Free Let Me Be the One by Christa Maurice Page B

she reached up to knock at the door, Brian leaned around her and opened it. Cass sat at the table with her head in her hands listening to Andi wail. She glanced up as the door opened.
    “I’m sorry. This is not a good time,” Cass said. “I have my hands full.”
    “I came to see if I could help.” Suzi stepped inside the door and stopped. Brian crowded behind her, causing an awkward flutter in her belly. Either he was following her or he wanted to spend more time with the unhappy baby.
    “Unless you have some kind of magic spell to put babies to sleep, I doubt you can do anything.”
    Suzi walked over to the high chair and studied the baby. Andi was red faced and sweaty from crying. “Jason said she’d been sick.”
    “She was over it before we flew out here, but now her sleep schedule is screwed up again from the time change, and she hates to sleep, anyway.” Cass sat with her chin resting in her palm. Brian had taken a seat opposite the high chair and sat with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his arms folded.
    A challenge. One she had a fifty percent chance of losing. She never should have put herself in this position. She unstrapped the baby and checked her diaper. Clean.
    “I just changed her,” Cass said.
    “I figured, but it never hurts to check the obvious, right?” Suzi set Andi on the floor in the hopes that she just wanted to be free range. That worked some of the time. Andi waddled around the room, still crying, but not stopping anywhere. Poor kid looked like she was lost at the county fair. Suzi picked her up and walked around the room humming tonelessly. Andi started to scream louder. Suzi turned her around so she could see her mother. That reduced the screaming, but didn’t stop it.
    “Maybe I should just take her.” Cassie started to stand.
    “Let me try one more thing.” Suzi pondered. She had a couple more tricks. Which one had the best chance of working? After sitting at the table with Andi on her knee facing her mother, Suzi leaned back on the chair and rested Andi against her. Andi reduced to sniffling.
    “She’s been inconsolable for days.” Cass rubbed her hand through her red curls. “The only time she stops crying is when she’s asleep. I don’t know how Jason sleeps through it.”
    “Practice,” Brian said. He still had no good reason to be here. Putting fussy babies to sleep was a neat trick, but it couldn’t be that interesting. Not when there was music being made fifty feet away.
    Andi’s sniffles subsided to the occasional hitch in breathing.
    “I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to talk to you,” Cassie said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’ve just been very busy.”
    “I understand.” Suzi brushed Andi’s dark hair off her face.
    “I’ve read all your books. I can’t believe how many you’ve published, in what? Two years? That’s amazing.”
    “Most of them are novellas. It doesn’t take nearly as long to write and edit a thirty thousand word manuscript as it does a ninety thousand word book.”
    “I guess not. You pack a lot of action into a little space, though. I always feel like I’ve read a full-length novel when I finish one of yours. Are you going to write any real books?”
    Suzi blew her bangs off her forehead. Someday, she was going to get over being asked that question. Her books were real. They were just electronic. “I have an agent talking to traditional publishers about print rights.”
    “How interesting. I’d never heard of you until this last Christmas when Brian gave me an e-reader with all your books on it.”
    All? Suzi stole a glance at Brian, but he was wearing a poker face. “Are you enjoying the e-reader?”
    “It’s handy. A lot easier to lug around airports. I know Maureen is never without hers.”
    “Maureen?”
    “Bear’s wife. Oh my God, I think she’s asleep.”
    Andi had begun to loll forward. Suzi adjusted her grip to keep hold of the baby who was now intent on slithering out of her