Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay by Babette Jongh (best fantasy books to read TXT) 📕

He wished that thought were as comforting as it should be.

He petted Griff and looked out over the moon-silvered landscape. “You’re not such a bad cat, are you?” he asked the purring feline, who dug sharp claws into Quinn’s thighs and lifted his face for more attention. Then, without warning, Griff stiffened and stared into the darkness. With a deep-throated hiss, the cat dug in his claws and leaped off Quinn’s legs—giving a new meaning to the word catapult. “Okay, yes, you are bad.” Quinn rubbed his stinging thighs; that cat’s claws had penetrated his jeans and latched into skin.

The dog door bumped; the spooked cat skedaddling into the house. Quinn narrowed his eyes and tried to see into the shadows. More raccoons?

He heard the faint scrip-scrip sound of a dog’s nails on concrete as Wolf crept toward him from the corner of the house. Quinn moved slowly, reaching his knuckles out toward the big dog who crouched uncertainly just inside the glow of the patio’s solar lighting.

“Come here, buddy,” Quinn called softly. The dog’s quick acceptance of Sean had not extended to Quinn, nor even to Abby, who had tried so hard to win the skittish dog’s trust. And even that acceptance had melted away the second Sean tried to get Wolf to follow him to the house. The dog had backed away, looking indecisive, then slunk off to hide in the bushes across the street. Sean had wanted to follow, but Quinn wouldn’t allow it. The dog seemed half-wild, with two feet in the wolf’s world while the other two feet yearned for the safety and security of a domestic dog’s life. Quinn didn’t quite trust the side of Wolf that didn’t trust humans.

“Come on.” Quinn snapped his fingers and made kissy noises. “I won’t hurt you.”

Wolf belly-crawled closer. Just out of reach of Quinn’s reaching fingers, the dog rolled to his back, tail thumping in submission. At the same time, the dog’s lips curled back in a menacing snarl, revealing astonishingly long, sharp teeth that gleamed in the reflected glow of the landscape lighting. Without touching, Quinn pulled his hand back. “I won’t hurt you, but I don’t want you to hurt me, either.”

Wolf rolled to his belly and crawled closer, whining softly. Quinn realized that the lip curl must have been something like Georgia’s strange little grin, another sign of submission along with a touch of nervousness and anxiety. “I won’t hurt you,” he said again, his voice low and soft. He held his knuckles out. “Promise.”

Wolf sniffed Quinn’s hand. Apparently satisfied by his scent that Quinn was trustworthy, Wolf stood and turned, presenting his back for Quinn to stroke. The dog’s fur didn’t feel at all like Quinn had expected. Rather than the rough coat of a German shepherd, Wolf’s coat was thick and soft as rabbit fur, just like Griff’s. Like a wolf, this dog had fur, not hair.

Quinn raked his fingers through Wolf’s thick, soft fur. Expecting to find matted fur, or ticks, he instead found a thick circular scab or scar on the dog’s right side, about the size of Quinn’s palm, where the fur didn’t grow. When his questing fingers touched the center of the scab where the flesh was still raw, the dog flinched but didn’t move away or offer to bite. “Poor buddy,” Quinn said. He moved his hand and went back to stroking the dog’s back. “Whatever happened to you must’ve hurt pretty bad.”

Wolf turned again, this time to sniff Quinn’s face. Quinn sat very still, his hand resting on the dog’s back as he allowed it to explore his scent. Wolf licked his cheek once, as if in thanks, then backed away and melted into the shadows.

Quinn sat for a few more minutes, listening to the crickets’ chirping and the sound of an owl calling to its mate. A warm breeze sighed through the trees with a soft shushing sound as millions of leaves brushed against each other in a quiet symphony.

Tomorrow, the fight for the animals of Bayside Barn would begin. Quinn had no illusions about his chances of winning against JP. But he had opened this can of worms, so it was on him to stuff those night crawlers back into the tin and close the lid.

Tonight, before the battle, it was enough to sit in the quiet darkness and absorb this moment’s peace. Quinn imagined that Wolf had probably bedded down for the night, curled up in his den under the porch. The dog would wake at dawn and fetch the rolled-up newspaper and leave it by the back door. After the chores were done, Quinn would take the petition Edna had crafted to each house in the area she had assigned him and solicit signatures from the homeowners.

It seemed to Quinn that Wolf and he were both struggling to find how—or if—they fit into the microcosm of this farm. Each of them needed to be of service; Wolf in order to earn a place here, and Quinn in order to make up for his mistake in not seeing the beauty of this place that existed only to educate and serve the community.

Edna had said that Bayside Barn changed people for the better. Quinn realized that was true, because it had changed him. He had moved into the estate next door feeling desperate to prove himself, and he’d thought that the only way to do that would be to make a ton of money as quickly as possible.

As he leaned back in the chaise, he wondered if he could entertain the two opposing visions for the estate—flipping it for a profit or finding a way to keep it and put down roots—without pushing either option away. Could it be possible, in some future universe he hadn’t yet considered, that he could keep the estate and still buy the marshland? The only thing he knew for certain was that Abby’s aunt Reva must be allowed to continue the legacy