Her Very Own Family. Trish Milburn

me see.”

      Brady watched as Audrey took his dad’s hand in hers, turned it over carefully and examined it. Something shifted inside him at the gentleness and concern. He didn’t think anyone could fake with that much authenticity.

      “We need to take you to the emergency room, make sure you haven’t broken anything,” Audrey said.

      His dad moved his hand out of hers. “No need for that. It’s nothing.”

      “It’s turning a nice shade of eggplant,” she argued, her hands on her hips.

      “Honey, if I’d gone to the hospital every time I smashed my fingers, I’d have funded an entire new wing by now.”

      Brady smiled, glad to see more and more of the dad he’d always known coming back to the light of day.

      “At least let me get you an ice pack.”

      “Okay, if it’ll make you feel better,” Nelson said with a teasing smile.

      “It’s supposed to make you feel better, you stubborn old man.” She shook her head, acting exasperated with him.

      Brady tried to hide a laugh but didn’t fully succeed.

      “What are you laughing at?” his dad asked. “You get over there and finish up what I started. And try not to hit your finger. She’ll be hauling us both off to the E.R.”

      Audrey swatted Nelson on the upper arm as she headed for the cooler in the corner. After fixing Nelson an ice pack and sitting him in a lawn chair in the corner, Audrey pulled a couple of bottles of water out of the ice. She tossed one to Brady as he moved toward the window frame his father had been constructing.

      Brady turned in time to see Audrey down about half her water before coming up for air. Condensation from the bottom of the bottle dropped onto her chest and rolled downward toward the scoop of her tank top. Brady’s skin heated, and he licked his lips before he could think not to.

      “Ow.” Brady winced at the sudden pain in his leg and turned around to find his dad giving him the look he always used when he’d found Brady misbehaving. So the old man hadn’t missed his gawking.

      “What?” Audrey asked as she rolled her cold bottle of water to her forehead.

      “Nothing,” Nelson said. “Just giving the boy a little nudge.”

      Yeah, if you called a kick to the calf with a steel-toed work boot a nudge.

      Staring at warm, enticing female flesh wasn’t a problem after Audrey returned to the roof. Thing was, he was hotter now than he’d been sitting on tin with the sun beating down on him.

      His dad walked across the room, moving to the open doorway in Brady’s peripheral vision.

      “She’s a good girl. Don’t trifle if you don’t really like her.”

      Nelson stepped outside without giving Brady the chance to respond that he had no intention of trifling. Dang, all he’d done was look. He was a red-blooded male, young, healthy, single. When a beautiful woman was nearby, he tended to notice. But anything beyond that with someone his dad considered a friend had bad idea written all over it. Because Brady wasn’t a long-term kind of guy—not anymore.

      An engine started outside, and it only took a moment for Brady to realize it was his truck. By the time he reached the door, his dad was heading down the lane toward the road.

      First his dad told him to steer clear of Audrey then he left the two of them alone. What was the old guy up to?