Free Lady and the Champ by Katherine Lace Page B

can’t hold back the laughter anymore.
    “Look what you did!”
    “Oh, come on. That wasn’t really a word. And she’s precious.” I reach out, wiggling my fingers, and Austin hands Emma over to me with a sigh. “Does she need to eat or anything?”
    “Yeah. I’ll go get her dinner ready.”
    Emma and I sit and play on the couch while Austin goes to prepare a bottle and some rice cereal. After a few minutes, the baby starts to get restless, so I get up and meander over to watch Austin, balancing Emma on my hip.
    “Is that all she eats?” I ask.
    “At the moment.” He carefully tests the temperature of the bottle, then the cereal. “I think it’s getting close to the time where we can try some vegetable baby food, but I’m going to check with her doctor first.”
    Emma starts wiggling, hands reaching toward the food.
    “I think she’s hungry.”
    Austin fetches a high chair and sets it up next to his table. I slide Emma into it, buckle her up, and watch while Austin spoons cereal into her mouth. I can’t believe it’s really happening. Austin Sherwood feeding a baby right in front of my eyes. And he’s good at it. Emma burbles and coos, eating her cereal, mooshing it out of her mouth until it runs down her chin, then wiping at it with her hands and painting abstract rice cereal art all over the high chair tray.
    When she’s done eating and painting with the cereal, Austin cleans her up and takes her back to the living room, where he sits on the couch and gives Emma her bottle. She’s getting sleepy, eyes drooping shut as she sucks happily.
    I can’t resist. “May I?”
    Austin gives me a small smile and eases Emma over into my arms. I’ve never given a baby a bottle, and it feels nice, with her heavy little body growing progressively heavier in my arms as she drifts closer to sleep.
    “I can’t believe you have a baby,” I say after a few minutes, keeping my voice low.
    Austin, sitting next to me on the couch, smiles over my shoulder down at his daughter. “Neither can I, really.”
    “She’s so perfect. I don’t understand how you’ve kept her a secret all this time.”
    He shrugs. “I just want her safe. I want all my family safe. If people knew I had a kid, the press would be all over her, taking pictures, following us around, harassing me about her mom, you name it.”
    “And what’s the story with her mom?” I tell myself I don’t want to know, but I actually do want to know.
    “The usual story, I guess you could say. Football groupie, very stupid wide receiver. I don’t think I would have even known Emma existed except Megan decided to basically ask for hush money.”
    That hits me a little wrong. “Isn’t it really child support? To take care of Emma?”
    “That’s the way I look at it, but Megan did tell me if I didn’t keep paying, she’d leak things to the press, go on talk shows, sell pictures of Emma to the tabloids…” He trails off. “I can’t have that. Not for my little girl. I just want her to have a normal life. Or at least as normal a life as possible.”
    I nod. I understand that. “A lot of men would have walked away.”
    “Maybe. It didn’t seem right. Now I have joint custody and a big chunk of my paycheck going to a woman I don’t really know and don’t particularly like.” He sighs.
    I turn my head a little to look toward his face. Abruptly, I realize his lips are a breath away from mine. My gaze falls to his mouth, and my own lips part, and he leans in…
    Abruptly, I jerk my head back to face forward. I can’t get Emma off my lap gracefully, but I start moving carefully to hand her back to Austin.
    “I need to go,” I tell him. My voice is shaky.
    “Are you sure?” His face is still very close to mine. I can feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.
    “Yes, I’m sure.”
    He takes Emma so carefully she doesn’t even wake up. “Just try not to slam the door, okay?” His tone is quiet. He doesn’t sound angry. I give him one last look;