Authors: Carol Grace

Granted: A Family for Baby (7 page)

BOOK: Granted: A Family for Baby

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Think of Travis, she told herself. But when she thought of him she thought of him lying on Brady’s chest on her living room couch. She thought of him happily bouncing along on Brady’s back at the wild mustang ranch. She thought of Travis’s ecstatic expression when he spotted Brady in the diner.

When she finally returned to the office, her arm aching after putting up a dozen signs, Brady was gone. There was a note on the door saying he’d be back later. She heaved a sigh of relief. She threw herself into her work, pretending nothing had happened. But she
jumped whenever the phone rang and felt a rush of disappointment when it wasn’t him. Where was he? How was he? She left the papers on her desk to pace back and forth from her office to his. When the phone rang again it was Carla at the drugstore.

“Tell Brady his medicine is ready, would you, Suzy?”

“What medicine?”

“You know, for his broken toe.”

“For his broken toe?” She almost dropped the phone. Oh, good Lord, she’d broken his toe. She felt sick with guilt.

“I mean for the pain. He saw Doc Haller this morning and the doc phoned in his prescription. Said Brady would pick it up, but he hasn’t. Could be because he’s feeling no pain, if you know what I mean.”

Good old Carla, with her finger on the pulse of Harmony and its inhabitants.

“You mean...”

“I heard he was over at the saloon hoisting a few.”

Suzy hung up, locked the office and drove up the street to the pharmacy, picked up Brady’s medicine and drove the three blocks to the saloon on the corner. She only had to look through the crowd to locate him at the table in the back. There he sat, with his right foot in a thick white sock propped on the table, and a mug of beer in his hand.

He saw her, she was sure he saw her, but the only acknowledgment was the way he raised his eyebrows. She plowed right through the cigar smoke and the wall-to-wall cowboys, and up to his table.

“Look who’s here,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Sit down, darlin’, and have a drink.”

Darlin’? He must be drunk.

“No thank you,” she said primly. “I came to apologize.”

“For what? Kissing me?”

Suzy swallowed hard and glanced over her shoulder. She could feel the heat rise up her neck into her face. Did he have to raise his voice so the whole bar could hear him?

“No,” she said in a loud whisper, “for dropping the hammer on your foot.”

“Then you’re not sorry you kissed me?” he asked loudly with a wicked grin.

Her knees buckled and she sank into the seat opposite his elevated foot, hoping to prevent him from sharing any more of what happened with the whole world.

“Could we forget about what happened and talk about your foot?”

“Foot’s fine,” he said. “Long as I don’t walk on it.”

“How did you get here?”

“Don’t remember.”

“How will you get home?”

He shrugged. “Who wants to go home? Nobody there.”

Was this Brady Wilson, the consummate loner saying he didn’t want to go home because nobody was there?

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?” she asked, noticing the half dozen empty glasses on the table.

He shook his head and lifted his glass to his lips for another swig of the dark beer.

“I only came here to bring you your pain pills,” she said, “but I’m not going to leave you here like this.” After all, this was all her fault. She’d kissed him. She’d dropped the hammer on his foot. He could get over the kiss, but what about his broken toe?

“Come on,” she said, getting to her feet. “Lean on me. I’ll take you home.”

He lowered his foot to the floor, and she pulled him up by the hand. Then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and he hobbled out through the crowd to the sidewalk, leaning heavily against her. She opened the car door and watched him ease himself awkwardly into the front seat.

“Sorry it’s so small,” she said noting his legs were jackknifed against the glove compartment and his face reflected the pain he must be in. “What did the doctor say, anyway?”

“Stay off the foot”

Suzy pictured Brady in his big house, unable to walk to the kitchen, crawling to the bathroom. And all because she’d broken his toe. “Maybe you’d better come home with me.”

Brady opened the window and let the cool night air hit his face. It had a sobering effect on his woozy state of inebrium. Go home with her. If he couldn’t keep his hands off her in the office, what would happen at her house? “I’d better not,” he said.

“I don’t think you ought to be alone. Besides I feel responsible for what happened.”

“No doubt about that,” he said, glancing at her profile in the semidarkness, at the curve of her cheek, her straight nose and her lips. Those tempting lips that had gotten him where he was right now.

“I was talking about the way I dropped the hammer on your toe,” she said.

“I was talking about the way you kissed me.”

“You keep talking about
my
kissing you,” she said. “You seem to have forgotten that you started it. You kissed me first,” she said.

“I haven’t forgotten,” he said. The memory of her mouth on his, of her beautiful breasts pressed against his chest made his body throb with unfulfilled desire just thinking about it. It would be hard to forget and he wasn’t even going to try. “I’m not sorry it happened, but I’m sorry I put you in an awkward position.”

She gave him a rueful smile. “Looks like you’re the one in the awkward position. And it’s my fault for dropping the hammer.”

“Let’s stop blaming ourselves or each other,” he suggested. His toe was throbbing and he was tired of apologizing for something that had left him dazed and shaken and experiencing feelings he didn’t want to deal with. And he wasn’t talking about his foot. “Take me home,” he instructed, “and tomorrow we’ll go on as if nothing happened.”

“I’m not taking you home,” she said. “Not when you’re supposed to stay off your foot. I’m taking you to my house for the night.” She pulled up in front of her mother’s house.

“If you’re feeling guilty,” he said, “don’t.”

“Don’t tell me how to feel,” she said, and marched up the steps. In a few minutes she was back with Travis in her arms.

He squealed with happiness when he saw Brady. Brady grinned, despite his pain, remembering the night Travis called him Da-da. Kids were so great. At least this kid was. He really hadn’t known any others. But they didn’t seem to worry about who kissed who first and whose fault it was. They were either happy or sad. If they were happy they laughed, and if they were sad they cried.

When they got to Suzy’s house, Brady opened the
car door and stuck his good foot out. Suzy unbuckled Travis from his car seat and headed for her front door.

“Stay there,” she told Brady. “I’ll be back for you.”

“No way,” he muttered, bracing himself on the car door. He would not be treated like a helpless invalid.

“I’m not a helpless invalid,” he said when she returned to get him and he hadn’t made any progress on his own. He blamed that on the beer. He had had a lot to drink. But, he who’d never leaned on anyone, leaned gratefully against her shoulder for the second time that night. She was stronger than she looked. Both physically and emotionally. He guessed she had to be to raise a child on her own. He admired that. He admired everything about her. Her spunk, her humor, her good nature. And her big, meltingly soft eyes and her mouth and her long legs....

Yes, that’s what got him in trouble earlier that day. Admiring everything about her. He shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t stay at her house and sleep under the same roof. It was just going to make it that much harder when she left. When she worked at the diner and went out with other men. He groaned.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, bringing him into the living room.

“It hurts to have to depend on someone to walk.”

“Hurts your pride, you mean. There’s nothing wrong with depending on someone else. Even if you’re the big, tough sheriff.” She led him to the couch and he fell onto it, grateful to be off his feet.

She dragged the coffee table up and he stretched out his leg. “You don’t think anyone saw you help me out of the saloon, do you?” he asked.

“Only about twenty-five men and seven women. Didn’t you hear the cheering as we left?”

“I thought it was jeering.” He sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

“Pot roast. I put it in the crock pot this morning. Too big for one and a half persons, but I like to have leftovers. Probably not as good as the diner’s, either, but I do my best. I’m going to put Travis to bed.”

“Without his pot roast?” Brady asked.

“My mom fed him early and he’s tired. Will you be all right?”

“Will I be all right?” he repeated. “As long as you’re not gone more than five minutes. After all, I’m suffering major injuries here. Not to mention thirst and hunger and humiliation. You can’t just walk off and leave me. Especially since I’m here against my will. And since you caused the injury that caused the pain and the humiliation. Is that clear?”

She paused only a moment to take all this in. “All clear, Sheriff,” she said with a snappy salute. Then she left the room.

He put his head back against the couch and let the unfamiliar smell of a home-cooked meal permeate his senses. If he had the sense God gave a mongoose, he’d get out of that house as fast as he could. Before he succumbed to the charms of Suzy and the homey atmosphere she’d created. The ferns in the corner, the soft lights and the couch just inviting him to stretch out, the framed baby pictures of Travis on the mantel all said: this is a home...this is a family...a family without one important member—the one she was leaving him to find.

Instead of stretching out, he ought to limp, stagger or crawl out to the highway, hold out his thumb and hitch a ride home. Because he’d been tempted once before by this kind of a setup. At one time this was all he’d
wanted. A house to come home to. A wife waiting with dinner simmering on the stove. A baby in the crib. But not anymore. He’d chosen a life of law enforcement and as he’d told Suzy, it was no life for a married man. It broke up marriages, it put an unfair burden on the wife and kids. It broke hearts. His, for one.

But what was one night, he asked himself. What was the harm of eating one dinner, spending one night on her couch? Yes, he was there against his will. He’d probably regret it. But since having Suzy make a big deal out of a broken toe, bring him his dinner and let him sleep under her roof were not likely to happen again, not in this lifetime, anyway, he might as well relax and enjoy it. Which was why when she returned in less than the allotted five minutes, he was smiling to himself.

He looked up. “You put Travis in bed and he didn’t cry?” he asked, noting that she’d changed into faded jeans and a Brady Wilson for Sheriff T-shirt.

“He’s usually good about it. I don’t know what happened the night you watched him. I’m afraid you weren’t firm enough with him. He must have spotted you as-an easy mark.”

“Don’t let my constituents hear that,” he said. “Or the would-be criminals lurking around Harmony.”

Suzy brought the food into the living room so he could stay where he was. She sat cross-legged on the floor, facing him. As they ate, they talked about many things. He told her how he felt when he first came to Harmony, before he knew anyone, how he felt at home from the first and how much he liked it. She told him stories about growing up in Harmony and how much she liked it.

He didn’t talk about his ex-wife, and Suzy didn’t talk
about the man who was Travis’s father. He wanted to ask. He wanted to ask how such a levelheaded, down-to-earth person like her could have made such a terrible mistake, but deep down he really didn’t want to know. He wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. Her affair and his marriage. Neither one. He carefully avoided talking about her next husband, too. The one who was waiting at the diner for a chance to propose to her. Why spoil a nice evening?

They didn’t talk about what had happened that morning, either. It was best to pretend that it hadn’t happened at all. He didn’t know about her, but he was really having a hard time pretending. Every time he looked at her, he thought about how he’d kissed her and how she felt in his arms. And he remembered the flush that tinted her cheeks, the way she held on to him as if she’d never let go. The sharp intake of her breath.

The dinner was the best he’d had in months, maybe years. The pot roast was tender and moist, smothered in a rich gravy, surrounded by small, new potatoes and carrots. He mopped up the last of the gravy with a piece of French bread.

“Yes, he’s a lucky guy,” he said. He just couldn’t stop himself. Couldn’t stop comparing himself to the man Suzy was looking for, who would one day be sitting where he was sitting, eating what he was eating, but unlike him, would not be spending the night on the couch.

“Who?”

“You know, the guy you’re going to marry.”

“Just because I can put a pot roast in the crock pot before work? Come on, Brady, anybody can do that.” She gathered the empty plates in her arms.

BOOK: Granted: A Family for Baby

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