Magnolia Bay Memories

by Babette de Jongh

  While Quinn pointed out the way he had attached the cats’ two-story play enclosure to the outside of the old house and installed several cat doors in the exterior wall, Reva noticed Abby watching Quinn with a half smile on her face. Reva couldn’t help smiling too. Her niece had found a keeper. Quinn was kind, hardworking, and good to Abby. He wasn’t hard to look at either; tall and good-looking, with silky light-brown hair that somehow always managed to be a bit too long.

  “Quinn,” Heather said. “Where’s my hose connection going to be?”

  “I haven’t run that line yet, so you get to choose.”

  While Quinn and Heather conferred about hose connections and site drainage, Abby told Adrian and Reva about her plans for the enclosure’s landscaping and climbing structures. Despite Abby’s animated hand gestures, Adrian’s gaze kept drifting to Heather, who stood with her back to him, her hands on her curvaceous hips while she nodded at something Quinn was saying. It seemed that Adrian couldn’t keep his eyes from lingering on Heather.

  “Hmmm,” Reva murmured. “Isn’t that interesting?”

  “Oh, definitely!” Abby agreed. “Not only will it give the cats plenty of enrichment and exercise, it doubles the amount of space they’ll have.”

  “Um-hmm,” Reva agreed. But she hadn’t been commenting about the cats.

  ***

  After the meeting broke up, Adrian hung around and talked to Quinn while Reva and Abby went back inside to clean the conference room and lock up. Halfway listening to Quinn, Adrian watched Heather walk through the gate between the shelter and Reva’s house to collect her kids.

  He really hadn’t meant to scare the bejesus out of her by leaning in so close. Yes, he admitted he was teasing her, just a little, by coming in close enough to kiss while reaching for his shirt. She was such an easy mark, though, that it was hard to resist. All he had to do was look at her and lower his eyelids a fraction to get her to blush. He realized too late that he shouldn’t have pushed the envelope quite so far. He’d been half-hoping she’d lean in too and invite a kiss for real, but instead, she had jumped up like a scalded cat and rushed out of the room, leaving him to clean up the mess from her Florence Nightingale routine.

  Only fair, he supposed.

  Next time, he’d be more aware of her subtle cues. He had only wanted to flirt, not to embarrass her. She hadn’t met his eyes since the almost-kiss; for the entire meeting and the site tour that followed, she’d managed not to look at him.

  He figured that hiding back here with Quinn until Heather left would save her further embarrassment and that by next week’s meeting, she’d be over it. He’d thought about apologizing, but (a) that might make things worse, and (b) he wasn’t sorry he’d invited an opportunity for kissing. If anyone needed kissing in a bad way, it was Heather. That woman was wound tighter than Dick’s hatband.

  “See?” Quinn was saying. “We subdivided the existing three-car garage into kennels and added a doggie door on the exterior wall of each one. Every kennel will have a separate chain-link dog run and 24/7 access to the outdoors. Heather says that’ll cut down on cleaning. And Reva says it’ll provide natural house-training for the dogs because they’d rather do their business outside if they can.”

  “That’s genius,” Adrian said.

  A second later, he was tackled from behind. He stumbled but managed to stay upright as Josh grabbed his hand and walked up his jeans. What had seemed, at first, to be a good attempt at a run-up-the-wall back flip ended with Adrian’s shoulder possibly out of joint and Josh rolling in a giggling heap on the ground, leaving red-dirt footprints as high up as Adrian’s hip.

  “Josh!” Heather ran toward them, her eyes wide with alarm. “What are you doing?” She snatched her son up by the arm. Adrian tried not to look at her heaving bosom as she spoke to her son in a curiously firm tone for such a soft voice. “That was not okay.”

  Quinn put his hands up. “Uh-oh. Family drama. I think I hear Abby calling me.”

  Quinn quickly absconded, brushing past Erin and Caroline, who were standing behind Heather.

  “Erin, please go get Jasper out of the kennel and put him in the car.” The five-star-general aspect of Heather’s personality emerged, apparently banishing her embarrassment more effectively than anything Adrian could have done to talk her out of it. “Caroline, please go with your sister and close all the gates securely behind you. Josh, please stand exactly where you are and tell Mr. Crawford how sorry you are that you ambushed him.”

  Erin and Caroline went off in the direction of the kennels, and Josh looked up at his mother, innocently blinking his wide blue eyes. “What’s ‘ambushed’ mean?”

  That didn’t cut it with Heather. “I will show you how to look the word up in the dictionary when we get home. And to make sure you remember the meaning, I’ll get you to write it down five or ten times. Now. You know what you did, and you know it was wrong. Please apologize.” The unspoken threat behind her polite wording hovered in the air.

  Josh looked down at his feet and drew a line in the clay-rich red dirt that had been hauled in to level the construction site outside the existing buildings. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

  Heather crossed her arms. “I’m not sure anyone heard you, and when you apologize, you are supposed to look the person in the eye and say what you’re sorry for. Let’s try that again.”

  Adrian knew how excruciating this kind of chastisement in front of others would feel to any kid, much less one who wasn’t yet knee-high to a grasshopper. And he owed something to Heather after taking his natural tendency to flirt a little too far.

  He knelt down in front of Josh. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean anything by it. But your mother is right. When you…” He struggled to find a small enough word for accost, invade, violate. “When you sneak up on someone without their permission, it’s…” Shit fire; again, he struggled to come up with a ten-cent word to explain a five-dollar concept. “It’s a… It’s a good thing to apologize.”

  Josh looked down at his feet, continuing to scrub lines in the dirt with the toe of his shoe.

  “Josh…” Heather said in a warning tone.

  Adrian held out both hands, and Josh grabbed hold. Adrian squeezed the kid’s fingers lightly, giving encouragement. “I’m right here, and I’m not mad. Just say what you need to say, and I promise, it’ll be fine.”

  “Um…” Josh’s voice shook, then faltered.

  Adrian looked down at the boy’s short little fingers clutching his much longer ones. Josh’s hands were so small, still bearing the marks of babyhood in the dimples above each knuckle. Adrian looked up into Josh’s ice-blue eyes that he must have gotten from his father. “It’s okay, buddy,” Adrian said, even though it seemed that the hint of understanding he showed made the kid’s bottom lip tremble with emotion.

  Josh clutched Adrian’s hands and stared into his eyes. “I’m sorry, Mister…” He glanced up at Heather, obviously unable to remember Adrian’s surname, since he’d probably only heard it this once.

  “Hey.” Adrian brought Josh’s attention back to him. “You know what? You can call me Ade, like Quinn does, because he’s my buddy from way back. We can dispense with the Mister.”

  Josh’s blond brows drew together for a second while he looked off to the side (probably wondering about the word dispense); then he looked into Adrian’s eyes again. “I’m sorry I sneaked up on you and climbed up your legs.” The words tumbled out in a rush, and then he leaned close and whispered into Adrian’s ear. “I hope I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t, did I?”

  Adrian patted Josh’s back. “No,” he said quietly. “You didn’t hurt me.”

  “I’m glad.” Josh’s small body relaxed in relief. “I wasn’t thinking.” He wrapped his arms around Adrian’s neck and held on. “I was just so happy you were still here so I could say goodbye before we left.”

  Adrian’s heart cra
cked open at the kid’s raw honesty. A kid, he realized, who hadn’t been able to say a last goodbye to his father because Dale had died so suddenly that goodbyes weren’t possible. Nobody had ever mentioned to Adrian what, exactly, had happened to Dale, and Adrian hadn’t felt comfortable asking for details that weren’t given freely. He only knew from talking to Quinn and Abby and Reva that Dale’s death was so unexpected and upsetting that the whole family was still struggling with PTSD along with their grief.

  Heather reached down to touch Josh’s shoulder. “That was a good apology, Joshua. I’m proud of you.”

  Josh nodded, then pulled away from Adrian just far enough to look at him. “I’m glad you’re okay.” His face brightened. “You want to come to dinner? My mom cooks great.”

  “Maybe one of these days.” Adrian smiled at Josh, then chanced a look at Heather. Her pink lips were curved in a soft smile.

  “You could come tonight,” Josh insisted. “Friday is spaghetti night. Mama makes toasty cheese bread then. And salad, but you don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to. I have to at least try it, but she won’t make you do that.”

  “Josh,” Heather said softly. “I have a Zoom meeting with Sara tonight so we can prepare for Monday’s PTA meeting. And we need to get going.”

  “Well, when can he come?” Josh asked, a mulish expression on his face.

  Heather blushed. “I don’t know, Josh. We’ll have to figure that out later.”

  “Promise?” Josh whined. He sent an imploring look to Heather, then to Adrian. “Do y’all promise you’ll figure it out?”

  Heather sighed heavily. “I promise. Now let’s go. I can’t be late for the meeting, and I still have to cook your dinner.”

  Josh looked back at Adrian. “You promise too? You’ll come to dinner? Soon?”

  Adrian tried to give Josh a reassuring smile, but it felt pasted on. Family dinner night at Heather’s was a fate he hoped to avoid. He was happy to flirt—and to follow that wherever it led—but he didn’t want to put down roots. He had to say something though, and making idle promises didn’t sit right. “I’ll try.”

  It was the best he could do, and even that felt like too much commitment.

  He stood and received Josh’s fervent hug.

  Heather blushed. “Sorry about all this.” She took Josh’s hand and urged him to take two steps in the direction of the car, even though he reached out for Adrian dramatically; a brilliant career in the theater definitely awaited. She dragged her son another few staggering steps. “See you next Friday, Adrian.”

  “I’ll be here.” He watched the struggle, almost halfway wishing he could help, but mostly glad he didn’t have to.

  Erin and Caroline led Jasper through the gate from the kennels to the parking lot, and Heather stooped down to get her son’s attention. “We really do have to go now. Please say goodbye, Josh.”

  “Goodbye, Josh,” the kid mimicked with a silly, clownish look on his face. Unlike his twin sister, Josh was not a wilting flower. But it was clear that his manic appeal for attention covered deep insecurity and sadness.

  Adrian waved, his face carefully expressionless. “See you next week.” Because his presence seemed to ignite Josh’s veering emotions, Adrian turned back toward the shelter, planning to hide out of sight by the kennels until Heather left, then hightail it to his car and get the hell out of Dodge.

  ***

  That evening, when Heather and the kids got home from the meeting at the shelter, she couldn’t help noticing Charlie, Dale’s lonely and pitiful horse, standing alone in the field behind the house with his head low. With his head down like that, the retired racehorse—who had loved nothing more than to run like the wind with Dale on his back—was reduced to a sad brown blob of misery in the distance.

  She wondered for the millionth time whether they should get Charlie a goat or a donkey for company, but it wasn’t fair to ask Erin to take on even more responsibility. She already had to feed the poor thing, scoop his stall out every evening, and deep-clean his stall every weekend. Dale had done those jobs because Charlie had been his horse, but Charlie, like everyone else in the family, had lived a diminished existence ever since Dale died.

  “Erin,” she said as they sat in the car and waited for the garage door to creak open. “Please go out to the barn and take care of Charlie before you do anything else, okay?”

  “Dammit, Mom,” Erin groused. “I have a ton of homework to do.”

  “And the whole weekend to do it,” Heather replied, ignoring the fact that Erin had just said dammit. There were some arguments she didn’t have the strength for, and right this minute, Erin’s little outburst was one of them.

  Heather parked the car in the garage and got out before her temptation to be a better mother got the best of her. It was fine, she told herself, to let Erin’s bad language slide, just this once. “Get all your stuff out of the car,” she said over her shoulder. “I don’t want any Monday-morning hysteria about not being able to find something you left in the car.”

  In the kitchen, Caroline and Josh fed the dog while Heather set a pot of salted water and a skillet on the stove. Erin hefted her backpack onto the granite-topped island then slammed out the door on her way to feed Charlie Horse.

  Heather thought about the weeks she and Dale had spent picking out that countertop when they built this house. They’d gone to every granite store in the state of Louisiana (and a few in Mississippi) until they found a beautiful slab in the subdued browns and grays Dale could live with that also contained the interesting striations of silver and crystal formations she insisted upon.

  Everything, everything—from the distressed-leather wall treatment she had chosen to the unimaginative white ceilings and trim she’d let him have—everything reminded her of him. And every time she noticed or remembered anything about the building of this house, she sent up a prayer of thanks that Dale had insisted on buying more life insurance than she’d thought they could afford.

  Dale’s life insurance had paid off the house and covered the bills for a year so she could continue being a stay-at-home mom. That gift had allowed her to keep their lives as consistent as possible. Taking a job would change a lot, but at least they could afford to keep living here.

  Heather sighed and went back to smashing the browning ground beef and seasoned sausage in the skillet into ever more tiny chunks. The time of respite and recovery she had resolved to give herself and her kids was now over, and time continued to march onward.

  Dale’s birthday would have been next Wednesday. The first missed birthday after Dale died came when they were all still shell-shocked, so the kids hadn’t remembered. This time, though, they might. Heather wondered if she should plan something to commemorate the date—maybe a visit to the cemetery followed by a special dinner.

  Jasper nosed her leg, looking for a handout, his little stub tail wagging. She handed him a chunk of cooked carrot, which she’d been chopping finely enough to hide in the spaghetti sauce. He took it from her fingers so gently that it warmed her heart.

  Jasper nosed her leg again. “Ever hopeful,” she said to his pleading brown-and-blue-marbled eyes. She gave him another carrot and stroked the whirlwind-shaped cowlick in the middle of the white blaze at the bridge of his nose.

  Aside from the cowlick, Jasper was a perfectly marked red merle Australian Shepherd. The pure-white blaze that started at the tip of his nose went up his forehead to widen between his ears and join up with the ruff around his neck. His feet and legs had white socks edged in copper, and the rest of his thick wavy coat was speckled in shades from the lightest honey to the darkest brown.

  “You’re gonna like working at the shelter, aren’t you, Jasper?”

  The dog panted, smiling. Always happy, always spreading joy. Jasper was actually one of the reasons Heather had decided to take the job at the shelter. Where else could she work that would allow her to b
ring her kids and the dog?

  The only fly in her ointment at the shelter was Adrian Crawford and her conflicted feelings toward him. Because sometimes, when she noticed him looking at her with those deep, dark midnight-blue eyes or when he brushed past her with his overtly masculine presence (because even in those leather loafers he wore sometimes, there was no denying his masculinity), she would remember that she wasn’t just Dale’s widow; she was a woman.

  And every time it happened—those little wisps of connection that clung to her skin like strands of spiderweb for hours afterward—she felt as guilty as if she’d just woken from an erotic but disturbing dream in which she had cheated on Dale.

  Her husband, the love of her life, was gone. She knew that it wasn’t possible to cheat on a dead man. But her newly awakening womanhood felt as uncomfortable as the pins-and-needles feeling of a gone-to-sleep limb whose circulation was just beginning to flow again. In a way, it felt good. But it also hurt, maybe more than she could bear.

  Chapter 3

  Adrian sat across from Quinn in the hot tub at Reva’s house and gazed out over the green pastures that rolled out behind Bayside Barn and eventually led to the marsh-lined bay.

  Quinn leaned back and sighed. “Glad you decided to stay a while.”

  “Your offer of a cold beer by the hot tub was hard to argue with.”

  Reva and Abby stepped onto the patio with their hands full. Reva set a couple of hors d’oeuvre plates on the edge of the hot tub, while Abby handed out Stella Artois to the guys and wine to the ladies. Abby sat beside Quinn, then Reva sat between the two men and held her wineglass out for a toast. “I’m so glad you agreed to stay a bit longer before heading home.”

  “Me too.” Adrian joined in the toast and took a sip, then set his bottle aside. “Thanks for the invite.”

  “Mind that bottle,” Reva warned. “Georgia will knock it over if it gets between her and the tennis ball.”