Keep My Heart

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Millie walked back upstairs after a few minutes of silence in the kitchen with a cup of tea. She hadn’t wanted to disturb Mariah and Clayton in the parlor, so she had stuck to the table. While flipping through the newspaper, she had ran across a headline that the same gang that had robbed Casden’s bank had struck again. The thought of them taking another life turned her stomach, and she needed to divert her mind.

Trey was still on his hands and knees in his study, scrubbing at the floor with the brush. She couldn’t believe there was hardly a mark where the stain had been.

“I can’t believe it!” she smiled.

“Just a little elbow grease was all it needed” Trey said.

“I’m a little short of that” Millie giggled.

Trey looked up and down her 4 foot, 2 inch stature. “A little short on something’ else ain’t ya?” he teased.

Millie gaped at him, trying not to smile. “Are you calling me short?”

“You said it, not me” Trey shrugged.

Millie shook her head at him. In her mind, she was already thinking of ways to retaliate.

She shook her head and sat down in the overstuffed chair behind Trey’s desk. She looked up at the family portrait behind it.

“Is that your family?” She asked.

“Uh huh” Trey replied.

“What were they like?”

Trey sighed. “Well, Pop was a moonshine runner. Momma was a God-fearing woman. They didn’t mix too well”.

Moonshine. Is that was Trey did for a living?

“What happened to them?” Millie asked.

“Momma died later on in life in childbirth. Lost the baby, too. Pop resisted arrest and pulled a gun on the wrong man” Trey continued to scrub the carpet.

He sounded so nonchalant about the whole ordeal.

“Do you miss them?” Millie asked him, her feet dangling from the chair she sat in.

“Sometimes. Momma mostly. Pop wasn’t around much. Bein’ an only child had it’s advantages that way. Momma doted on my by day, Pop yelled at me by night” a hint of a smile came with Trey’s words.

Millie’s heart went out to him. She couldn’t imagine her father yelling at her and what it would have done to her.

“I’m sorry” she said.

“It’s over and done with” Trey stood and threw his brush into the pail of warm soapy water. “It’s getting late”.

Millie looked out of the window. The sun had closed it‘s eyes on the world and left it cold and dark. She was glad Quinn had gone to bed early, otherwise she would have forgot all about him.

“I’m going to go ahead and go to bed. Let me dump this water out” Millie reached for the pail of water, but Trey’s hand caught hers before she grabbed it.

“Let me get it” he said.

Millie nodded, but she didn’t mover her hand away, and he didn’t release it. She stood there for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes. Trey blinked a few times and released her hand.

“You go on to bed” he said.

“Thank you” Millie walked toward the door, but turned around once she reached the doorway. “Trey?”