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“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.
Asshole.
“I’m not trying to be nosy,” Kendall said.
“But you were curious and I’m new to the island. It’s fine. Ask me anything. I’m sure you both did some internet research on me.”
Melody looked embarrassed, Kendall not so much. It was the way of the world. “We know you’re from Danbury and worked there. This is the first practice you owned.”
“You didn’t see where I had a child or was married and wondered. It’s nothing illegal,” she said, grinning.
“It’s not like we thought you kidnapped Josie,” Kendall said.
She started to laugh. The younger woman was refreshing. “Hardly. And since Laine interviewed you, I’m sure she told you we went to college together. She’s on the town board and knew they were looking for a vet to come to the island. She reached out to me knowing the situation I was in. It was good timing. Things fell into place much faster than I thought they would.”
“Faster than the island thought too,” Melody said. “As I’ve said, I’ve lived here for years and there is always talk. Anything that has to do with the Bonds more so.”
She’d heard that from Laine. “I suppose it’s hard not to have it be that way.”
She’d met with the school last Thursday and got that squared away. Then she’d met with Alana Nadir who worked for Kelsey Raymond whose firm would also be taking care of her finances for the business.
Thankfully it was a point of purchase business and she didn’t have to worry too much about generating bills and waiting on payment.
Melody already picked up fast with the software, printing invoices and collecting payments to apply right to them. She knew how to print those reports to go with the money collected. At the end of the month, she’d bring it all to Alana and go from there. Melody was also going to be paying bills and she was going to sit in on a web training to figure all those things out in the software.
Things were coming together not only faster but better.
“You’ll get used to it,” Melody said. “You’ve got ten appointments today.”
“I can’t believe I’ve got that many and wasn’t even supposed to be taking patients fully until next week.”
“It’s all good,” Melody said. “People are thrilled to know you are here. I’ve had all the patients fill out information prior to coming in if I could and have entered them as new patients into the system.”
“That’s wonderful,” she said. “Anything to make it easier for you and more efficient. Speaking of that, there are some appliances being delivered for the breakroom. A bigger fridge, microwave and toaster oven. Do you guys want a Keurig here or a coffee pot?”
“That would be great,” Kendall said. “I like my coffee and this stops me from drinking it so fast in the morning.”
“Then I’ll pick one up this week,” she said. Josie liked hot chocolate from it too so another easy thing to have here.
At the end of another successful day at her new job, Josie and she were sitting outside on the little deck with Betty playing at her new home.
Her phone rang and she picked it up to see her mother calling her.
