Free To Begin Anew (Blue Jay Romance) by Eliza Gerard

quiet.”
     
    Danny eyed his brother, not sure if David was the smarter of the two of them, but after a moment of thinking about it, he figured it made enough sense that he would go along with it for the time being. The blanket that Miss Brown had set over him was fluffy and smelled like the muffins she kept giving them and while he willingly followed his brother out of bed, he wasn’t quite so willing to give up the blanket.
     
    “Come on, Danny, you slow poke.” David waved at him, his face contorted as his body passed through the door jamb of the bedroom. Danny hesitated for a moment while he rolled his eyes, then shuffled up to the door and stepped out into the hallway.
     
    As he emerged from the room he was seized and before he could scream, which he was absolutely about to do, there was a whisper in his ear, “Your dad is sleeping, so we’re gonna eat breakfast and be quiet until he wakes up. Okay?”
     
    All Danny could do was nod, even as he felt his body being lifted and carried down the hall that led from the bedroom and then into the kitchen. David, the previous victim and now captive, was already seated at Miss Brown’s kitchen counter, face deep in Cheerios.
     
    Debra sat Danny down next to his brother and while she fixed him a bowl of cereal and sliced him some fruit, she had to chuckle at her cleverness. She’d set her clock so far ahead that she knew no matter how early those little buggers decided to rise, she would beat them to their routine of jumping on the less fortunate.
     
    David swallowed a bite of a peach that Miss Brown cut for him, leaned in on his little elbows and asked, “Why is Daddy still sleeping? Won’t he be late for work?”
     
    Debra shook her head as she scruffled David’s head. After the first time she’d seen Dr. Nelson do it she couldn’t keep herself from doing it and now, every time she got the chance, she was ruffling their heads almost as if she wanted to shake the hair from their scalps.
     
    She’d done the kids one better and called ahead to the hospital to check and see if a certain doctor had to be in at a certain time and discovered that it was one of his days off. Since it was a Saturday, the day of all days where sleeping in and doing nothing was sort of welcomed after a long week of hard work, she wasn’t about to disrupt the quiet.
     
    The ring, then the knock at her front door begged to differ.
     
    Giving the boys a look, a stern but soft look, Debra moved to her front door and before whoever it was on the other end could ring her door bell again, she opened it and stepped outside, preferring to handle the caller on the steps rather than taking it inside.
     
    It was a wise choice, since almost instantly after stepping outside she was assaulted by flashing lights and the whirr as a camera flared.
     
    “Hello!”
     
    Debra blinked in the direction of the bright, too-cheerful voice. The recognition of who it was, the sound of it through a hundred eye rolls and changes of the television station sent a spike of panic to the very bottom of her stomach. What in the world was going on?
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Debra imagined herself when she was younger, on a stage, lights flashing as people cheered her on. She was famous and everyone loved her. As Debra frowned at the woman standing in front of her, she was glad that one particular dream never came true.
     
    Instead of greeting the woman, perhaps inviting her into her home, Debra folded her arms across her chest and tilted her chin a degree upwards. It was her mess-with-me-and-I’ll-make-you-sorry expression.
     
    “I was just hoping to catch the good doctor on his way out,” Cathy Fields said, the woman otherwise known as ‘Chatty Cathy’ to everyone in town who owned a television and a pair of ears.
     
    It wasn’t the way she’d said the words, Debra thought to herself, but the expression on her face when she said them. It was as if she hoped to catch a glimpse of Dr. Nelson in his underwear