Trish Milburn - Her Very Own Family

When she saw the size of the wooden crate he pulled toward the back of the truck, she hurried to help him. “Here, I’ll get this side. I’m not much for watching other people do my work.” She added the last, hoping to forestall any argument that he was still capable of carrying a heavy box. She figured he’d had enough reminding today that things weren’t as they’d always been.

Audrey backed her way toward the mill, Mr. Witt following. Once inside, she guided the crate onto the bench stretching along the length of one wall.

“I haven’t been in here in years,” Mr. Witt said as he scanned the interior. “I remember coming here with my daddy when I was a boy.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. Even though you could get cornmeal in the stores, he always liked what came from the mill better. I remember sitting on the creek bank, just watching the wheel turn round and round.”

“That’s one of the things on my extensive to-do list,” Audrey said. “I want to get the wheel operational again. I think it’ll add to the atmosphere.”

Mr. Witt looked around at the mill’s silent gears and aging wood. “Hard to imagine this place as a restaurant.”

“I admit, it’s got a long way to go. But as it happens, you’re my first dining guest.” She extended her arm to point out the small table in the corner, covered with a white cloth and with a vase of daffodils. Her attempt to add a little cheer to the place. “I was about to have lunch, and I’ve got plenty to share.”

“I don’t want you to go to all that trouble.”

“It’s no trouble. I have to eat anyway, and it’s the least I can do for you bringing these frames all the way over here.” Plus, if Mrs. Witt had always done the grocery shopping, chances were she’d also done the cooking. That led Audrey to believe Mr. Witt might not have been eating properly since his family’s departure. Something about him brought out her protective instincts.

“It’s not too far,” he said as he took a seat. “I just live a couple miles down the road from your lane.”

Audrey slid onto the chair opposite him. “Oh, so we’re practically neighbors.”

Mr. Witt shared tales of his youth in Willow Glen as they ate their lunch, making Audrey laugh with the accounts of some of his mischievous antics.

“I think by the time I got out of school, the teachers were ready to throw a party.”

“I can’t imagine why. Doesn’t everyone bring snakes to show-and-tell and put scarecrows in their teachers’ cars?”

Mr. Witt chuckled at the remembered scenes. “But, Lordy, I got payback when I had my own son.”

“Wild one, huh?”

“Whoo-ee. Put me to shame. But he turned out all right, so I guess no harm came of his escapades.”

“You only have the one?”

“Yeah, just one son. Betty…” Sadness drifted across his face at the name. “Betty and I had two children. Brady’s the oldest. He runs the construction company now, even opened a new office where he lives down in Kingsport. Our daughter, Sophie, owns a bridal shop in Asheville, North Carolina. She’s got two little girls who I’ve been known to spoil from time to time.”

“I bet you do.” Audrey smiled, glad the topic of his grandchildren had pushed away the incredible ache it was painful to witness.

“Does your son have children?”

“Goodness, no. That boy doesn’t slow down long enough to date a gal for more than a month at a time. Say, maybe I should fix the two of you up. You’re a pretty girl, hardworking.”

Audrey wadded her napkin into a ball and tossed it onto her empty plate. She tried to push away an ache of her own by changing the subject. “I think my only dates are going to be with a broom and a paintbrush for the foreseeable future.”

“All work and no play…” he teased.

“Opens my café and adds to my dwindling bank account sooner.” She took a drink of her water.

“He’s a good-looking boy.” The hopeful tone in his voice nearly made Audrey chuckle.

“Must take after his father.” She patted his hand. “Let’s take a look at those frames.” And steer clear of the topic of dating. She didn’t have the time or the inclination.

Yes, she got lonely and missed being held. But Darren, the man she’d thought she’d marry, had shown her that might never be possible.

Not when any interesting, or interested, man found out who she was.

BRADY WITT HUNG UP the phone in his office, trying not to worry that he couldn’t reach his dad. He’d made attempts all day with no luck. Maybe his dad was out in his shop. Though with the way Nelson had been acting when Brady left, he couldn’t imagine it. With his wife’s death, the life had seemed to go out of Nelson Witt, too.

“You okay?”

Brady looked up to see his business partner and best friend, Craig Williams, standing in the doorway.

“Yeah, just can’t get in touch with Dad.”

“He could’ve gone into town.”

“Maybe, but I’ve been calling all day. If he hit every business in Willow Glen, it might take him a couple of hours. And that’s if he spent an hour hanging out with the other old coots at Cora’s Coffee Shop.”

Craig ambled in and sank into one of the chairs opposite Brady’s desk. “Why don’t you take some time off? Go spend it with your dad.”

“I just did that.”

Craig shook his head. “You were dealing with the funeral and the aftermath. I’m thinking you go up and keep him busy, take him fishing, get him in a new routine that won’t remind him of your mom so much.”

Brady leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I don’t think he’s interested in fishing or anything else for that matter.”

“Your parents were so close. That’s why you should go. Left to themselves, sometimes older people don’t last long if they lose their spouse. I saw it happen to my grandma.”

The thought of losing his father so soon after his mom sent a sharp pain through Brady’s chest. But how did you force someone to learn to live again?

“Just a couple of weeks,” Craig said. “We’ve got things under control here. And if you still feel like you can’t do anything after that, then you come back and let time do its thing.”

Brady glanced at the calendar. “I’ve got to finish the bid on the Lakeview project.”

“I can finish it up, get Kelly to help me. Be good experience for her. Plus, it’s not like you’re headed to the wilds of Tibet.”

Brady considered Craig’s words for a moment before nodding. “Okay.” It did make sense to give Kelly, their architecture intern, experience in all aspects of the business.

And honestly, Brady’s heart wasn’t in his work anyway. He couldn’t turn off the anger or pain about his mom’s death. Or the concern about how suddenly old and empty his father had looked in the days after the passing of the love of his life.

Maybe time alone with his dad would do Brady some good, too.

For the hour it took him to drive to Willow Glen, he tossed around ideas in his head, things to do with his dad. Fishing, going to visit Sophie and her family, yard work, watching some baseball, maybe even some renovation on the house.

When he pulled into his dad’s driveway, he noticed the truck wasn’t there. He hadn’t seen the truck in town or in the parking lot of Witt Construction’s main office. It was after five. Where could his dad be?

Even though he knew he wouldn’t find him, Brady did a walk-through of the shop and the house. He’d been in the house while his parents were away from home hundreds of times, but today felt different, emptier. He half expected to step into the kitchen to see his mom at the stove making dinner, an apron tied around her waist and her cheeks pink from the heat. But the kitchen proved even quieter than the rest of the house. His heart ached to know his mom would never again playfully smack his hand away from whatever she was cooking.

He left the lingering presence of his mother behind and stepped out onto the porch.

However this trip turned out, he was getting his dad a cell phone and teaching him how to use it.

“You looking for your dad?”

Brady glanced to his left to see Bernie Stoltz, his parents’ longtime neighbor, in his garden.

“Yeah, I’ve been trying to reach him all day.”

“He’s probably still out at the old Grayson Mill. He’s been spending a lot of time out there with the lady who bought it.”

Shock squeezed the air from Brady’s lungs. His mother had been gone barely a month. Who was this woman attracting his dad’s attention? What did she want from him?

He tried to keep the suspicion out of his voice when he spoke, though. “Someone bought the old mill?”

Bernie leaned on his hoe. “Yep. I hear she’s planning to turn it into a restaurant.”

Brady had a million more questions, but he’d save them for his father. Bernie was a nice guy, but he tended to be a bit gossipy. And despite Willow Glen’s laid-back atmosphere, one thing that had supersonic speed was the gossip chain. Not much else to do in a one-stoplight town.

“Interesting. Well, I guess I’ll run out there and see if I can catch him.”

He waved to Bernie as he headed for his truck, not inviting further conversation. On his way to the mill, he tried not to jump to conclusions, but he knew how quickly some women leaped on newly widowed men, especially ones with money. His surging suspicions brought an image of Ginny Carter to the surface, but he flung it away with a growl.

At the very least something was odd. Only a few days ago, his dad had been walking around in a daze, weighed down by grief. Now he was spending his free time with some unnamed woman at a run-down gristmill.

When he drove within view of the old building, sure enough, there was his dad’s truck under the shade of a big sycamore tree. He rolled to a stop and caught sight of his dad poking his head out the front door of the mill. By the time he stepped out of the truck, his dad stood on the small porch.

“Didn’t expect to see you,” his dad said.

“I’ve been calling you all day.”

Nelson Witt’s gray eyebrows raised. “So you drove all the way up here to check on me?”

“Partly. Decided to take a couple weeks of vacation.”

He saw his dad frown. “I suppose Bernie told you where I was,” Nelson said, almost his old self again.

“Yeah. He said you’ve been spending a lot of time out here.”

“It passes the days.”

There might be hints of his dad’s normal self resurfacing, but it was going to be a long time, if ever, before the soul-deep sorrow went away.

“So, you’re helping the lady with a little work?” Brady nodded at the wood chips and dust coating his dad’s shirt and jeans.

“Yeah, doing some odds and ends now, but she’s going to have me make the tables and chairs for the restaurant eventually.”

Brady eyed the exterior of the old mill. “She really thinks people will come out here to eat?”

“They’ll come. Audrey’s smart, got a business plan, lots of great ideas.”

Brady didn’t know what he thought of his father’s glowing report. On the one hand, it was great that he had a project, something to keep him occupied. On the other, well, he just needed to meet this Audrey for himself to make sure nothing was fishy, that she wasn’t a gold digger looking for someone to bankroll her pet project.

“She around?”

His dad nodded toward the gravel lane leading back to the main road. “She’s gone into town to get some paint. Should be back soon.”

“Well, let’s see what you’re working on,” Brady said as he walked toward the porch.