Read Granted: A Family for Baby for Free Online Page A

is to help you win so I can get on with my life.”
    “Good,” he said unwilling to talk further about marriage or kids or anything else he didn’t have. He sat down behind his desk, leaning as far back in his swivel chair as he could without tipping over, hoping his headache. and sore throat would go away.
    “You didn’t mention that besides the wife and kids Darryl has money,” she said.
    “Maybe I didn’t mention it, but I haven’t forgotten it,” he mumbled, pressing his thumbs against his temples.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked.
    “Nothing but a sandpaper throat and a bongo drum beating a rhythm in my head. Nothing that a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure. If I ever get one. Did I tell you I had to break up a fight in the saloon last night at one o’clock?”
    “No, you didn’t,” Suzy said. She felt a pang of guilt for scheduling too many events in one day, not to mention having him baby-sit for her on the weekend. She glanced out the window at the small structure with bars on the windows that had served the town as a jail ever since she could remember. “Anyone arrested?”
    He shook his head. “Thank God it ended peacefully. With both parties mad at me instead of each other.”
    “You should have told me,” she said, with a look
     of concern at the worry lines carved in his forehead. “What you need is a good massage.” He didn’t answer, so she stepped behind his desk chair and ran her hands tentatively through his hair. It was thick and springy and tickled her palms, causing a frisson of awareness to skitter up her spine.
    She had a terrible, overwhelming desire to bury her face in his hair. To inhale the heady masculine scent that was pure Brady. Her heart fluttered, and an alarm bell went off in a far corner of her brain. She didn’t listen. She didn’t want to hear it. She leaned forward and kneaded the muscles in his neck and broad shoulders, letting his hair brush her cheek.
    He moaned deep in his throat, and the sound sent a bolt of desire ricocheting through her body. “Feel good?” she murmured. As if she didn’t know.
    He let his head fall back against her ribs, just below her breasts, and she felt a wave of heat course through her body. She told herself Brady was her boss. She told herself he had a headache and she was only trying to make it better. It was as simple as that. But it wasn’t simple. It was complicated. She took a deep breath and applied pressure from her thumbs against his temples. And realized she had to stop. Right now.
    “Why don’t I make you some tea with honey in it, for your throat?” she suggested, tiptoeing carefully around the desk. He nodded and let his eyes close.
    Grateful that he had no idea of the effect he had on her, Suzy sighed softly and went to the storeroom to heat the tea in the microwave there. When she came back with the cup in her hand, Brady sat up straight and ran his hand through his hair. There were lines around his mouth, signs of fatigue she hadn’t seen before. Her heart twisted. He might not want a wife. He
     might have had a bad experience with marriage, but if ever a man needed someone to take care of him, it was Brady. And after she left, who would do it?
    She set the cup on his desk. “I hope you like Peach Passion,” she said.
    He grinned, his fatigue disappearing as fast as the steam rising from the cup. “I like peach passion and every other kind of passion, don’t you?”
    “Passion is what got me into trouble before,” she said primly. “I’ve sworn off passion.”
    He took a large gulp of tea, but his eyes didn’t leave her face. She felt her cheeks redden. She didn’t want to talk about her ill-fated affair with Travis’s father. But she meant what she said. She would never succumb to passion again. Not that she would trade Travis, the result of her passionate affair, for anything. But passion didn’t last, and this time she was looking for something else. Something permanent.
    “Anyway, back to