Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay Babette Jongh (best romance ebooks .txt) 📖

“Abby? Who’s Abby?”

“Reva’s niece. I spent every summer here when I was a kid.”

“Oh, yes,” Mildred gushed, finally sounding happy. “I remember you. Long-legged skinny thing with a wild mane of wavy hair. Lord knows, I tried to tell Reva to try coconut oil on that hair. I know she wrestled with it something fierce whenever you’d come in from a day of climbing trees and whatnot. Yes. I remember you.”

“That’s great, Ms. Mildred. Do you need me to send someone over with a live trap for that cat? He’s not ours, but if you can catch him, we’ll take care of getting him fixed up and adopted out.” Unless no one wanted him, in which case, he’d stay and live here like all the others.

“Well, honey, I don’t know how to set up that contraption. And as you may remember, Wilbur isn’t mechanically inclined, bless his heart. But if you want to come and set up that trap, I’d appreciate it.”

“I can’t come myself, but I’ll send someone else this afternoon.” She’d ask Quinn to do it.

“That’ll be fine, honey. Just call first, because we might be napping.”

“I know we all value our sleep,” Abby agreed with some lightly veiled sarcasm.

“See?” Mildred chortled, in high spirits now. “I told those people that you were good neighbors.”

“What people?” Abby asked.

“I don’t remember their names right off,” Mildred said, beginning to sound confused. “But Wilbur sent them packing before they’d set foot inside the house. He’s not like me, you know. He doesn’t believe in inviting folks in from off the street. But you know; I like those Jehovah’s Witness boys, so well dressed and polite, coming around on their bicycles trying to spread the word of the Lord. I always invite them in for a nice chat and a glass of sweet tea. You know how hot it gets out here, and how easily even healthy folks can get heatstroke. Why, you know, when—”

“Ms. Mildred,” Abby interrupted. “I think somebody’s knocking at my door.” Not likely at the butt crack of dawn, but Abby was determined to go back to bed and sleep until eight thirty, at least. “I’ll call you this afternoon about that live trap. Okay?”

Abby slipped back into bed without waking Georgia, then managed to take up dreaming where she’d left off. In the dream, she’d found a new job on a tropical island, where she managed an open-air office on a white-sand beach. She was still trying to figure out what sort of office it was when the smell of coffee brewing and bacon cooking coaxed her gently awake. Abby sat up and stretched. Sun streamed through the thin curtains, brightening the pale-yellow walls to a deep buttery tone. Georgia had already followed her nose to the kitchen.

Abby dressed in shorts and a Bayside Barn Buddies tee, then hopped into the kitchen.

Quinn’s too-long brown hair stuck up on one side, but aside from that one minor imperfection, he looked like a movie star standing in her aunt’s old-fashioned kitchen. Barefoot and shirtless in low-slung jeans, he used tongs to turn the bacon in the heavy cast-iron frying pan. When it splattered, he jumped back and rubbed his chest. “Shit fire,” he muttered, turning the heat down.

She opened a cupboard and took out a splatter guard, setting it on top of the frying pan. Then she adjusted the gas burner, turning it down a couple notches. “Good morning.”

He turned those blue-jean-blue eyes on her. “Good morning.” He looked at her lips, and for a second, she thought he might be about to kiss her, but the second passed by without incident. “I’m cooking an apology breakfast.”

“Oh, okay.” She took a mug from the cabinet and yawned. “You have coffee already?”

“Not yet. But I’d love some, if you’re pouring.”

She poured coffee into the blender and added all the ingredients that made it bullet-proof, then filled two mugs with the rich, frothy concoction. He turned off the heat on the bacon, then took her mug and motioned for her to go ahead of him. “I thought you might like to sit by the pool with your coffee while I cook. I’ll bring breakfast out when it’s ready.”

She sat in one of the lounge chairs and took the mug he handed her. “I like the way you apologize.”

He winked. “I can apologize in more delicious ways than this, but we don’t know each other that well yet.”

“Sexual harassment!” She held up a hand as if flagging down a taxi. “Somebody help!” As if in answer, Georgia hopped into Abby’s lap, her feet and coat dyed orange by the den’s dark red-orange dirt.

“I’m not sure who’s harassing whom here,” he said, giving Abby the stink eye along with a mischievous grin that quirked up one corner of his mouth. “But we can figure that out later.”

With his wide shoulders, bare chest, tight abs and just-out-of-bed hair, he was too handsome for anyone’s good. He bent forward in an obsequious butler’s bow. “I’ve gotta finish cooking breakfast for milady. And, by the way, I’ve already fed Georgia and the inside cats. I’ll do the rest once I’ve delivered your breakfast to the patio.”

“Fine.” She waved him off and took a sip of her coffee. “While you cook, I’ll decide whether I want to forgive you for being such an asshat last night.”

“Would it help if I whipped up a mimosa to go with your coffee?”

“No, thank you. Coffee is enough.” She had already forgiven him. Some of her angst yesterday evening had been due to her own insecurity. Reva had always been good at claiming her ability of animal communication without regard to what anyone else thought. But Abby did care what other people thought, no matter how much Reva preached about the dangers of becoming an approval whore. Reva said that knowing you were fulfilling the mission you’d been born to accomplish was all that mattered. What anyone else thought of you was none of