Page 18 of Family Bonds: Carson & Laine

She didn’t get a lot of walk-in traffic in the winter. It was more a place for her to do her pottery. She didn’t want to do it in her home. Not enough space and it was a dirty business. The painting was more important to her.

“I’m sure you’re busier during the tourist season,” he said.

“Very. During the winter it's more about painting and building my portfolio for galleries and showings.”

“Do you go to showings?” he asked. “Like to show collections?”

“I do,” she said. She didn’t mind traveling when it called for it. She was all for living in the moment and experiencing as much as she could. She’d made a lot of friends in the process too.

“Often?” he asked.

“A few times a year,” she said. “I have to build up collections for that. I’m not a mass produced machine, but sometimes I feel that way. I’ve got showings coming up in the fall. Several in a row.”

She could spend days nonstop just painting. In the winter she painted more in the studio in town, as she didn’t worry about so many interruptions from walk-in traffic. She had one full-time staff that worked for her and a part timer, allowing her the time for her creative process.

“You have to do what works for you,” he said. “I’d say you’ve got that mastered.”

His eyes were traveling the length of her in her dress, to her bare feet that were crossed in front of her. Her toenails were a soft pink. She liked to feel like a woman.

“Why thank you,” she said. “Something tells me that you do what you want and what works for you. Even having a twin brother. Or maybe that is more of a reason to be your own person?”

“We’ll get to that,” he said. “Why don’t you continue with you first?”

“Sure,” she said agreeably. It was better to get her side out.

“Tell me about your father,” he said. “I think that is a big part of all of this. Or why you wanted to see me?”

“Oh,” she said, taking a sip of her wine and batting her eyelashes over the rim. “I’ve wanted to see you up close for a long time.”

He grinned at her. “Wish I’d known before your dance moves.”

“I’m not a shy person, but there hadn’t been a time to talk to you. You don’t go to town meetings. You don’t come into my studio. I’ve seen you around more than anything. Maybe I’ve done my research on the Bond family, as I said, being part of the island as a business owner and an active member of the community.”

“And we thank you for your service,” he said. “Though it’s not a lot of me or my branch of the family.”

“You’re all part of the same family and this island means as much to you as it does to your cousins. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have moved to this small island to practice and stayed in either Boston or Plymouth.”

“Boston,” he said. “Hudson was able to come over first. They had an opening for an ER doctor before a radiologist. He bought a house here and I came about a year later or so and just lived with him. But when he started to date Delaney seriously, I knew it was time for my own place and found one fast.”

“One you love or just the first one?” she asked.

He laughed. “It’s a house,” he said. “I like it and have done some work in it and made it mine. I will admit that it’s in town more and doesn’t have nearly the view that you’ve got.”

“My place is small and even with the view probably cost much less than yours.”

Though she paid a pretty penny for it and did a few upgrades too, her two-bedroom, one-bath home was more cozy and quaint. It was all about the location more than anything else.

She’d grown up in a grand home with lots of land. She wanted something of her own and got it here.

“Value is what we make it,” he said. “I feel as if you’re stalling with me. You even commented on your career being a nudge from your father.”

Which she wished she hadn’t said. She couldn’t or wouldn’t say the wealth behind her name right now.

Even though she knew Carson had a ton of wealth and maybe more than her family if all put together. His was old wealth, her father’s wasn’t.

“My father was encouraging. I’ll explain it. I told you my father has been in a wheelchair since he was twenty and in college. He and my mother were out partying. They were in a part of town they shouldn’t have been. It was an area of drag racing, but that isn’t why they were there. They’d gone to see fireworks, sit out by a bonfire on the beach close by. But they heard the action of the car race and went to check it out.”

“I’m not sure I want to hear this,” he said.

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