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

rooms at the crack of dawn and before they’d even come into his room to rip him from his slumber, they’d seen Debra on the couch and then pandemonium ensued. It was all he could do to keep them from bouncing all over her and he’d just barely managed to do that long enough so he could brew some coffee.
     
    He sat across from Debra, his own cup of coffee hot in his hands and he risked looking her in the eyes. The woman, even though calm, looked as if she could eat a small infant for breakfast. Apparently, she didn’t enjoy waking up with twin children for alarm bells.
     
    “I’m sorry.” His tone implied the unnecessary I-told-you-so that he really wanted to say.
     
    Debra shrugged. Sure she wasn’t the happiest person ever to walk the Earth at the moment, but she wasn’t going to go postal on account of it. After a fashion, she was happy that the children had taken to her so fast. She couldn’t explain it, but the pair of them warmed her in a way that nothing else could. She said, “No worries.” Surprisingly, she felt that she actually meant it.
     
    Debra turned to David, who had moved to sit next to her, his eyes looking up at her expectantly. “Good morning, David.” She then scruffled his hair as she’d seen their father do, and so that he wasn’t left out, she scruffled Danny as well. “Good morning to you too, Danny.”
     
    In unison, she swore it was in unison, both of them chirped, “Morning!!”
     
    Debra fought not to wince and, as she absorbed more caffeine, she wondered for the first time why she wasn’t super self conscious that there was a man staring at her first thing in the morning with what she knew to be devastatingly awe-inspired bed hair.
     
    Eric caught Debra looking at him and, not for the first time since having met her, he wondered what she was thinking. What he had been thinking was dangerous - he’d been mulling over the reasons why having her here in the morning, with the boys the happiest they’d been in months, felt like a normal thing. A wonderful thing. He knew this wasn’t going to last, that as soon as Debra was overcome with her work during the busy season she would have to leave them. Well acquainted with the rigors of demanding work, he knew full well that she wouldn’t responsibly be able to do both.
     
    Eric sighed, looking at the watch on his wrist that never seemed to tell him that he had enough time to do anything, and he said, “It’s time to get moving. I’ll drop you and the boys off at your place on the way to work, and you can take them to school.”
     
    Debra nodded. “Did they have breakfast?” When she didn’t get an instant answer, she asked, “Did you get breakfast?”
     
    Eric juggled his coffee cup in one hand as he ran the other hand through his hair. He’d wanted to make breakfast, but then he’d wanted to make breakfast for her . He let his eyes drift upwards from his coffee cup again. “No. We were waiting on you to get up and then, well…”
     
    Debra smiled. “Okay then, so we’ll leave now and I’ll make you all a breakfast you won’t forget.”
     
    ~*~*~
     
    Eric sat back from the meal - feast really - that Debra had whipped up for them. He felt so wonderfully full that he didn’t care if he waddled into work late or not. If there was anything he could appreciate in a woman - and had appreciated - it was one who could cook. Not only could Debra do that astoundingly well, but she put her own flavor to things and the best word he had at his disposal to describe it was that Debra’s food tasted like home. It had been as if he’d walked into his saintly mother’s kitchen as a child, smelling bread baking in the oven or cookies cooling on the counter.
     
    It was a literal shame that he had to leave for work. Duty called and all that, but he disliked the idea of disrupting the atmosphere Debra had created with such ease that it was threateningly understandable if, in no time at all, he got used to it.
     
    Eric