Her Very Own Family

by Trish Milburn

  “No.” She didn’t yell or snap, but he heard the strength and finality behind the single word even before Audrey suddenly rose to her feet.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No, you’re fine. Enjoy the creek. I just have a lot of work to do.”

  The water sloshed as he lifted his feet out and stood, too. “Audrey, what’s wrong?” Had his bad memories caused him to say something he shouldn’t without realizing it?

  “Time is money. I don’t need to be lying around surveying the past, not when I have a blue bazillion tasks with my name on them.”

  He watched her retrieve her boots and socks and stalk off toward the mill. He searched back over their conversation but couldn’t figure out what had altered the mood so drastically.

  Women. Their moods shifted more than a house built on clay.

  BRADY PROBABLY THOUGHT she’d lost her mind, and perhaps she was a bit crazy when it came to asking for money for herself. She simply didn’t do it. She hadn’t even applied for a bank loan to finance the purchase and refurbishing of the mill. Instead, she had liquidated accounts and sold the possessions she could live without. She was doing this alone, even if she had to get another job to make her dream come true. Even if she had to make her last penny scream for mercy.

  No one would ever be able to accuse her of being like her mother.

  She sank onto the stairs leading to the loft and pressed against the pressure building behind her forehead. What she’d told Brady about why she’d left her life was only partially true. But she wasn’t about to tell him that she’d simply gotten tired of people always watching her, wondering if she would yet prove to be her mother’s daughter in action as well as genetics. Part of the allure of Willow Glen was that no one evidently knew who she was beyond her identity as the newest resident. And she hoped it stayed that way.

  When she heard Brady step back into the mill, she rose and climbed the rest of the way up to the loft. Once there, though, she felt trapped with nothing productive to do. She’d already crunched the numbers half a dozen times, and she couldn’t really start refurbishing the living space until the plumber and electrician completed their respective tasks.

  It was too blasted hot to apply sealant to the roof, and she was too antsy to spend time in the same room as Brady. She’d really like to grab her camera gear and head off into the woods to photograph some wildflowers, a hobby that never failed to bring her joy. After all, she had all those beautiful, handmade frames to fill. But with so much to do, she knew she wouldn’t fully enjoy the outing. Time was money, and she wasn’t exactly awash in either.

  She walked over to the small loft door. It would eventually become a window overlooking a bend in the creek beyond the mill and the long line of weeping willows lining the bank. She envisioned a gazebo in that bend complete with a table and chairs for special, private meals for guests.

  Inspired, she grabbed her notebook of ideas and started sketching the gazebo and the surroundings. She pictured it white in contrast to the greens of the trees shading it, covered in twinkling white lights, a quaint table with two chairs in its center. A romantic spot for couples on a special date. She smiled as she imagined marriage proposals being offered there by nervous grooms-to-be.

  She might not be lucky in love, but she had a romantic streak several miles wide. And this gazebo idea had it humming. Even though she should be focusing all her energy on the mill and not adding even more expenses, she couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm. The desire to go buy twinkling lights, tulle for the gazebo’s ceiling and magazines with gazebo designs rushed through her, but she forced her attention back to her list of priorities. With the structural work progressing well, she needed to go buy the lumber necessary for the construction of the kitchen in the back corner next to the stairs. She estimated it was time to look at appliances, as well.

  After all, she was at a standstill on the mill until the electrician came tomorrow morning. Maybe she could get some landscaping flowers for the area around the front of the mill, and a couple of hanging pots.

  Okay, she had to stop her runaway brain before she imagined herself right into debt.

  She grabbed her keys and purse and headed for the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she noticed Brady leaning against the railing around the mill’s machinery, wiping the sweat from his face with a paper towel. She swallowed when she saw how his damp T-shirt molded to his honest-work muscles. For a shocking moment, she pictured her and Brady in that fairy-tale gazebo before she looked away and mentally smacked herself upside the head.

  “Where you off to?” he asked.

  “Need some supplies. I think I’ll drive down to Elizabethton.”

  “Mind if I ride along? The last piece of framing I have isn’t quite long enough. We could use it for a smaller window, but not this one. And since the old man left me without wheels…”

  So much for the peace of a solo trip. She forced herself not to scream at his self-invitation. As if to spite her efforts to avoid him, now she was going to be trapped in a small, confined space with him for the twenty miles to Elizabethton and back.

  “Sure. We’ll get enough to do the window upstairs, too, while we’re at it. And make sure we get the best lumber for the kitchen.”

  “Do you have the measurements for the upstairs window?”

  “Yeah.” She patted her purse where she kept her running to-buy list. “Right here with your dad’s specs for the kitchen.”

  “She’s on the ball,” he said as he pushed away from the railing.

  It was hardly a romantic compliment, but she couldn’t help how her skin warmed as she met his gaze. Seriously, she should have dunked her head in the creek instead of her feet.

  “YOU DO KNOW that Christmas is seven months away, right?”

  Audrey glanced up from her spot in the garden section at Lowe’s as Brady wheeled the cart with the lumber needed for the window up next to her. He looked so at home here, in the middle of a warehouse full of home-improvement ecstasy.

  “They’re for the gazebo, not a Christmas tree,” she said as she placed several boxes of stringed white lights in the cart. At his confused expression, she flipped open one of the magazines she held and showed him a beautiful gazebo decorated for weddings. “Guys find these things cheesy, but women will love a romantic gazebo by the creek, a private dining area for couples.” She looked at the picture again and smiled at the magic the simple picture conveyed. “We might even have weddings there.” She was trying to cram as much happiness and positive energy into her life as possible, and what could be happier than a wedding?

  She hadn’t planned to buy anything for the gazebo today. But when she’d finished ordering what she needed and found Brady busy at the contractors’ counter, she’d gravitated to the garden center, where her imagination got the best of her.

  “Does your brain crank out ideas even when you’re sleeping?” Brady asked, sounding amazed and amused at the same time.

  “As a matter of fact, it does.” She laughed and tossed the magazines into the cart. “I wake up in the middle of the night and have to jot them down before I forget them.”

  They started down the aisle as Brady shook his head once. “Sounds like it makes for terrible sleeping.”

  “I’m not a very restful sleeper anyway.”

  At least not since her life had been turned upside down and inside out more than a year ago. That memory dampened her enthusiasm, so she headed for the outdoor part of the garden center, hoping that immersing herself in colorful, fragrant flowers would lift her mood again.

  As they moved up and down the aisles, she selected several flats of impatiens in a variety of bright colors, a couple of gorgeous hanging baskets filled with purple petunias and a rose trellis for the bush she’d noticed at the back of the mill.

  “You know, if you’re going to put that gazebo in the creek bend, you might want to make a stone path to it from the drive, for when the ground is wet.” Brady pointed out shelves filled with differ
ent-colored stepping-stones.

  Another unexpected expense, the type she suspected Brady wouldn’t think twice about, but a good idea nonetheless. “So, what do you think, the gray or the red?”

  Brady ran his fingers over the surface of the rock slabs in question, and an unexpected warmth flowed along Audrey’s arms at the thought of those long fingers doing the same thing to her skin.

  Maybe she had stayed in the sun too long that morning and baked her brain. She felt like she was experiencing Brady overload. She’d caught herself snatching glimpses of him ever since they’d arrived at the store, glimpses she didn’t dare in the car because he would have noticed. But each time she looked at him, the more attractive he became. The archetypal sexy carpenter. She wondered if he looked as good as she imagined in nothing but a pair of jeans and a tool belt.

  What was wrong with her? Hadn’t Darren’s desertion taught her anything?

  But Brady wasn’t Darren.

  Still, she couldn’t risk getting too involved, not when it could put everything she had and was trying to build at risk.

  “The gray.”

  “Huh?” Audrey zipped back from Fantasy World and stared at Brady, wondering what he was talking about.

  “The stepping-stones.” He pointed. When she didn’t react, he pecked against the stone with his fingertip. “Hello?”

  “Oh, yeah. I think you’re right. They’ll go better with the surroundings. That’s way down the list of priorities though.”

  “Where were you a moment ago?”

  “Sorry, brief side trip to la-la land.” Trying to dispel the jittery feeling threatening to overtake her, she took a few steps away from Brady and grabbed two pairs of gardening gloves hanging from a shelf. “You finished with your business?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, hello there,” a silver-haired lady said as she guided her cart up next to theirs.

  “Hi, Miss Brenda,” Brady said as he gave the woman a quick hug. “How are you?”

  “If I was any better, I don’t know how I’d be able to stand it,” she said with a big smile. She looked at Audrey. “Are you a friend of Brady’s?”

  “This is Audrey York,” Brady said. “Dad and I are doing some work for her. Audrey, this is Brenda Phillips. She was my sixth-grade teacher.”

  “Oh, you must be the little gal who bought the old mill,” Brenda said. “I’ve got to tell you, the ladies at church are already twittering about that.”

  Audrey’s breath caught. But if this woman knew who she really was, why would she be smiling and acting friendly?

  “It’ll be so nice to have someplace quaint to have lunch with the girls,” Miss Brenda said, giving Audrey’s hand a gentle squeeze. “You need to come to service next Sunday, meet all the ladies. Good way to start getting to know your neighbors and potential customers.”

  Audrey managed a smile. “Thank you for the invitation.” Though the idea of stepping back into a church left her cold. Of course, that was due to what had happened with her mother and not the church itself.

  “Well, I best be getting home.” Miss Brenda pointed at the items in her cart. “Sam is anxious to get these plants in the ground.” With another genuine smile and a wave, Brenda headed for the checkout.

  “She’s a bit of a whirlwind, isn’t she?” Brady said.

  “You could say that.”

  Brady laughed a little at what must be her stunned expression then pushed their shopping cart toward the front of the store, too.

  Audrey eyed the items in the cart. Boy, had she gone overboard.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll make it all fit,” Brady said, guessing at her thoughts.

  They did, barely. The trellis stuck out of the tied-down trunk, and flowers appeared to have taken root in her backseat.

  Brady looked across the top of the car at her. “You hungry?”

  “Yeah, but let’s do lunch on the cheap. I’m pretty sure I just heard my credit card whimper.”

  “Pal’s, it is.” He bumped his knuckles against the car’s roof.

  “Pal’s?”

  He eyed her with disbelief. “You haven’t been there yet?”

  “No, should I have?”

  “You haven’t lived until you’ve had a Pal’s chipped ham and cheese sandwich and seasoned fries.”

  She uttered a little laugh. “Well, I certainly want to live.”

  “Get in the car and drive, then, woman.”

  Brady directed her to a spot on Elk Avenue. She laughed when she caught sight of the blue concrete-block building with a giant hot dog, fries and drink cup on the roof.

  “Don’t let the outside fool you,” Brady said. “Eat Pal’s once and you’re a slave to it for life.”

  Audrey gave the structure a doubtful look. “If you say so.”

  They ordered on one side of the building then drove around to the other to pay and get their food. Her stomach growled when she handed the bag to Brady.

  “See, your stomach knows good food is in the vicinity. Drive down the street. We can eat at the park.”

  The park ended up being Sycamore Shoals State Park, complete with a reconstructed eighteenth-century fort. With the beautiful, late-May day as a backdrop, the slice of the area’s history captured Audrey’s fascination.

  “I wish I’d brought my camera,” she said.

  “You can come back when they’re doing garrison weekends. Seems more like you’re stepping into history with everyone dressed in costume.”

  Brady led her past the fort and toward a trail.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Wasn’t he Mr. Mysterious all of a sudden? It seemed a bit out of character based on what little she knew about him.

  It wasn’t long before she heard rushing water then saw an expanse of gentle river rapids. The river was probably three times the width of Willow Creek, but in spots she wasn’t sure it was as deep.

  “This is gorgeous,” she said as she stepped to the edge of the bank.

  “Welcome to the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River.”

  “No wonder they built a fort here.” She edged right up next to the clear water and looked both upstream and down. Again, she wished for her camera.

  “Since you liked the old mill, I figured you’d like this, too.” Brady led the way to a rocky outcropping. They sat and pulled their lunch from the bag. “This was the first permanent settlement outside the thirteen original colonies.”

  “Sounds like you know a lot about it.”

  “Craig’s dad is one of the historic reenactors when they have living-history weekends. I went to a million of them when I was growing up.”

  Audrey unfolded a napkin on the rock and placed her food on top of it. “So, you and Craig have been friends a long time?”

  “Since fourth grade when he moved to Willow Glen from Bristol.”

  Audrey formulated another question as she stuck a couple of fries in her mouth. The question disappeared as flavor woke up her taste buds.

  “Mmm, these are good fries.” She licked the seasoning from her fingers.

  “Told you.” Brady smiled in an all-knowing way.

  When Audrey took a bite of her ham and cheese sandwich, she closed her eyes and made a sound of appreciation.

  Brady laughed. “Another Pal’s devotee is born.”

  “I’m fairly sure my waistline is going to curse you forever, but right now I don’t care.”

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” he said before turning his attention to the river and a large piece of driftwood floating by.

  What had that comment meant exactly? Was it a compliment about her physical appearance or more of a comment that women worried too much?

  For a few minutes, they ate with only the sound of the rapids filling the air between them. Audrey relished the unexpected peace that settled on her.

  “I think I could sit here all day,” she said.

  “It’s tempting sometimes. You know, Willow Creek empties
into this river.”

  An older couple walked by hand in hand on the trail behind Audrey and Brady. After they passed, Audrey watched them, smiled at how in love they looked after what might have been years of marriage, children and grandchildren.

  “They’re cute,” she said.

  “Mom and Dad were like that. Used to embarrass me and Sophie when we were kids.”

  A wistfulness in Brady’s voice caused Audrey to turn toward him. “They loved each other a lot, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah. Craig used to come over all the time. He couldn’t believe how well my parents got along.”

  “His didn’t?”

  Brady shook his head. “They had a nasty divorce right before he and his dad moved here. I think he’s only seen his mom a couple of times since then.”

  “That’s sad.” Though death had separated her own parents, she felt an immediate kinship with Craig, the kind born of growing up with only one parent. And of being estranged from their mothers.

  “Yeah, but he’s probably better off. I was lucky, but sometimes it’s better for people to split up and move on.”

  Audrey ate the last two fries from the bottom of the bag and wondered, not for the first time, how her life might have been different if her dad hadn’t died. Would her mother have still turned out to be the person she had? Or had the loss of her husband changed her in some irrevocable way?

  “What about your parents? They still together?”

  Why hadn’t she steered clear of this topic? Now she couldn’t veer away without the word obvious writing itself across her forehead in huge, capital letters.

  “My dad died of a heart attack when I was little, and…Mom and I aren’t close. We don’t talk often.” Like ever, not in the past year, anyway. Not since her mother had been charged with fraud.

  “Sorry.”

  She waved away his concern. “It’s okay. Like you said, you were lucky. Seems the happy nuclear family is an endangered species.”

  He made what sounded like a grunt of agreement.

  A man and two little boys picked their way to the edge of the river several yards downstream. The boys, who looked to be about four years old and twins, started throwing sticks and rocks into the water.