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

the money,” she said briskly. “The Gentrys want to give a barn dance for you at their ranch. Twenty-five-dollar donation a couple for your campaign. How does that sound?”
    “Great. I won’t have to dance, will I?”
    “Of course not. You’ll be busy shaking hands. Why, what’s wrong with dancing?”
    “Just one of those many things I don’t do.”
    “They’ll have a caller, to call the dances and teach everybody. It’s fun.”
    “Suzy,” he said. “I’m not looking for fun, I’m looking...”
    “To win the election. I know.” She turned to go back to her office, to the pile of flyers on her desk.
    She’d barely gotten inside the door when he called her back. “Yes?” she said, her hand on the doorknob.
    “Thanks for the tea.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    “And the massage.”
    “Do you feel better?”
    His eyes darkened until they were almost black and completely unfathomable. He didn’t say anything for so long she thought he’d forgotten the question. “Depends,” he said at last, “on what you mean by better.”
    Suzy went back to her office and stared out the window at the town hall, wondering what was wrong with Brady besides a headache and a sore throat. As she told Tally, he was acting weird. Making her feel weird. And making it difficult for her to do whatever it was she was supposed to be doing. At five o’clock, tired of thinking of the unthinkable, she got up, slung her bag over her shoulder and said good-night to Brady. He raised his hand, gave her a brief smile and went back to work as if nothing had happened. Which it hadn’t. Not to him, anyway.
     
    The next day Suzy’s mother was sick and couldn’t take care of Travis. Suzy told Brady she’d work at home. She usually looked forward to going to work. As much as she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, she enjoyed the verbal jousting with Brady, dealing with the citizens of Harmony and helping Brady solve the problems that came across his desk. But not today. Today she was glad of an excuse to stay home.
    She told herself she needed a break from the stress at work. But that wasn’t it. She needed a break from Brady. From certain disturbing feelings he caused. But she realized about halfway through the morning, as she did a load of laundry, changed Travis’s diapers and
     picked up his toys, that there was something to be said for the working life after all.
    She frowned at her reflected image in the toaster oven. No makeup, her hair a tangle of frizz, a blot of strained peaches on the front of her shirt. Instead of her usual work clothes and careful grooming, she was a mess. Was this how she would look every day after she’d finally achieved her goal?
    At noon Brady came by with a stack of papers. He looked only slightly surprised at her appearance as his eyes traveled from her unruly hair down to her baggy jeans and bare feet. When his intense gaze lingered on the peach stain on her sweatshirt, her pulse sped up and she felt a strange warmth suffuse her body, despite the cool breeze coming through the open door. Her body was reacting as if he’d touched her. Her heart fluttered. Her mouth was dry.
    What was wrong with her, a mature woman with a baby, reacting to a man’s gaze like that? Many men had looked at her, had even desired her. She knew that. She usually brushed them off like flies. But not Brady.
    It was not as if he had touched her. Because if he had... Oh, Lord, just the thought caused the heat to intensify and made her hands shake. Why hadn’t she changed clothes when she heard the doorbell ring? Then there’d be no peach stain to stare at. But how could she know it would be him?
    “I...I wasn’t expecting you,” she stammered
    “Where’s the kid?” he asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.
    “In the kitchen. We’re having lunch. Why?”
    “Because your friend Bridget called this morning about the barn dance. She wants us to go out and have
     a look at the facilities, talk about