“Why don’t we get some breakfast and then we can both shower and go to Grandma’s. What do you want to eat?”
“Can I have muffins?”
“I don’t have any muffins in the house,” he said. “You should have said something when we were at the store yesterday.”
“I was thinking of tomato soup,” she said, frowning.
“We can get some next week. How about one of those frozen waffles you like so much?”
“Yes, please.”
That was easy enough, so he went to the kitchen to pull the fluffy creations out of the freezer and popped them in the toaster oven. He’d make three and have two himself.
While they were cooking, he started to brew his coffee knowing he’d need a shot of caffeine to get through the day after his sleepless night thinking of another woman.
Two hours later, they were both showered, dressed and Adele’s hair braided when they walked into his mother’s house.
“Happy Easter,” his mother said, moving toward him to kiss his cheek and then hug Adele. “Did the Bunny bring you something good? Oh, look at your hair.”
“Daddy did it. Ava showed him how.”
“Ava?” his mother asked, lifting her eyebrow. “What am I missing here?”
“Daddy knows Ava from work and we ran into her in the store and I said her hair was pretty in a braid and asked if she could show Daddy how to do it. Then she came over for pizza yesterday afternoon and taught him. She’s really nice. She said maybe another day she will teach me how to do it on my dolls, but she had to leave after we ate.”
“Interesting,” his mother said. “Adele, why don’t you go in the living room and see what Grammy got you for Easter?”
Adele had already shed her jacket and Seth reached down to get it from the floor as he watched his daughter run the short distance to the living room.
“It’s not the time,” he told his mother.
“We’ve got a few minutes, so fill me in.”
He sighed, knowing she meant well. “Dr. Ava Mills. She had an issue with her account a few weeks ago that I helped her out with.” He wasn’t going into details, but it wasn’t often that he spent time with customers and he didn’t want his mother to think Ava was an employee. He’d never do that. “As Adele said, we ran into her at the store yesterday.”
“Does she live on the island?”
“She is transferring here in June, I believe. She just has a rotation here now.”
“Mills, you say? As in the Mills that are related to the Bonds?”
“Yes,” he said quickly. “Again, not the time.”
“Answer me this. Was it a one time thing that Adele pressured you both on or more?”
He wasn’t sure how to answer it just yet. “I’m not sure.”
“What do you want though?”
He thought and finally said, “More.” But there was guilt there too. Did he have enough in him to give to his daughter and a woman? It didn’t seem it in the past.
“Then I’m even happier,” his mother said. “Whether it works out or not, the fact that you want more means you are ready to move on.”
“Is it smart to?”
“Seth,” his mother said quietly. “You’re thirty-six years old. Too young to remain single the rest of your life and you know it. You’re meant to be a family man. You’re meant to have more than one child.”
“But that isn’t a reason to jump.”
“After three years I’m not sure there is a person on the face of this earth who would think you are jumping anything. Or maybe that is the issue. You want to jump something?” she asked, grinning at him.
He hated when she talked like that and embarrassed him. “Don’t go there.”
“Fine,” she said, patting his arm. “What kind of doctor?”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to admit this, but his mother could find out easy enough. “Obgyn.”
“Oh,” his mother said, her smile dropping. “Talk about jumping into an ice bath without a blanket to warm up with after.”
“I don’t hold all of that profession guilty for what happened. You know that. It’d be stupid when stuff happens that we can’t control.”
His mother smiled. “That’s the exact answer you should have.”
Not that far away, Ava was dealing with a million questions of her own from her family. She’d thought she’d gotten a lot of them out of the way when she returned before dinner, but her mother was determined to throw her under the Greyhound with her brothers holding tickets to board.
“So did you tell your brothers that you went on a date yesterday afternoon?” her mother asked when they were all in the living room while dinner was cooking.
“I’d hardly call that a date,” she said.
“Let us be the judge of that,” Hudson said. “What and with whom?”
She scowled at her mother. Leave it to her to get everyone going. “Do we really need to do this?”
“Yes,” Carson said. “You’re in the middle of something serious and need to focus on getting that mess straightened out.”
“Don’t remind me,” she said. “I’m doing everything I can to get it worked out. Hailey is on top of it. I’m meeting with Eli and Griffin next week.”
“Smart,” her father said.
“Of course it’s smart,” she said to her father. “You and Mom made the suggestion.”
Her brothers laughed at her while her father sat there grinning.
“Ava went on a date with Seth Young. He’s been very helpful during this situation.”
“Oh,” both of her brothers said at once. “That’s good.” She hated when they both said the same thing at the exact same time.
“Really? You hear his name and now it’s fine I went on a date? That’s kind of hypocritical.”
“No, it’s not,” Hudson said. “Is that how you two met? He asked you out at the bank?”
She hated having to explain so much but would if it would get them off her back. “No. He was
