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

the darkness, a pale-gray shimmer in the distance. After that, the sky above the trees would turn a soft pearl pink.

Maybe by the time all that happened, Quinn would’ve come up with a plan. He sat at the kitchen table, sipped his hot black coffee, and underlined the only possible solution he’d come up with:

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

The solution was unfortunately short on details, and no matter how much he thought and doodled and wrote stupid ideas that he ended up crossing out, he couldn’t come up with a viable plan.

What he needed was a change of scenery, something to occupy his mind and his hands just enough to allow his thoughts to sort themselves out. The sky was beginning to turn pink when he took a fresh cup of coffee and his legal pad—in case inspiration struck—out to the main house.

Wolf followed until Quinn went inside. It seemed from the way he acted that he’d never been inside a house before. “Come on, Wolf. It’s okay.” Quinn snapped his fingers, he whistled, he slapped his leg; none of it was convincing. “Fine. Suit yourself.” He went inside and left the door open so at least Wolf could see him.

He was already set up to paint, so he plugged his phone into the Bose speaker, uncapped a five-gallon bucket of paint, and dipped the lightly textured paint roller in. His renovation plan was roughly a top-down model; he had painted all the upstairs rooms and installed new light fixtures throughout. Downstairs, he had installed can lights and painted the ceiling. Now, he was painting the downstairs walls an innocuous warm tan color. The trim and baseboards would be a creamy almost-white, but that would be the last thing he did after refinishing the hardwood floors.

The flooring project would be the most time-consuming, but the paint made the biggest visible difference. This old house was beginning to look like a home, and with every stroke of the paint roller, Quinn imagined what it might be like to live here with Abby.

He took a step back to survey the wall he’d just finished and noticed a flash of movement from the corner of his eye.

Wolf had commando-crawled into the room and now sat like a sphinx, watching Quinn intently. “What?” Quinn asked. “You need an award for coming inside?”

Wolf put his head on his paws and blinked.

“I’ll get you something later.”

Quinn had just turned to dip the roller again when he heard a footstep on the dusty wooden floor.

“There he is.” Abby came into the room and hovered near the door. “I was worried.” Georgia whined in delight and rushed up to Wolf, happily licking his face.

Quinn looked around at Abby and tried to keep his face expressionless, even though it hurt like hell to see her being so standoffish. “You’re up early.”

“Georgia woke me up and insisted that I follow her over here.”

Quinn wished he knew what to do or say. Abby seemed just as spooky and afraid as Wolf had been about coming in here. If he turned around, or even said anything about the big-ass elephant standing between them, she might bolt and run. So he turned his back to her and kept painting, and came up with something to say that he hoped would be as neutral as the wall paint. “He followed me back to the pool house last night. Slept outside even though I tried to invite him in.”

“He won’t come inside my house, either.”

He kept painting, sliding the roller along the walls one neat row at a time. “He’s in here now though,” Quinn said. “Maybe this is a turning point for him.”

“I hope so.” Abby’s voice, Quinn noticed, was just as carefully expressionless as his.

“I guess I should’ve sent you a text to let you know he was here.” But she’d been ignoring most of his texts anyway, so even if it had occurred to him, he probably wouldn’t have done it. “Sorry you were worried.”

“Not your fault.” Her unsaid words, like everything else, hung in the vast void between them. Meanwhile, Georgia and Wolf were all over each other, practically moaning with delight.

“Get a room,” Quinn and Abby both said at the same time.

Quinn paused in his painting, but only for a heartbeat.

“Snap,” Abby said, her voice sounding weak.

He emptied the roller, then stood with his back to her, wondering what to do next. “This is ridiculous,” he said under his breath.

“The walls look good,” she said at the same time, not much louder.

He turned around and hung the roller on the edge of the bucket. “Abby, I know you don’t want to have anything to do with me, and if that’s your decision, I’ll have to live with it. But no matter what you decide, we need to talk first.”

She crossed her arms, and her luscious, always-smiling mouth went hard. “I don’t have anything to say to you until you fix the problem you created for my aunt.”

Moving slowly, he reached for a painter’s rag and started methodically cleaning his hands. “I understand that’s how you feel. However, even though I sat awake most of the night trying to figure out how to do that, I’m coming up empty. For your aunt’s sake, if not for mine or yours, I need your help.”

Chapter 24

Much as Abby hated to admit it, Quinn was right. They did need to talk. “So talk,” she invited. Not very graciously, she had to admit.

“Let’s go where we can sit.” He gestured toward the pool house, and she led the way, keeping as much space between them as possible. On the patio, he slipped past her and opened the sliding door, then stood aside to let her go in first. So polite. So stilted.

So sad.

Abby’s eyes stung with tears she wouldn’t allow to fall. She’d cried enough already. How could he have betrayed her the way he did? She’d been closed off, locked up, her wounded heart