Free Beguiled Again: A Romantic Comedy by Patricia Burroughs

classes. But somehow they’d managed to fill the remaining hours with some pretty decent memories. Things had been tight, but livable.
    Now she consoled herself with the same words: tight, but livable—with one important difference. The first time around she had been saving for Robert’s future, assuming she’d be part of it. This time, she was fighting for her own.
    By her calculations, shaky though they might be, she figured she’d have a large enough nest egg in two more years to stop singing and enroll at the university full-time. If she worked hard, she could earn a degree in music education in three years and land a teaching job in time to help pay for Peter’s college expenses. She tamped down the guilty feeling that she ought to be trying to take a few classes already. She simply couldn’t handle any more right now.
    As if to reassure her, Ralph lumbered over and dropped his big head onto her lap, sending several papers flitting to the floor. Cecilia scooped them up and was returning them to the table, when an envelope caught her eye. How had a check ended up with the bills?
    She tore open the envelope. Money. The tightness in her chest eased a little. She ticked off the upcoming gigs on the calendar, the sure dates with Stan, the dates he’d given her cash in her hot, sweaty little hands. The commercial jingles were growing more frequent, but sometimes payment was slow.
    But with this check for the Happy Haven Mobile Homes commercial, she’d ride easy for the month. Then her eyes lighted on the savings book. If she couldn’t start school immediately, the least she could do was add to the nest egg.
    “Well, which one of you guys is gonna scream the loudest if I don’t pay you in full this month?” she asked the pile of still unopened bills.  

    ~o0o~

    Jeff tilted his leather swivel chair back and massaged the back of his neck. The sounds of movement from outside his office confirmed what his aching body was telling him. It was six o’clock. The stack of questionable tax forms McVay had left on his desk earlier that afternoon told him he was staying.
    But taunting him from the corner of his polished walnut desk top was a small, scratched circle of glass. It had been there for two days, inviting him to throw it in the trash, tempting him to return it to its owner, or rather, its owner’s mother.
    He fingered the watch crystal, held it up and looked through it to the abstract print on the opposite wall. The symmetrical lines of varying widths of black, gray and red appeared asymmetrical, thanks to the scratches on the crystal. With a disgusted sigh he threw it into the trash can. Typical. Anything associated with Cecilia Evans was bound to distort his vision of a perfect and orderly world.
    It was a cheap watch that could be easily and inexpensively replaced, anyway.
    And the kid was a real pain in the neck. He hadn’t even said thank-you. In fact, he’d told Jeff in no uncertain terms to stay away from his mother. As if Jeff needed any extra warning. Nope, Cecil brought him nothing but trouble. Always had, always would.
    Trouble. In an attractive package, maybe. But trouble all the same.
    Just thinking the words made him feel better. Relieved to have that nonsense out of his system, he reached for a file and pulled up a record on his computer.  
    He input all of two figures before he shut it off again without saving the changes, and fished the watch crystal out of the trash can.  
    Life had handed him an excuse to see her again, and damned if he was going to throw it away. They were brats, not monsters. He was a man, not a mouse. And she was all woman, not at all the kid she had once been.
    Chinese curse or not, life was about to get interesting.
    Bring it on .

    ~o0o~

    “Line up,” Cecilia ordered.
    “I can do it myself,” Peter said.
    “I know you can, but you didn’t, so now I’m going to.” She stifled further protests with a soapy washcloth applied firmly to his chin, determined to