knew what poor creature cowered on the receiving end of her scolding. Not more kittens; Georgia never barked at cats. Probably a snake…
Abby’s ever-present stream of worry escalated into a roaring river of panic. “Georgia!”
***
Wolf sat on his haunches under the canopy of vines. The little multicolored dog shot into the cat’s-claw forest and charged at him. Hackles raised, she lowered her copper eyebrow spots into a fierce scowl and growled. “You don’t belong here.”
Wolf looked away, showing deference.
Georgia advanced. “What are you doing here? Go away.”
Wolf hunkered down and crawled backward, retreating farther into the shadows. He refused to meet the challenge in her intelligent brown eyes, but he tried to use his body language to send a message of peace. “I won’t hurt you.”
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” she insisted. “Go home.”
He eased back until his tail brushed the front wall of the half-roofed house hidden beneath the grasping vines. He’d been sheltering here ever since his human caretaker drove him far from home and shoved him off the back of the truck.
Discarded in disgrace.
He didn’t understand why, even after days of hunger and thirst and thinking, thinking, thinking.
The woman’s voice called out. “Georgia. Get back here, now.” Beneath the command was fear, concern, love. His chest felt as heavy as the water-filled doormat he had once—in his exuberant puppyhood—dragged off the porch and torn up.
The dog named Georgia looked back but didn’t retreat. “You don’t belong here. Go home.”
Wolf lowered his elbows to the ground and flattened himself in submission. He sent a silent message to Georgia. “I can’t go home. I am being punished. My people left me here, and I think they will come back for me. I have to wait.”
Georgia sat, panting. “What did you do wrong?”
Wolf didn’t know. He waited for Georgia to ask a different question he might know the answer to.
“Georgia,” the woman’s voice called out, still high-pitched with anxiety but softer and sweeter than before. “Girlfriend, what are you doing in there?”
Her voiceless reply: “I am talking to the gold-eyed dog-thing.”
So. She could tell he wasn’t fully dog or fully wolf. She turned her fierce gaze on him, but the white tip of her thick brown tail flickered a greeting.
“Georgia.” The woman’s voice sounded sharp again, the tone veering between fear and love. “Get back here.”
Georgia stood. “Abby is calling me. I do what I want, but it is time for me to go. You can stay.” She turned tail and trotted back to the woman.
Wolf put his head on his paws and ignored the hungry rumbling of his belly.
***
With a last parting shot in the one-sided argument, Georgia bounded out of the cat’s-claw, her gray speckled coat covered in damp yellow petals.
Abby’s concern evaporated. “Did you tell ’em?”
Georgia sneezed, a gesture that looked like an emphatic yes.
“Good. Can we please go home now?” Abby waited for Georgia to trot past, then closed the wrought-iron gate and fastened the padlock. “What in the world were you barking at?”
Georgia danced around Abby’s feet, whining and yipping as if she had important information to share.
Reva claimed that anyone could communicate with animals, and she’d given Abby a hundred thousand short tutorials. But as Reva had often said, practice and trust were essential ingredients, and Abby had to admit that she hadn’t provided either of them. So if Georgia was trying to say something, Abby didn’t get it. She petted the good dog’s silky head. “Whatever it was, I’m sure you took care of it.”
But an image of watchful gold eyes made Abby’s shoulders twitch. Georgia barked, tail wagging, reminding Abby that daylight was fading fast. “You’re right. It’s time to feed critters and toss the ball.”
In the big barn with its hand-painted sign—Welcome, Bayside Barn Buddies—above the open double doors, Abby poured feed into various bowls and buckets, humming along with the faint melody coming from the new neighbor’s stereo. It played loud enough for her to hear the tune, but not loud enough for her to recognize the words. After seeing him on that motorcycle, dressed in black leather, she might have expected him to be the sort to play abrasive music with abusive lyrics loud enough to rattle the windows.
Maybe he would be a good neighbor to Aunt Reva, who had never quite fit in here in Magnolia Bay. Though she had married a born-and-bred resident of the area, her hippie clothing and unusual talent of telepathic animal communication made most people around here act a little standoffish. When