Her Very Own Family by Trish Milburn Page A

okay today?” he asked.
    She couldn’t have him tiptoeing around her, thinking her frail, so she went the teasing route. “Yes, are you? ”
    Her response made him lift his eyebrows. “Yeah, why?”
    “Because you have this look on your face like you’re trying to figure out advanced calculus.”
    Brady loosened his stance. “That can’t be a pleasant look considering I never took calculus.”
    “I did. Trust me, it sucked.” Before she gave in to the temptation to engage him in further conversation, she walked toward the back of the mill with the intent of pulling weeds.
    While Audrey felt Brady watching her every now and then as the morning went on, he was less chatty today. For the most part, they stuck to their own tasks—him helping his dad with the large window, and her working with first the electrician and then the plumber.
    The only break she took was when she drove into town to buy them the pizza she’d ordered for lunch. When she walked into the Glen Grocery, Meg of the magenta hair was at the register again looking bored out of her mind. Audrey gave her a wave as she headed toward the deli in the back corner of the store where you could get everything from sliced meats to fried chicken to humongous pizzas.
    The pretty, twentysomething woman working in the deli slid the pizza onto the counter for Audrey before she asked for it. She guessed word had gotten around about her and the mill project. She suspected her and Brady’s encounter with Miss Brenda at Lowe’s had something to do with that.
    “One extra-large supreme,” the woman said
    Audrey glanced at her name tag. Like the rest of thename tags at the Glen Grocery, it was topped by a yellow smiley face. Below that was the name Tewanda Hardy. “Thanks, Tewanda.”
    “You need somebody to come out and help you serve it? I hear Brady Witt is working for you, and I bet he looks even hotter all sweaty and dirty,” Tewanda said as she fanned herself dramatically.
    The statement shocked Audrey into speechlessness for a moment, until she realized that the expression on Tewanda’s face was pure teasing instead of that of a woman on a mission to capture Brady. Audrey pushed down the crazy possessiveness Tewanda’s words had caused to rise up in her. “No, I’m pretty sure the guys will just inhale this before I even set the box down.”
    Tewanda laughed. “Isn’t that the truth? Men, no table manners. It’s like serving wild dogs.”
    Audrey laughed, too, and realized she liked Tewanda despite her obvious appreciation for Brady’s male form.
    Tewanda placed a ticket on the pizza box and said goodbye before Audrey headed toward the checkout.
    Meg perked up as Audrey approached. “Say, when are you going to open the café?”
    “I’m not sure, hopefully by midsummer. Depends on how the renovations go.”
    “So, have you hired any waitresses yet?”
    “No. You interested?” Audrey tried picturing that magenta hair inside her café, and oddly it seemed to fit.
    “Yes,” the girl breathed as she rang up the pizza and accepted Audrey’s money. “If I stay here much longer, I may go lock myself in the freezer in the back.”
    Audrey glanced around at the scattering of customers in the aisles. “Boring?”
    “To the nth degree.”
    Audrey smiled. “I tell you what. Write down your full name and phone number, and I’ll be sure to call you when I’m ready to hire.”
    “You, Miss York, are a godsend.” Meg quickly wrote her information on the back of a discarded cash register receipt and handed it over.
    Audrey glanced at the paper. “I think godsend is stretching it. And call me Audrey.”
    When she got back to the mill, Audrey couldn’t help but giggle when the guys dived at the pizza like those wild dogs Tewanda had mentioned. With a shake of her head, she grabbed a piece of the pizza before it was all gone. She ate it with one hand while she measured out the pathway to the still-nonexistent gazebo and calculated how many