Page 55 of Family Bonds: Carter & Avery

“Huh?” Seth asked.

“One room,” Avery said quickly. “Josie has a love of art. She draws and paints and takes lessons.”

“I heard that,” Ava said. “Adele wants to go to the kid's art class on Monday, but they started already. I told her she could for the next session.”

“Yes,” she said. “Laine and I are friends from college. She’s the one who told me about the island looking for a full-time vet.”

“That makes sense,” Ava said. “I’ve met Laine before for one of her wine and paint nights. That was a ball. I’d love to do it again, not that I’ll be having any wine anytime soon or time to paint.”

“You can take a few hours to yourself when you’re up for it,” Seth said. “You know I’ll stay with the kids.”

She found that so sweet that Seth was already volunteering to do that for his wife. Her father didn’t watch her for ten minutes so her mother could shower, she remembered.

“It seems there are a lot of connections on this island,” she said. “But the house we are renting from Bond Realty, Drew said that we could paint it whatever we wanted. I thought it’d be nice to have a chalkboard wall for Josie.”

“I doodle on that all the time,” Josie said. “It’s so much fun.”

“Then the other three walls I told her she could paint murals on. That is what she’s doing. It’s not as if she is walking around the house with a marker and making faces on the walls.”

“Unlike some little girl I know that did that,” Seth said.

“I was four,” Adele said with her hands on her hips. “I was a kid.”

“You’re still a kid,” Seth said, tugging on his daughter’s ponytail.

Avery pulled her phone out so she could show them what Josie did. Maybe they’d understand more. “Here is the almost finished mural. I say almost because I think it’s perfect, but Josie is always adding to it.”

“You took a picture of it?” Josie asked.

“I did,” she said. “I have to show it off to people.”

Josie ran and hugged her. She kissed the little girl on the forehead and handed her phone to Ava. “Holy cow. You painted that, Josie?”

“I did. It’s a picture of my mom’s favorite place. She loved pink and purple flowers and it was a field by our old house.”

Avery knew her eyes were going to fill and noticed Ava’s did too. Ava passed the phone to Seth to look. “Very pretty.”

“Thank you,” Josie said. “I don’t know what I’m painting on the other walls yet. I’ve been drawing lots of things and will decide when I’m ready. I think I want to paint my friend’s dogs with Betty on it.”

“Whose dogs?” Adele asked. “I don’t know anyone with dogs in our class.”

“Dopey and Doc. My friend Carter’s dogs. They are huge and so much fun to play with.”

Avery rolled her eyes and saw Ava and Seth grinning.

Yeah, it was best to keep whatever she had with Carter from Josie right now until she knew more.

There was no doubt Josie was already attached and she wasn’t sure how to handle this.

18

Play It Down

“Ididn’t know you were dating someone,” Grayson asked when Carter walked into his parents’ house on Sunday afternoon.

He wasn’t surprised this came up, but he expected it from his mother and not his brother.

“You are?” Natalie asked. His sister didn’t always know what was going on. She kept to herself most times even though she worked for The Retreat and was around other family members.

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