She took the chart. “Can you show them to exam room one, which I know is the one Dr. Mullins uses? Once Kendall is all set up, I’ll have her doing that, but I want to look this over quickly.”

  “I’m used to it,” Roseann said. “By the way, the place looks great. I think I spent five minutes walking around and looking at all the finished work.”

  “The volunteers did a wonderful job,” she said. “I never expected this.”

  “You’ll learn the island is a great place to live. Everyone takes care of their own.”

  Which she found out by the end of the day.

  She was exhausted but in such a rewarding way.

  She’d seen patients, she’d talked with Dr. Mullins, Melody and Roseann were bonding and working well and she was positive she was going to have Roseann stay on a few days already.

  The phone had been ringing off the hook and she had over fifty appointments added to what Dr. Mullins had scheduled for next week.

  Some were to see her; others Kendall could care for.

  Lots of the patients were new and transferring from the mainland, so those appointments would take longer to get their history one on one so she’d had them scheduled as such.

  She’d run out to get lunch for everyone, walking home to get her SUV and then picking it up and deciding she should have done that in the first place rather than carrying everything over on the walk.

  She’d know better tomorrow when she came in.

  “Did you have fun today?” she asked Josie when they walked into their house a little after five.

  “I did,” Josie said. “It was fun to watch all the action and see the animals. I can’t wait to get my own dog. Will you bring the dog to work with you every day?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  She’d told her staff if they had dogs they could bring them in as long as they were well behaved. Kendall didn’t because the apartment she was in didn’t allow it. Roseann had a cat that was ornery and best left at home. Melody didn’t have a pet but was seriously considering it now, she’d said.

  “What’s for dinner?” Josie asked. “I’m hungry.”

  “How about we make some burgers,” she said. “I’d like to pick up a grill this weekend if I can find one to have delivered.”

  “I love grilled food,” Josie said.

  Avery knew that, which was why she’d said it. She had an older grill at her old place but didn’t want to bring it with the move. Some things were better to buy here, but then she started to wonder if that was smart and maybe things like that weren’t on the island.

  She should have asked Laine more questions, but there were too many other things she had to focus on.

  “Can I see some of the pictures you drew today while I get dinner cooking?” she asked.

  Josie ran and got her sketch pad out of her bag and brought it back to the kitchen, flipped through and showed her all the pets she’d drawn that she’d seen today.

  “Those are great,” Avery said. “You know what? I think we need to put them in frames and hang them in my office and in the exam rooms too. Don’t you think?”

  “Really?” Josie asked.

  “Yes. I think we need to have rotating pictures all the time if you want to draw them for me.”

  “Yay!” Josie said, doing a fist pump.

  She didn’t know how she got so lucky to end up with such an easygoing child in her care. “Why don’t you go get washed up for dinner? It’s almost ready.”

  Avery watched Josie run out of the room, her skinny legs eating up the space and her feet pounding on the stairs. She was glad Josie was okay spending time at the clinic this week and then this weekend she’d let her start on her murals too. Just so much going on. She was thrilled that Melody, Kendall and Roseann would be good on their own for a bit while she got more things squared away.

  She found it funny that no one asked her about Josie. They didn’t even ask if it was her daughter or not or if she was married, divorced, or where Josie’s father was.

  She expected those questions to come soon.

  7

  Dog Lover

  Carter took a lunch break at one. He didn’t normally do that, but he needed to talk to Avery and didn’t have her contact information. He thought he’d take a chance that she’d be at the clinic since he’d heard she was filling up fast with appointments.

  He was glad he already had Doc’s next appointment scheduled with Dr. Mullins, but he’d tell them they could put him anywhere as he didn’t care at this point.

  Or maybe he’d let it go. He’d be bringing Doc in next week for the last of her shots for a while. No reason to say he’d rather see Avery when he didn’t have a problem with Dr. Mullins.

  But he didn’t want to wait with what he had to say to her.

  “Carter,” Roseann said when he walked in the front door. “Is everything okay with Dopey and Doc? I don’t have you on the schedule and Dr. Keegan has a few appointments today.”

  Shit, he hadn’t thought of that. “No,” he said. “I was actually looking to talk to Dr. Keegan about something if she’s not with anyone.”

  “She is with a patient,” Roseann said. “But she should be done soon.” Roseann turned and he could see two other women in the back office from where he was standing. Both were sitting at the desks that Bode had built in. “Melody and Kendall, come meet Carter Bond. He’s the one that pushed for a full-time vet here and then did a lot of rehab work and organized others. The place looks great.”

  Both women stood up and rushed over. Or the younger one did. “Hi. I’m Kendall. Thank you so much for doing this. I’ve been dying to come to the island but had no reason to other than visit. There were no jobs here for me before and since I went to school for this and love animals I didn’t want to give up my dreams, but now they are coming true.”

  Wow, that was a mouthful. “I’m glad,” he said.

  “I’m Melody,” the other said. “I’m the office manager. Kendall is the vet tech.” Which he figured as much by how they were dressed. Kendall was in scrubs, Melody in pants and a shirt.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  “We’ve met before,” Melody said. “I mean you’ve done work on our cars. Normally you deal with my husband, but I’ve been to the garage once to drop him off.”

  “Sorry,” he said. He wasn’t surprised that he didn’t remember or recognize her. He was good with faces at times but not names, and if someone had only been in once and it’d been a while, he was clueless.

  “Hi, Carter.”

  He turned to see Josie standing in the doorway from the waiting room that led to the exam rooms.

  “Hi, Josie.”

  “Where’s Dopey? I want to meet Doc too. Do you have them with you?”

  He knew there were three sets of eyes on him behind the opening, but Josie couldn’t see them. They couldn’t see Josie either.

  “No,” he said. “They are at the garage.”

  “You leave them alone?” Josie asked.

  “My mother has Doc in her office with her. Dopey hangs out with the guys working. He’s good.”

  “He is good,” Josie said. “He let me pet him for a long time the other night and never moved.”

  “Dopey likes the attention,” he said.

  “Do you have a picture of Dopey?” Josie asked. “I’ve been drawing pictures of dogs as they come in. I ask the owners if I can take a picture and then draw them and Avery is going to put them in frames on the walls. But Dopey isn’t here for a picture.”

  He pulled his phone out. “I do have a lot of pictures, but don’t know how to get it to you. Can you take a picture of it on my phone?”

  Josie turned and ran from him, he wasn’t sure what he said, but she was back fast with an iPad in her hand. He assumed that was what she was using to take pictures.

  He held his phone out with a picture of Dopey on it and she snapped it. “Do you have one of Doc too?”

  He swiped through and found one of his puppy, and she snapped that picture too.

  “Doc will be here next week for an appointment. You can get a better one then if you’re here.”

  “I’ll be here,” Josie said. “Until school starts, I’m staying here.”

  “She’s having more fun than my staff.”

  Carter looked up and saw Avery standing there. “Hi. Sorry to bother you. If you’ve got a minute? Alone.”

  He was looking at Josie and realized he shouldn’t say this in front of her, as he wasn’t sure what turmoil it might cause.

  “Sure,” she said. “Why don’t you come back to the exam room with me?”

  He followed her to the second exam room. The first one had the door shut and he heard voices in there and assumed that was where she’d come from and noticed that Kendall had left his view when he was talking to Josie.

  “Sorry to drop in like this. I know you said that Josie could get a puppy, but you had to find one.”

  “I did,” she said.

  “I had a customer come in today. Good family. They’d bought a miniature poodle for their parent who is in her seventies. They thought it’d keep their mother company, but after a few weeks, it’s not working out.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Ester, Connie’s mother, said a puppy was more work than she thought. She doesn’t want to always be letting a dog out at night or even during the day. She thought it’d be easier. Connie and her husband work and don’t feel right leaving the dog home alone all day.”

  He wasn’t one that talked much, but when people came in that owned dogs, they knew how much of a dog lover he was and would chat.

  In this case it was working in his favor. He hadn’t said anything to Connie about what he was doing, but Josie came to mind. Connie would be back in to get her car at four and he was hoping maybe he could let her know.

  “That would be a good dog in size and temperament for Josie. How old is the dog, do you know?”

  “Betty is about thirteen weeks. They’ve had her for a little over two weeks or so.”

  “Betty?” she asked.

  “It’s a white dog. Betty White? I’m sure the name can be changed.”

  She laughed. “That’s cute. Thank you for telling me. I think Josie would love a poodle. And it’d be one thing off my list of a million to do right now. One that would make her very happy.”

  “She seems pretty happy to me,” he said.

  “She is overall. But this would be great for her.” Avery walked over to the counter and opened a drawer. “If you want to give her my card to call me if she’s interested, I’d love to go check the dog out and see what Josie thinks of her.”

  He took the card out of Avery’s hand. Their fingers brushed and he felt a jolt of heat hit him hard in the chest. He wasn’t sure that had ever happened before and felt a little bit like a wuss.

  “I can do that. She’ll be in to get her car at four when she gets out of work. Connie, that is. Not Ester. Connie is the one that bought the dog and is taking care of finding a new home.”

  “I won’t say anything to Josie then until we know for sure they are willing to let the dog go. No reason to get a little girl’s hopes up.”

  “Hopefully she calls you soon then,” he said.

  “I’ll walk you out. I heard you said Doc will be here next week. Can’t wait to meet her.”

  “She’s a handful. Well, as much of a handful as a St. Bernard can be.”

  “Puppy energy,” she said. “It’s a great thing and probably keeps Dopey on his toes.”

  “And then some,” he said.

  He left after that, waved to Roseann at the desk and drove back to his garage.

  “Where did you go?” Simon asked him when he came back in.

  Carter grabbed his coveralls and put them back on. No way he was going to see Avery in them. Just because he owned a garage and worked in one his whole adult life and most of his teenage years, didn’t mean he had to walk around town looking it.

  “I had to run an errand,” he said. “Didn’t know I had to report to you.”

  Simon laughed at him. Simon had worked for his father for years and stayed on. Good guy, hard worker, just asked questions all the time for no reason in his mind.

  He could look past it because it wasn’t easy to find good staff. Or staff at all on the island.

  “Nope,” Simon said. “You don’t.”

  Carter went back to the engine he was working on. He needed to walk away from it because he was getting close to cursing and swearing trying to get the parts off the fucker to get to where he needed to replace some pistons.

  He’d started on this car today and would be lucky to get it done by Monday and that would be putting a few hours in on it tomorrow if things slowed down. Normally on Saturdays, he was open from eight until three and did simple things that popped up last minute. He tried not to get sucked into long repairs like this.

  Between being on call nonstop with his tow trucks and working Saturdays, he barely got a day off.

  He was thrilled to have Simon in the garage at all times along with Jason, a young kid that grew up on the island and was in and out of his garage hanging out for years. Jason did simple things like oil changes and brakes and dealt with picking cars up on the tow truck when calls came in during working hours.

  His cousin Alex did a lot of the simple repairs too. Brakes, tires, oil changes. Things that were in and out and done in a few hours. But he didn’t have Alex full time.

  Thankfully his father and Uncle Bill took jobs when he had a lot of overflow. Which was often. Many didn’t mind going to his uncle’s house for the work and he didn’t feel like he couldn’t service someone or didn’t want their business.

  There were only so many hours in the day and it always came back to trying to help someone out, no matter who did the work.

  That had been drilled into his head from when he knew he’d be the one to take over the family business.

  There was no walking away at the end of the day. He’d known that and was happy he had a successful career even if many looked down on it.

  8

  Getting There

  “Oh, you’ve got a puppy,” Kendall said.

  Avery smiled when she and Josie came in Monday morning. Josie was carrying the barely four-pound dog in her arms.

  “This is Betty,” Josie said. “We got her on Saturday. Isn’t she so cute?”

  Josie put Betty down on the floor and the puppy was hopping around and going to check out Kendall. “She’s very cute.”

  “Can you keep an eye on the two of them while I go get the crate I picked up to keep here?”

  She’d bought everything off of Ester and Connie so that Betty had things she was familiar with and then she only had to buy another crate to leave in her office.

  “I’d love to,” Kendall said.

  Avery went back to her SUV, got the crate and brought it in to set up in her office, then grabbed her bag full of lunch and snacks and drinks. She had a fridge being delivered for the little break room along with a big water jug that would be replaced when low. With the fridge were a microwave and toaster oven too.

  She wanted her staff to feel like they could break away to eat or not sit at the desk. She also wanted to eat more than sandwiches herself and have things for Josie here too.

  She was almost tempted to get a TV mounted on the wall for Josie but then decided against that. No reason Josie needed to watch TV here. She’d be starting school in a few weeks and then she’d have work to do and only be here a few hours at the end of the day anyway.

  She would put a TV in the waiting room though. No reason not to for people waiting. Not that she wanted people to wait long, but she was filling up with appointments faster than she thought possible on this island.

  Once she had everything in her office, she went back to where Josie and Kendall were and noticed Melody had come in and was playing with the puppy too.

  “I’ve got you set up in my office, Josie. Let’s go show Betty her new bed, but we’ll let her out first. Remember, when Betty wakes up from her nap, what do you do?”

  “I let her out of the crate and put her harness on her and bring her to the backyard to go to the bathroom.”

  “And where do you stay for that?”

  “Right by the door where someone can see me,” Josie said. “Or I have to come get you.”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Josie can get me,” Melody said.

  “Or me,” Kendall said.

  “Thank you both so much.”

  She wouldn’t ask them to care for her dog too but was glad they were willing.

  She went outside with Betty and Josie, let the dog do her business and then got Josie settled in for the morning.

  There were still about twenty minutes left before her first appointment of the day too.

  Kendall was looking around when she got back. “Can we ask you something?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Josie. We know she’s not your daughter. She calls you by your first name.”

  Avery was surprised they hadn’t asked before now. “Josie’s mother, Colleen, was my best friend. Colleen died almost a year ago in an accident. She was a single mother and I was, am, Josie’s legal guardian. She’s my child now, but I’m not sure she’ll ever call me Mom.”

  “That’s so sad,” Melody said.

  “It is. It was. We are getting there. It will be a year in less than two weeks. We needed a fresh start and new life. A new adventure, you could say.”

  “She seems so well adjusted,” Melody said.

  “She’s an easy child, which I’m thankful for. I’ve been in her life from the day she was born. I was there when she was born.”

  Colleen’s loser ex had been out of the picture at that point. He’d said he wanted to know when the baby was born but then never showed up. No doctor’s appointments, nothing.

  Colleen didn’t put his name on the birth certificate and legally made sure he had no rights to Josie. Mike even signed away his right to visitations to get out of paying child support.