Her Very Own Family by Trish Milburn Page B

stepping-stones she’d eventually need.
    When Nelson and Brady finished the window project, they moved on to enclosing what would be the café’s kitchen in the back corner of the mill. She got on her cell and started making calls with the aim of getting the waterwheel operational again.
    With that checked off her list, she carried the day’s debris to the burning barrel then lit it. The more she kept busy, the less she could think about how all this work might be for nothing.
    After depositing a handful of lumber scraps in the fire, she turned to get another load and almost ran into Brady. He wrapped his hand around her upper arm, as if tosteady her. The moment his hand touched her bare skin, she’d swear she felt and heard a sizzle. In danger of staring into his eyes way too long, she lowered her gaze.
    “Sorry, didn’t hear you.” She was surprised she could hear now past the hammering of her pulse.
    He lowered his arm to his side, and Audrey fought the crazy feeling of being abandoned.
    “Maybe that’s because you’ve been going ninety miles an hour all day.”
    She looked past him, wishing her heart would stop thumping so hard against her ribs. “Lots to do.”
    “None of which will get done if you land back in the hospital with heatstroke. You need to slow down.”
    “I’m fine.” She started to walk around him, but he caught her wrist, not painfully, but firm nonetheless.
    “What’s wrong?”
    She swallowed and tried to ignore the feel of those strong fingers against her skin, how long it’d been since anyone had touched her. “Nothing. I’m just busy. I want to open this place as soon as possible.”
    He shook his head. “You’ve been twitchy all day.”
    “Twitchy?”
    “You jump every time someone drives up the road.”
    A jolt of fear that she was being so transparent raced through her. “I was watching for the plumber and the electrician. And I’m expecting a delivery.” She had to get away from him before she started babbling like an idiot.
    He released his grip, and for a moment she wasn’t sure she was glad. But then she regained her common sense and moved toward the debris pile again. Bradypitched in and helped carry the rest of the unusable materials to the barrel. Talk about twitchy. Being around him made her feel more on edge than watching for the feds to show up on her doorstep. Something about the intensity of his eyes and the powerful physicality of him made her hyperaware of his every movement. She so didn’t need to be feeling that way about a guy.
    She’d caught herself watching him on occasion today, how the muscles in his arms flexed as he sawed lumber, how much power was behind his strikes of the hammer, how the sweat soaked through his white T-shirt.
    She eyed the creek and nearly took a flying leap into it to cool herself off. As if the early-summer heat wasn’t enough, her temporary carpenter had to increase her body temperature even more. Maybe she’d find her sanity again when he went back to Kingsport and his real job.
    When he dumped the last of the accumulated debris in the barrel, she glanced up at him and tried to convince herself that he wasn’t a well-built, gorgeous man who made her wonder what he looked like without that dirty, sweaty T-shirt.
    “Thanks,” she said before lowering her gaze again. Good grief, if she didn’t get away from him soon she was going to embarrass herself by drooling.
    So desperate was she for a distraction that she didn’t even remember to be nervous when she heard a vehicle coming up the lane. Thankfully, it revealed itself as the UPS guy with her expected delivery—the wildflower-ringed dishes for the café.
    Audrey shooed Brady back inside to help his dad asshe took care of hauling the delivered boxes upstairs for storage until the lower level was totally finished. A couple of times, she caught Brady glancing at her as she went up the stairs. Only he wasn’t looking at her as if he was searching for signs of an asthma