The Unexpected Wedding Gift. Catherine Spencer

into the hall but there was light showing below. Silently, she made her way to the top of the staircase, not daring to think too far ahead, not knowing if she could do anything to soothe the baby, knowing only that she could not ignore its pitiful cries.

      She was halfway down the stairs when a stream of light from the kitchen flooded into the lower hall. A moment later, she froze as Ben appeared.

      He’d removed his dinner jacket, left his bow tie hanging loose around his neck and had undone the top button of his dress shirt. He had a tea towel slung over his shoulder and was holding the baby as if it were a football, resting its head against the fingertips of his right hand and its little bottom on his palm of his left hand, with its legs tucked into the crook of his elbow.

      He was humming to the child and jiggling it much too energetically. Her heart jumped with fear as he negotiated the newel post at the foot of the stairs. Another inch or two to the right, and he’d have banged the baby’s head.

      Be careful! she wanted to cry out. Watch where you’re going and don’t toss him around like that unless you want him to get sick to his little stomach. Hold him so that he can hear your heart beat, not as if you’re about to try for a touchdown!

      Perhaps she made a sound, or perhaps she moved because Ben suddenly stopped in his tracks and glanced up, trapping her as she hovered with one foot extended toward the next stair. She wanted to look away, to run back the way she’d come, but he would not release her from his gaze.

      The seconds spun out, marked by the quiet tick of the Vienna clock hanging opposite the front door. At length, Ben said, “He threw up all over me but he’s asleep finally.”