Her Very Own Family

“It’s not your actions I’m worried about.”

“What, you think a pretty young girl like Audrey would be after an old codger like me?” He gave Brady a raised-eyebrow look that said the very idea was the height of unlikely.

“You have a TV. You know it happens. Young women hooking up with older men for their money.”

His dad actually snorted, the closest thing to a laugh Brady had heard from him in a long time, since before his mom’s stroke.

“I’m old, not stupid.”

“What do you really know about her, anyway?”

“I know she moved here from Nashville because she wanted to get out of the city. That she’s excited about this project, is enthusiastic, a very hard worker, is addicted to the Food Network and is missing it. And she was a friend to an old man when he needed one.” His dad shook his head. “I even joked with her that I was going to try to fix the two of you up. Looks like she was right.”

Brady tilted his head slightly. “About what?”

“That it’s a bad idea.” With that, Nelson sat his empty glass on the end of the kitchen counter and headed down the hallway toward his bedroom.

Brady stood in the middle of the living room, wondering how he’d managed to handle this whole situation so badly. All he wanted to do was make sure his father was okay, that he wasn’t duped. But somehow he’d turned into the bad guy. Just great. That should make the next two weeks freaking wonderful.

AFTER YET ANOTHER dreadful night of sleep, Audrey was on the steep, A-shaped roof, nailing down new pieces of silver tin roofing by six the next morning. The gentle breeze in the surrounding forest and the trickling of the creek next to the mill should have soothed her, but even they couldn’t smooth her ragged edges. By the time Nelson and Brady showed up, her mood still hadn’t improved.

“Lord, girl, what are you doing up there?” Nelson asked as he looked at her with his eyes shaded by his hand.

“Roofing. I’ve got to get this done before the electrician shows up in case it rains.”

“How in the world do you know how to roof a building?”

She hesitated as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. How to answer? “I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity after Katrina.” True. No need to mention the missionary trips to developing countries when she’d helped build homes for the poorest of the poor.

Nelson pointed toward where she kneeled. “Brady, get up there and help her.”

“No, really, I’m fine.” The last thing she needed while perched on a roof was Mr. I’m Watching You by her side, no matter how good-looking he was.

As if to spite her determination to work alone, however, she moved her foot and accidentally sent her hammer sliding down and off the edge of the roof onto the ground below. She bit down on the expletive, not wanting to utter it in front of Nelson.

She glanced at Brady to determine his reaction. His face was hidden from her, however, as he bent to retrieve the hammer. Nelson shook his head as he headed indoors.

Audrey directed her gaze at the tree canopy above and took a few deep breaths, told herself that everything would be fine. All she needed to do was let Brady get to know her a little so the suspicion she’d seen in his eyes the day before disappeared. Maybe it was just a small-town suspicion of newcomers and nothing more. She’d have to overcome that to make her cafе successful, so she might as well start tackling it now.

Brady appeared at the top of the ladder, hammer in hand.

“Thank you,” she said as he handed it to her.

Without asking, he stepped onto the roof and slid one piece of tin after another into place while she hammered.

“I can do that for a while if you like,” he offered.

“Thanks, but I’ve got it.” Actually, physical labor felt good, cathartic even.

A couple of minutes went by before he spoke again. “Did the tin do something to tick you off?” he asked, a touch of teasing in his question.

She stopped, realized thoughts of the past had caused her to start hammering harder. She leaned against the roof and wiped the sweat off her forehead again. “I just want to get done.”

“Won’t do you any good if you beat a hole through the roof.”

Audrey stared down at her boots, frustrated that the past still had the ability to make anger pulse through her. She didn’t want to be that angry, disappointed person anymore. She took several seconds to cool off and catch her breath then went back to hammering, though less violently this time.

“So, how’d you and my dad meet?” Brady asked.

She swallowed her instinctive aversion to questioning and replied in an even tone, “At the grocery store. I helped him find something he was looking for.”

“And that led to him working out here every day?”

Audrey glanced at Brady. “You’re the inquisitive sort, aren’t you?” she asked, keeping her question light, not accusatory.

Brady sat back and propped one forearm on his upturned knee. “I’m just looking out for my dad.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing.”

“Why?”

“Because he seemed like he needed it.” One glance at Brady told her that he had, indeed, simply been concerned for his recently widowed father’s welfare. She remembered how lost Nelson had looked in the grocery store and understood Brady’s concern. Just because the concept of a close relationship with a parent wasn’t within her current realm of possibility didn’t mean they didn’t exist anymore. Even she had once enjoyed such a relationship.

Nelson wandered outside to dump some wood scraps into the burning barrel. Neither she nor Brady spoke until the older man stepped back inside.

“Listen, I’m not sure what you were thinking, but I’m not out to get anything from your dad. He’s a nice man, and I’ve liked having him around. And he appears to like coming out here.”

Brady stretched his legs out and leaned back on his palms. He stared toward the gentle flow of the creek. “I’m sorry. He was just acting so different from the last time I saw him.”

“But that’s a good thing.”

Brady looked at her, questions written all over his handsome face.

“When I met your dad, he was standing in front of the cherry pie filling in the grocery store, totally overwhelmed by which one to buy. He was on the verge of tears. It made my heart break. He looked so relieved when I helped him pick a can for cobbler.”

Brady lowered his head, as if he were trying to see his dad through the tin of the roof. “Mom’s cobbler. It’s his favorite dessert.”

“I didn’t know about your mom then. I thought your mom had sent him to the store to do the shopping she normally did.” She told him about her conversation with Meg the cashier and her subsequent encounter with his dad in the parking lot. “I was only trying to help him in that moment. But once he came out here with those picture frames, he seemed to want to talk. The more we talked and I told him about my ideas, the more of his sadness drifted away. I mean, I still see it sometimes, but I honestly think it’s good for him to stay busy. It keeps his mind on something other than how much he misses your mom.”

And Audrey was the expert on staying busy to keep other thoughts at bay.

“I know. That’s part of the reason I came up here. I was worried about him. He hasn’t been the same person since Mom died.”

“That’s understandable. They were married for a long time. This isn’t something you get past in a few days.” She remembered the deep sorrow that had cloaked her own mother in the weeks following the unexpected death of Audrey’s father.

Brady glanced up at her. “You say that like you know from experience.”

She swallowed and shook away the unwanted memory. “Just common sense.” She lifted the hammer and moved toward the top of the roofline. “We should try to finish this before it gets too hot. I’m already sweating like I’ve been jogging across Death Valley.”