“Actually, our lunch wasn’t long at all. But David had a family emergency, so we stopped by his parents’ house on the way home.” She didn’t go into any more details than that.

“Oh, that’s a shame,” her aunt said.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” her grandfather added.

“Everything’s fine now,” Paula assured him. She glanced at her nosy aunt. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.”

Chapter 24

Paula headed to Lucy’s cottage around two on Saturday afternoon. They were meeting Ben and Jason in a half hour at the Cisco Brewery for the Blues Band event. She knocked on Lucy’s door, but there was no answer. Her sister rarely locked the door, so Paula checked it and then let herself in.

She guessed that Lucy was in her back studio and maybe lost track of the time. The blues music she loved was playing loudly so she probably didn’t hear Paula knocking. She walked to the back and poked her head in the studio. Lucy was all dressed and looked adorable in a tie-dyed tank top and flowing white linen pants. Her hair was twisted up in a messy knot and she had a paint brush in one hand and was intently focused on dabbing pink paint onto a vivid blue sky.

“Hey, there. I knocked but it looks like you are in another world.”

Lucy laughed and put the paintbrush down. “I was working on this earlier. Then went to change and while I was waiting for you, I started playing around again.” She stood up, shook her hair loose and grabbed a brush and ran it through her hair a few times.

“Okay, I’m ready when you are.”

Paula drove and there was already a good crowd in the parking lot when they arrived. Lucy saw Ben waiting at the entrance and waved. By the time they parked and walked over, Jason had arrived, too, and they all went in together.

It was a fun afternoon. It wasn’t too hot of a day, but sunny and warm and the bands were excellent. Lucy and Paula had white wine while the guys tried a few of the different draft beers. They had hot dogs and fried bread dough and later on, Lucy and Jason had ice cream cones.