Secrets in the Sand by Carolyn Brown

            Ignoring the goat—she could figure out how he’d gotten out of the pasture and into the yard tomorrow—Abby stood and set her empty wineglass next to her towel. The cooling night air tingled on her bare skin, raising goose bumps. She stepped onto the diving board, bounced a few times, and dove into the cool water.

            ***

            Quinn sat by the pool in the gathering dusk. The frogs’ mating song blended nicely with his new favorite song, “Any Man in America.”

            He felt kind of bad that tomorrow he would destroy the frogs’ happy habitat with pool chemicals and a scrub broom. But maybe frogs also needed to learn about getting too comfortable and feeling too safe.

            The Blue October song ended. Silence…then a strange rustling noise in the privacy hedge. Was crazy Old Ms. McDonald snooping on him? He eased to his feet and padded over, planning to surprise the old bat.

            The hedge shook. He pulled apart a couple branches and met two blue eyes with strange-shaped pupils. He jumped back. What the fork?

            He bent down and encountered a devil’s face, complete with horns. “Maaa,” the thing bellowed.

            “I’ll be damned.” Quinn picked up a stick and poked it through the hedge-covered chain-link fence, right into the goat’s nose.

            “Maaa…” The goat bolted, leaving a perfect, goat-head-sized peephole into his new neighbor’s backyard.

            The sparkling-clean pool glowing blue, lit from within.

            The kidney-shaped patio surrounded by globe lights.

            His next-door neighbor’s perfectly proportioned body diving naked into the swimming pool.

            “Whoa.” Quinn stumbled back, tripped over something, and fell on his ass.

            He wouldn’t be able to think of her as Old Ms. McDonald anymore.





Chapter 4


            It didn’t surprise Quinn that he had trouble falling asleep that night, even though he had worked hard all day. Visions of his neighbor’s slim, toned body and wavy brown hair followed him into fitful dreams.

            In the first dream, she popped up from his frog-filled pool and wrapped her green-scaled mermaid arms around his neck. Pulling him into the murky depths, she showed him her magical cave of hidden delights. He knew she intended to keep him there forever, and he wanted to stay, until he realized with a shock that he couldn’t breathe underwater.

            Lungs convulsing, he broke free and kicked for the surface, but strong tendrils of seaweed dragged him down. He hacked at the seaweed, which turned into the dismembered arms and grasping fingers of all the other men she had lured under and destroyed.

            He woke gasping for air, his legs tangled in the stiff, dye-smelling sheets on his new king-size bed. He got up and staggered to the kitchen, where he drank some water and shook off the lingering shreds of the dream’s strange eroticism. When he went back to bed, sleep eluded him at first. He flipped and flopped like a gutted fish until the deep-throated burp of mating bullfrogs sang him back to sleep.

            In the next dream, the woman next door wore the same yellow bathrobe and cowboy boots he’d seen her in this morning. She stood beside his bed, her hawklike eyes devouring him, but he didn’t care. He knew she had some kind of mojo that was working on him, but he lacked the power to resist whatever magic she possessed.

            Willing to die, he flung back the sheets.

            She dropped the yellow robe and straddled him, her muddy boots digging into the new mattress. She rode him hard, waving a cowboy hat and yelling “Go, Bayside Buddy, go!”

            Exhausted, he woke after dawn, disturbed by the strident wails of restless donkeys. He kicked free of the twisted sheets and sat on the edge of the bed.

            Maybe he should admit defeat, sell this place for exactly what he’d paid, and go to work for another builder. Who cared about all the time and money spent getting his contractor’s license? Who cared about crafting his own business as an independent contractor? Who cared about polishing up this old gem of an estate and reselling at a hefty profit?

            Unfortunately, he cared.

            Flipping this place and making a profit wasn’t just about flipping this place and making a profit. It was about rebuilding his relationship with his son. It was about showing his ex-wife that she’d made an even bigger mistake than he had. It was about making a new life for himself in Magnolia Bay and establishing his construction company as a valued member of the business community.