Granted: A Family for Baby by Grace Carol Read Free Book Online

the thing. I thought we could all go this afternoon.”
    “Travis, too? Okay. I’ll have to change.”
    “Why? You look cute.”
    She choked back a laugh. “You’ve never paid me a compliment since I started working for you. And today you think I look cute?”
    “Oh, come on. I complimented you just the other day after you rewrote that speech of mine.”
    “I don’t mean that. I mean...”
    “I know what you mean,” he said wryly. “Personal stuff. My ex-wife said the same thing.”
    If there was anything Suzy didn’t want, it was to be compared to his ex-wife.
    “Anyway, I’m going to change,” she assured him. “As soon as Travis finishes his soup.”
    “Soup?” He sniffed the air. “What kind of soup?”
    “Chicken noodle.”
    “My favorite.”
    “It came out of a can.”
    “Where else?”
    She smiled. “Would you like to join us?”
    “I thought you’d never ask.”
    When they got to the kitchen Travis was wearing his soup bowl on his head and there were noodles all over the floor. When he saw Brady he let out a squeal of delight and banged his fist on his tray.
    Ignoring the inverted soup bowl and the puddles on the floor, Suzy watched as her boss and her son exchanged high-fives. There’d obviously been some kind of male bonding the night she was gone. She turned to the stove and scooped a generous portion of noodles and broth into a bowl and set it on the table in front of Brady, who’d taken the chair next to Travis.
    “It looks like he remembers you,” she noted dryly.
    “He’d better remember me,” Brady said taking the bowl off Travis’s head and mopping his cherubic face with a napkin. “After all that quality time we spent together, right kid?” He looked up at Suzy. “Go change if you’re going to.”
    “You’re sure you’ll be all right with him?” she asked warily.
    “Sure.”
    When she returned in clean, well-fitting jeans and a fresh shirt, her hair combed and a light dusting of an almost-invisible foundation and some pale lipstick, the kitchen floor was clean, and Travis was standing on Brady’s knees jumping up and down.
    “Hey,” Brady said, with an appreciative glance in her direction. “Don’t let this go to your head, but you look even better. Smell good, too,” he said with a sexy grin.
    “Two compliments in one day,” she said lightly. “I should invite you over for soup more often.”
    “Yes, you should,” he said. “Then I wouldn’t have to eat in the diner every day.”
    “Can’t you open a can of soup and heat it up at your house?” she asked, lifting Travis off Brady’s lap to clean his hair and wipe his baby face with a damp cloth.
    “I can. But I like company with my soup.”
    She had a vision of Brady alone in his refinished barn, eating a lonely dinner by himself, and realized that she also ate too many lonely meals, that a one-year-old wasn’t the most stimulating dinner companion. Another reason to have a man in her life. Not only to be a father to Travis, but to be a husband to her. A companion, someone to share the meals as well as her life. She must let nothing distract her from that goal. All the more
     reason to get going out to the Gentrys’, get started raising money for Brady’s campaign, get Brady elected and then find that certain someone.
    Suzy transferred Travis’s car seat into Brady’s car, tossed his kid pack into the back seat and they were off to the Gentrys’ wild mustang ranch.
    “I have you to thank for this chance to raise money. You and your connections in town. What will I ever do without you?” Brady asked as they headed down the highway toward the wide-open spaces, here neatly fenced ranches lined either side of the road.
    “You’ll do fine without me. All you really need me for is to help you win the election. Once I’ve done that, my work is routine. Filling out forms, processing transfers of prisoners, sending messages to the county. Anyone can do it. I can train them in half a day.”
    He