Her Very Own Family

by Trish Milburn

  Another glance around the room convinced her that the impossible had indeed occurred. She’d slept through the night, something she hadn’t done in more than a year.

  She looked over to where the other side of the bed was still rumpled and missed Brady’s presence there. Feeling about sixteen, she slid back down in the bed and smelled the pillow Brady had used. With her eyes closed, she inhaled deeply. It smelled like a mixture of rain, fabric softener and that indefinable male scent of his. She hugged the pillow close as she remembered how tender he’d been with her but also energetic at all the right times.

  Where was he now?

  A loud noise from downstairs made her jump and her heart race. Then came a muttered oath and what sounded like a dropped frying pan. Pushing all the worries from the day before away for the moment, she slid out of bed and into her bathrobe.

  When she opened the door at the top of the stairs, the scent of frying bacon met her. She peeked into the main level to make sure Nelson wasn’t there, as well. When she didn’t see him, she made her way down the stairs and to the doorway to the kitchen at the bottom. Brady stood inside the recently completed kitchen picking up what looked like the remains of cooked eggs with a paper towel. He still wore the cargo shorts and T-shirt from the day before and no shoes.

  “Have an accident?”

  He looked up at her, and the frustration on his face faded and was replaced by a satisfied grin. “Good morning.”

  “Apparently.” She indicated the sun shining through the windows.

  “Sorry I woke you.”

  “I think I slept long enough. Sorry I conked out like that.”

  He tossed the paper towel in the trash can then closed the distance between them. “You have nothing to apologize for. You had a long, rough day.”

  She didn’t want to think about that now. Later, but not now. She met his gaze. Warmth stole over her, tempting her to take another day off. This time they could spend it in bed talking, laughing, loving. “It ended very nicely, though.”

  Brady moved closer and enclosed her in his arms. “Can’t argue with that.” He lowered his mouth to hers, dissolving her with another kiss. As if she’d been doing it her entire life, she stepped toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the happiness whirling inside her. She’d deal with the bad stuff later. For now, she couldn’t pull herself away from how wonderful it felt to be held by him.

  Heat followed Brady’s hands as he ran them up her back, much as that same heat had the night before. His breath next to her ear made her want him all over again.

  “I made you breakfast, but it’s supposed to be breakfast in bed. So no food for you until you’re back under the covers.”

  She smiled against his throat. “Nice line. It work well for you?”

  He leaned back and looked her in the eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve never used it before.”

  “Well, then, I’d better get your track record off to a good start.” She stepped away from him and jogged back up the stairs. When she reached the second level, a wave of guilt hit her. How could she be enjoying herself like this when her mother was battling cancer?

  Brady’s footsteps on the stairs urged her to hurry to the bed. She stuffed her legs under the covers as he stepped into the large, open room.

  In the absence of a tray and the real dishes that were still packed in boxes in the corner of her living space, he’d placed the paper plate filled with scrambled eggs, bacon and toast on a square of plywood. “It’s not fancy, but I’m fairly sure it’s edible.”

  She smiled as she ripped open a plasticware set that had come with one of the many takeout meals she’d had since arriving in Willow Glen. “It’s certainly more than my usual half a bagel. Thank you.”

  Brady slid into bed with her and nabbed a piece of her bacon.

  “Hey.”

  “Cook’s prerogative.”

  The food was good, but with each bite Audrey’s heart ached a little more. Last night had been wonderful and this morning a dream, but it wasn’t real, not lasting. It couldn’t be unless she came clean with him about who she was and what her life had been like before she came to Willow Glen. The thought spoiled her appetite and she pushed away her breakfast though she’d only eaten about half of it.

  “Something wrong with the food?” He sounded so concerned that it only added to her aching.

  Audrey shook her head. “No, it’s fine. It’s just…”

  Brady took the makeshift tray and placed it on the floor next to his side of the bed. Then he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. “Take your time.”

  She did. In fact, she lay with her head against his chest, listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat, for what seemed like hours. One moment she’d be on the verge of spilling everything, the next she’d talk herself out of it, convinced she couldn’t stand losing Brady when she’d only found him.

  When Brady leaned over and kissed the top of her head, it broke the trance she’d been in. She moved out of the warm circle of his arm and sat facing him, her legs crossed and her eyes staring at the sheet.

  “I feel guilty about enjoying this time with you.”

  “Because of your mom?”

  “Yes, but for more reasons than you know.”

  “You said you weren’t close.”

  She fidgeted, picking at her cuticles. “We used to be, though, until a little more than a year ago.”

  “What happened?”

  Audrey took a shaky breath, wondering if she could go through with this. But she needed to know how he’d react. Because however he took the news would likely be how the other residents of Willow Glen would receive her identity, as well. And if this place and this new life weren’t going to work out, she needed to know now before she got any more invested in it—financially or emotionally.

  So nervous she couldn’t sit still, she got up and paced the floor.

  “You can tell me,” Brady said. “I know everyone isn’t close to their parents. I’m not going to think less of you.”

  She stopped pacing and met his gaze. “I hope not. But we’ll see.” After a few more anxious steps, she stopped again and sank onto a cushy chair on the opposite side of the loft from the bed. “I used to work for my mother, enjoyed it and believed in my job.” She twisted her hands, wondering if she could go on.

  “But something happened and you had a falling out.”

  “You could say that.” She inhaled deeply then let it out before plunging forward. “My mother is Thomasina York.”

  At first, the name didn’t seem to register with him. She watched, waited, knew the moment her mother’s identity clicked in his mind. His eyes widened and he shifted on the bed.

  “The TV preacher who was sent to prison?”

  Audrey swallowed past the growing lump in her throat. It felt like she was trying to swallow a lemon whole. “Yes.”

  “And you worked for her?”

  “Yes. I was a fund-raiser.”

  Brady was quiet for interminable seconds in which Audrey wanted to run away and not have to rip the rest of the story out of herself.

  “Were you involved?”

  Audrey fought her rising nausea and the edge of panic making it more difficult to breathe. “Not in the fraud, though it didn’t matter in the end. Everyone looked at me as if I was guilty anyway.”

  “That’s why you came here, to start over?”

  She nodded. “I couldn’t get a job. My friends didn’t want to be my friends anymore. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without suspicion following me around like a dark cloud.”

  Brady got out of the bed and walked to the window at the end of the loft. He braced his arms against the wall on either side and stared outside. “Who was that guy yesterday?”

  “A reporter. He’d been calling and leaving me messages, but I erased them without listening.”

  “He the one who called you that night at Dad’s?”

  “Yes. The press nearly ate me alive after
Mom’s arrest, me and everyone else who worked for my mother’s ministry because they believed in the good work we were doing.”

  “Good work? I wouldn’t call embezzling good work. It could have been my parents’ money. They have always given to church projects.”

  Audrey looked up at the ceiling to prevent the tears in her eyes from falling. “We were all fully investigated. Yes, I was stupid not to ask more questions about my mother’s lifestyle, but I honestly didn’t know.” She returned her gaze to him. “Brady, the ministry did fund a lot of good programs—women’s shelters, food pantries, schools and medical clinics in war-torn countries. I know. I saw them with my own eyes. I helped build homes and schools and medical clinics with my own hands.”

  “But not all of the money went to those things.”

  “No, it didn’t.” She lowered her head and looked at the pattern on the large area rug she’d placed on the wood-plank floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Brady turn toward her.

  “So what did the reporter want if you were cleared and your mother’s already been sent to prison?”

  “A new angle. Me to tell my side of the story.”

  “They haven’t already covered that?” He sounded as if he couldn’t believe the media had overlooked such an obvious viewpoint.

  Her stomach swirled. She placed her hand against it as if that would calm her nerves. “They weren’t very interested. They’d already made up their minds I had to be guilty.”

  Brady walked the several steps back to the end of the bed and sat facing her. He looked like he was struggling with something, but at least he wasn’t walking away. He looked down at the floor. “Sounds like it was tough on you.”

  “It was.” Her voice cracked. “I was hurt, embarrassed, felt like a fool.”

  Brady met her eyes, and the overwhelming need to tell him everything pressed against the inside of her heart, begging to be released.

  “My dad was a pastor of a church outside Nashville, and he was a wonderful man. He did lots of work with Habitat for Humanity, the homeless mission in Nashville, basically anything that could help those less fortunate. But he worked too hard.” She swallowed painfully when the image of her father’s last moments came back to her.

  “We always ate lunch together, just him, Mom and me, every Sunday after church. He’d take us somewhere different every week. He said it was his treat for Mom, who’d cooked all week. When I was ten, we’d just started eating lunch one Sunday in a new restaurant when…” She sniffed against the tears. “Dad clutched his chest and fell over right there in front of me and Mom. He died of a heart attack before the ambulance could get there.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Audrey nodded that she’d heard Brady’s sympathy, but she couldn’t stop now. She had to get it all out before it ate any more of her soul.

  “Mom had always been very active in church as the minister’s wife, but now she felt she had to do the work of two people. She threw herself into church work in addition to getting a job as a secretary. Eventually, she started her own congregation and gave up the secretary job. The congregation grew and grew, was eventually broadcast on the local TV station, grew some more. By the time I was in high school, she was being broadcast nationwide and able to fund all kinds of social projects. I believed in her so much that after I got out of college, I started working as a fund-raiser for the ministry. She moved to Colorado to start a new headquarters, but I stayed behind because Nashville was my home. I had friends, a place of my own, contacts all through the Southeast.”

  She stopped and sucked in a breath. “When I heard my mom was being investigated for fraud, for taking some of the funds and using them for her own purposes, I didn’t believe it. I thought it was some enemy out to muddy her good name. But then the investigators showed me the proof. I thought I would die right there, sitting across the table from them.”

  The memories sliced at her and made her want crawl into a corner and cry. But she’d shed so many tears already because of what her mother had done. They’d been part of her daily life as every last inch of her privacy had been exposed to the world.

  “As if learning my mother had done those things wasn’t bad enough, I had to endure an investigation into my possible involvement. And even though I was cleared of any wrongdoing, my life as I’d known it was basically over. I’d lost everything—even the man I thought I’d marry.”

  “You were engaged?” Brady’s voice sounded strained as he asked the question.

  Audrey clenched her hands until her knuckles went white. “No, but things were headed that way. Turns out he wanted his upward mobility more than me. I went from the woman he said he loved to a liability. He didn’t even have the decency to tell me to my face. He mailed my things to me with a note that it wasn’t going to work out between us.”

  The unwanted tears finally won the battle and trickled down her face. She swiped at them, directing her anger and hurt at those twin tracks of water.

  Brady surprised her when he slid off the bed, came to kneel in front of her and took her into his arms. Starved for emotional and physical comfort, she dissolved against him. She really let go and allowed the tears to flow freely. She wanted to stay there in his arms forever so he could keep the world at bay. She didn’t like being weak, but it proved hard to be strong all the time.

  “Shh,” he said next to her ear.

  After a few more moments, she got herself under control and sat back. “I’m sorry.”

  He wiped at a stray tear with his thumb. “Sounds like you went through a lot.”

  “You know, when I first saw you and your dad together, it made my heart ache. I admit I was jealous, still am sometimes.” She looked up into his eyes. “I can’t tell you how betrayed I felt by my mom. And now…now I don’t know how to feel. I’ve not gotten over being angry at her, but she’s still my mom.”

  “And she’s sick.”

  “Yeah.” She brushed away a tear. “How can I feel furious and guilty at the same time?”

  Brady shook his head. “Feelings are messed-up things sometimes.”

  “Tell me about it.” She glanced at the bed behind him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you…before.” Before we had sex and I was in danger of losing my heart to you.

  He took her hand and squeezed it. “Don’t worry about that. I probably wouldn’t have told anyone, either.”

  Did she dare hope he was going to be okay with everything she’d revealed to him, or would he start thinking of ways to distance himself the first time he was out of her sight?

  “Can I give you some unsolicited advice?” he asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Maybe it’s time to talk to your mom.”

  Audrey knew he was thinking of his own mother and how he’d never be able to talk to her again, but things weren’t that simple. She’d said some awful things to her mom, words meant to hurt her as much as Audrey had been hurt. And she couldn’t pretend her mother hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Just think about it. Going to see her doesn’t mean you have to forget everything else.”

  Audrey wrapped her hands around Brady’s. “I was so nervous about telling you.”

  “I’m glad you did.” There was something in his expression, concern maybe. Audrey didn’t try too hard to identify it, afraid of what she might see.

  She offered a shaky smile and wished he’d kiss her, suffuse her with that feeling of euphoria he had the day before. When he didn’t make a move to do so, she bit her lip and tried not to read anything into it.

  Maybe he was right, that she should go see her mother. If she didn’t and the worst happened, would she regret it for the rest of her life? But if she left, would her time away give Brady the opportunity to really think about the situation and choose his professional reputation over a relationship with her like Darren had? Could she blame him if he did? After all, they hadn’t known each other anywhere near as long as she and Darren had.

>   Then why did this thing with Brady feel more real, making her relationship with Darren seem like a hollow shell?

  Brady stood, bringing her with him. “You’ve got a lot to think about. I need to go before Dad sends out a search party.” He gave her a small smile then a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you later.”

  She nodded, then wrapped her arms around herself as she watched him leave the loft. She understood that Nelson might be worried about him. She even missed that kind of concern about her own well-being. But it still felt like Brady was already pulling away, taking the first steps out of her life.

  Chapter Eight

  Over the next couple of days, Audrey did a lot of thinking as she worked. The mill renovations were coming along really well, beginning to look like the café she had been dreaming about since that day standing in the magazine section of the bookstore. She should be happy now, but she wasn’t.

  Her feelings toward her mother were still twisted in knots, and she and Brady didn’t share any more intimacy. He still worked at the mill during the day and smiled at her whenever their gazes met, but no more. Maybe he was giving her room and time to figure things out, not pushing her, but she couldn’t help thinking he moved further away from her each day. Hadn’t that been how her friends had drifted away? When the renovation was completed, would he simply disappear from her life?

  She buried those thoughts in work, her normal means of escape. Her vision of the café was close enough to reality now that she could plan an opening date. She consulted the calendar, committed to July 1, just in time for the Independence Day weekend. Despite everything going on in her life, solidifying the date felt like a gigantic accomplishment. Something solid, real. Something she could control. To celebrate, she went into Johnson City and Elizabethton to arrange for newspaper ads announcing the grand opening.

  When she returned to the mill, she found Nelson and Brady moving in the tables and chairs Nelson had built for the café. She sat in her car for a minute and soaked in the scene, enjoying how the dream was becoming reality.