fix it,” she yelled through the closed door. “Fix it, or don’t ever step foot on this property again.”

Then all the porch lights went out, leaving Quinn alone in the darkness.

But not entirely alone, he realized. Wolf sat beside him, a stalwart companion emanating comfort and acceptance. The glow from the bedroom window gave Quinn just enough light to see the gleam of the wine bottle he’d left sitting on the patio. He picked up the bottle, then petted Wolf on his furry head. “I guess it’s just you and me and the wine now, buddy.”

Wolf panted agreement.

“You want to come home with me?” He patted his leg and took a step toward the driveway. “Come on, pal.” Wolf hung back and looked toward the lighted bedroom window.

“Come on, Wolf.” More than anything, Quinn didn’t want to be alone tonight to contemplate his many mistakes that had ruined his life up until now and eventually culminated in this moment. He’d been shortsighted and selfish, maybe not just recently; maybe he’d been that way all his life. He probably deserved to be alone, but he didn’t want that. Not tonight, and not ever again. He patted his leg, this time adding a little whistle of encouragement. “Come on, buddy. We can have steak for dinner.”

Wolf took a couple of steps, then looked back again.

“Fine. Never mind.” Quinn didn’t deserve companionship, not even that of a stinky half-wolf that smelled like a dog.

Abby’s bedroom light went out, plunging everything, even the air in front of Quinn’s face, into complete darkness. He fumbled for his phone and used the flashlight function to light the way back to the pool house.

He’d made it some distance down the driveway when he heard the faint sound of Wolf walking behind him, panting and whining softly. Clearly anxious about leaving the farm to follow Quinn, Wolf kept going, even when they left the farm’s open gate and turned the corner onto Quinn’s property. When Quinn opened the sliding door to the pool house and invited Wolf inside, the dog dropped to his haunches on the concrete and looked back at the dark house next door.

“You don’t have to stay,” Quinn said. “I get it. I’d rather be there, too, but I’m not welcome anymore.”

Wolf lowered his elbows to the ground and put his head on his paws with a groan. He seemed to understand how it felt to be banished from the lives of people he loved.

* * *

Quinn hardly slept that night, and what little sleep he got was riddled with nightmares of driving a pickup downhill with no brakes around hairpin turns—with a load of alligators in the back and Wolf in the passenger seat.

Exactly what his life felt like right now: out of control with a truckload of problems and only one friend in the world, a smelly wolf dog who didn’t even trust him enough to come inside the house and get a much-needed bath.

While Quinn twisted in his sheets, he at least had time to twist and turn his Rubik’s Cube of problems around and examine potential solutions from every angle. When the prospect of sleep went from elusive to impossible, he turned on his light and got out his legal pad. He hadn’t made a list in a long while, but now it seemed imperative. He had to sort out his thoughts and consider his options, so he uncapped his pen and made a list.

1. Sell out now; list the place as-is and be done with it.

But if he did that, JP would snap it up, so he might as well…

2. Call JP, negotiate a high price for the estate, take him up on his job offer, and insist on an advance so I can move away from here immediately.

But if he did that, he’d lose his time with Sean, along with any chance of reconciling with Abby.

3. Call Reva, apologize profusely, beg her to intercede with Abby, and promise to…

But he didn’t know what he could promise that would make things right, and besides, he didn’t know Reva’s cell phone number.

4. Call Mack, get Reva’s number, do #3 above.

But he still didn’t know what he could promise that would make things right.

5. Continue to renovate the estate and promise Abby the moon if she’ll forgive me and move in with me and live happily ever after.

But that wouldn’t work unless her aunt Reva still lived next door. And Abby had said that she never wanted to see him again—unless and until he fixed the problem he’d created. Which left him with…

6. Find a way to make sure that Reva’s animals can stay at Bayside Barn.

Frustrated and entirely too frazzled to go back to sleep, Quinn got up, got dressed, and made coffee. The shadow of Wolf’s form lying just outside the glass door was only slightly darker than the darkness beyond. In another hour, the bay would become visible through