Page 23 of Family Bonds: Carter & Avery

“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.

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