Her Very Own Family. Trish Milburn
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least let me get you an ice pack.”
“Okay, if it’ll make you feel better,” Nelson said with a teasing smile.
“It’s supposed to make you feel better, you stubborn old man.” She shook her head, acting exasperated with him.
Brady tried to hide a laugh but didn’t fully succeed.
“What are you laughing at?” his dad asked. “You get over there and finish up what I started. And try not to hit your finger. She’ll be hauling us both off to the E.R.”
Audrey swatted Nelson on the upper arm as she headed for the cooler in the corner. After fixing Nelson an ice pack and sitting him in a lawn chair in the corner, Audrey pulled a couple of bottles of water out of the ice. She tossed one to Brady as he moved toward the window frame his father had been constructing.
Brady turned in time to see Audrey down about half her water before coming up for air. Condensation from the bottom of the bottle dropped onto her chest and rolled downward toward the scoop of her tank top. Brady’s skin heated, and he licked his lips before he could think not to.
“Ow.” Brady winced at the sudden pain in his leg and turned around to find his dad giving him the look he always used when he’d found Brady misbehaving. So the old man hadn’t missed his gawking.
“What?” Audrey asked as she rolled her cold bottle of water to her forehead.
“Nothing,” Nelson said. “Just giving the boy a little nudge.”
Yeah, if you called a kick to the calf with a steel-toed work boot a nudge.
Staring at warm, enticing female flesh wasn’t a problem after Audrey returned to the roof. Thing was, he was hotter now than he’d been sitting on tin with the sun beating down on him.
His dad walked across the room, moving to the open doorway in Brady’s peripheral vision.
“She’s a good girl. Don’t trifle if you don’t really like her.”
Nelson stepped outside without giving Brady the chance to respond that he had no intention of trifling. Dang, all he’d done was look. He was a red-blooded male, young, healthy, single. When a beautiful woman was nearby, he tended to notice. But anything beyond that with someone his dad considered a friend had bad idea written all over it. Because Brady wasn’t a long-term kind of guy—not anymore.
An engine started outside, and it only took a moment for Brady to realize it was his truck. By the time he reached the door, his dad was heading down the lane toward the road.
First his dad told him to steer clear of Audrey then he left the two of them alone. What was the old guy up to?
Chapter Three
Audrey sat back on her heels and watched as Brady deposited some useless bits of wood in the burning barrel.
“Where’d your dad go?”
He shrugged. “Heck if I know. He just took off.”
“That’s odd. Was he feeling bad?”
“No more than a throbbing finger. Need some help?”
She nearly declined, but honestly she was pooped and the initial tension between her and Brady had eased. At least the tension regarding his father. The other tension on her part wouldn’t fade unless Brady fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. “Sure.”
Brady climbed the ladder and made his way over to her side of the roof. “This may qualify as the fastest roofing job ever.”
“It’s only going to get hotter, and I don’t fancy roasting into a lobster up here or going broke buying sunscreen. The curse of the blond.” She gestured toward her hair.
After getting another piece of roofing in place and attached, Audrey lay back. “I am one hundred and ten percent wiped. I feel like I could lie in the grass and sleep for about two days.”
“We’re almost done. Come on.”
With a moan, she raised herself and got back to work. “This can’t be your idea of a good time on vacation.”
“It’s not really vacation. Seems like Dad’s doing okay though, so maybe I should just go back home.”
Audrey retrieved a nail and set it in place while trying to ignore the thought that she’d miss seeing his face. “Do you have something pressing at work?”
“There’s always something pressing at work.”
“Something your business partner can’t handle?”
He glanced over at her, gave her a half smile at the focus she put on the word business. “No.”
“Then maybe you should just hang out with your dad. I’m sure he enjoys being with you. And he might not say anything or act like it, but I suspect he needs the company when he goes home at night.”
“He seemed surprisingly okay last night, except for the scolding I got for being rude to you.”
Her eyes widened as she looked at him. “Scolding? At your age? How embarrassing.” She pressed her lips together to stifle a giggle at the image.
Brady snorted. “Guess I deserved it.”
“Don’t worry about it. I understand your wanting to look out for your dad.”
After all, there were people out there more than willing to bilk others out of their hard-earned money. She knew that firsthand.
THEY FINISHED attaching the roofing but left applying the sealant for another day and climbed down the ladder. Brady followed Audrey to the side of the creek, where she untied and removed her boots and socks then slipped her feet into the flowing water.
“Ah!” She flopped back into the grass, letting the water bob her feet. “I may never move again.”
“You’ll move. The ants, mosquitoes and chiggers will eventually find you and have you for lunch.”
“Oh, fine, ruin the moment,” she said in a light, teasing tone.
This was definitely better than suspicion and animosity. So she was hiding something. Who didn’t have secrets? It didn’t mean it was anything aimed at hurting him or his dad. Roasting hot himself, Brady gave in to temptation and shucked his boots and socks, too. After rolling up his pant legs to the knees, he stuck his feet in the water and lay back in the grass only a couple of feet from Audrey.
“I haven’t done this in years,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. “What, stuck your feet in the creek?”
“Yeah. That and just lie in the grass, looking up at the trees.”
Audrey let out a slow sigh as she returned her gaze to the sky above. “Guess we forget the simple ways to enjoy life when we grow up.”
“That why you bought this place? To enjoy life?”
“It just felt right. I woke up one morning and realized I needed a change.”
“Was your job boring?”
She didn’t answer immediately. He glanced toward her, but she was still staring toward the treetops high above them.
“I was between jobs. Seemed like the right time to ask myself what I really wanted. Only, I had no idea what that might be. I went for a walk one afternoon, and I somehow ended up at a bookstore. I don’t even know why I went in, but I found myself standing in front of the magazine section. I started flipping through different magazines, and this story about a woman who refurbished an old lighthouse and made a B & B out of it caused something to click inside me. Needless to say, not a lot of lighthouses in Tennessee. But that’s when I remembered this mill. I had no interest in a B & B, but I love to cook and thought, why not