To Begin Anew (Blue Jay Romance) (14 page)

Eric panicked. “Wait a minute! You’re just gonna leave me here, on top of a horse? You do realize that I don’t know what I’m doing?” He was definitely whining now, but he didn’t care. His heart was still frightened, though not pounding with as much intensity as it had been just a few minutes ago.

Debra shook her head in delight, almost giggling. “You know enough. What do you think is gonna happen anyway, huh? Tess is tied to a post. She knows that until she’s untied, she’s not going anywhere. Just sit tight and stay calm until I get back.” She sighed, remembering what it was like to be that high up for the first time. She added, “If you’re that scared, I’ll help you down and you can stand next to Tess while I go and get Faust.”

Eric knew that he was pouting, but for the sake of his manly pride, he wasn’t about to get down from the horse. He was scared, sure that was natural, but he didn’t have to prove it to her, did he? Nope, he sure didn’t and was determined to prove it no matter what.

It literally only took Debra five minutes to lead Faust out, a nice ginger colored quarter horse gelding, and when she’d untied Tess from her post and was up and on Faust, she said, as she positioned Faust in front of Tess and Dr. Nelson, “Do what I do, okay? Just tap the reins and lean forward a bit. Tessa will walk forwards, and because she wants to be with us, she’ll just follow behind Faust and me.”

Eric did as Debra told him to do and just as he thought he couldn’t handle the horse himself, Tessa took it on her own accord to walk right next to Faust and Debra, and then it was just as it had been before.

~*~*~

Debra led Dr. Nelson around for a couple hours. She didn’t think they’d be out that long, but it had been a while since she’d ridden and she found that the steady rhythm of the animal beneath her had a calming effect that could make a vampire forget the sun. Thinking that it was about time to get the animals back to the stable, especially to get them some water, she first hopped off Faust and then, as she helped get the doctor off his patient steed, she led the horses back to their stalls with Dr. Nelson rubbing his thighs the whole way.

Debra latched Tessa’s stall last and when she saw how uncomfortable Dr. Nelson looked, she had to laugh a little at him. “I didn’t think we’d be out long enough for you to get saddle burn like that.” She sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Eric smiled brightly, despite the pain in his legs. “Oh, don’t be sorry. That was an experience I wouldn’t have traded for the life of me, seriously.”

He was just barely aware of how close he was standing to her, but the rush from the ride, of finally being off the horse and back on the ground, made him feel like he was floating high in the sky. Without thinking, and because most every stupid thing ever done was committed without thinking, he breached the last foot between them and kissed Debra.

For a moment, a moment that might have lasted for an eternity - Eric was certain he would remember the kiss had lasted that long for the rest of his life - the only thing that tethered him to the ground was his connection to Debra. He’d gently cupped her face, pulling her into the kiss, and she welcomed the gesture and stepped forward to kiss him back. The kiss lasted just a second longer before both of them crashed to reality as if they’d jumped from a plane without a parachute.

Debra, her brain short-circuited and sending fireworks of warning to the other parts of her brain that controlled her smart side, pushed Dr. Nelson away from her, absolutely astonished that a kiss between them had been possible at all.

“I’m sorry…”

Debra glared a hole into Dr. Nelson, sure that if she had better aim, her laser vision would have set him on fire. He was struck mute by her expression alone.

She wanted to rail at him or strangle him, or better yet, both, but some part of her brain was still rational enough to know the kiss between them hadn’t been forced, had actually been sort of perfect, and that she’d kissed him back.

Before she turned tail like the coward she was, she said, “Don’t ever mention what happened.
Ever
.” Debra knew in her heart that even if she did her best to forget he’d kissed her, she’d never in a million years be able to accomplish that goal.

Running nearly nonstop for five miles on foot could wind a person and as Debra dragged her feet up to her porch, wheezing and on the point of collapse, she reminded herself to make a note of it.

She forced herself inside of her home, and as she noticed that it looked like a hamper blew up inside of it, she decided that she just couldn’t care enough to get mad at the problem. Annie was crying, her mother nowhere to be found.

“Nikki?”

“Yeah?”

The sound of her sister’s voice was sleepy, as if she’d been awakened from a coma, and moving to where she thought the sound came from, Debra found her sister curled up in her bedroom, Annie bracketed in a bunch of pillows next to her.

Debra put her hands on her hips, her ire spiking to biblical proportions. “What in the world do you think you’re doing? Don’t you hear that baby crying? Let me give you a clue - she’s right next to you.”

Nikki yawned and sat up in the bed and as she stretched she looked down at her daughter casually but with no direct concern. “So? She’s always crying.” Nikki lifted an eyebrow. “You’re not a mother, so you don’t know what its like to deal with it all the time.”

Debra fought to control herself. She had to keep her temper under her thumb - at least if she didn’t want to deck her sister a good one and leave the child she’d given birth to alone as an orphan. With her teeth together, Debra said, using the tone she’d used with Nikki when she was younger, “Get your rear out of that bed and take care of your daughter.
Now
. If you don’t, I swear, I’ll call child protective services. I’ll ring them right after I kick your hide out of my home.” She waited a beat, took note of Nikki’s shocked expression, and added, “And after you take care of her, I want you to clean my living room. I leave you alone for a few hours, and you litter the whole house like it’s a Salvation Army clothes drive.”

Debra didn’t realize until after she was done speaking that she was shaking, and before she could really get in touch with the violent temper just waiting to explode out of her, she left her room and walked out to her back porch for some fresh air. The view of the lake from her side of the property somehow always had a calming effect, even if the memories of fifteen years ago that were attached to the lake weren’t very pleasant.

Although the memories tried to surface at that moment, they didn’t stand a chance with what Debra had just been through, both at the barn and only moments ago with Nikki. What was wrong with her sister, anyway, that she would be so inattentive to her own baby? And what about what Dr. Nelson did moments before Debra ran home as though a madman was pursuing her? She couldn’t fault him totally for what happened when she wanted it as much as he did.

Absently, she touched her lips with her fingers and wondered just what in the world she was going to do about Dr. Nelson. She shook her head. There wasn’t a point in calling him that anymore, was there? If the day had shown her anything, it was that the good doctor was a man. He was more than the father, more than the doctor, more than her employer. Just how much more, Debra didn’t know if she had the strength to find out.

“There you are,” came an exhausted voice from around the side of the house.

Debra frowned, not having factored that Eric would be here so soon after she’d left him behind in the dust. She thought perhaps he’d stay in the barn until he needed to eat or something, or that he’d be too afraid to come back here even to retrieve his car. The look she’d given him had been sure to melt a steel fence.

“I don’t think you should be here,” Debra said, not bothering to look at him. She let her arms wrap around her torso and she hugged herself.

“If that’s what you really want, I’ll go,” Eric said, his breath attempting to return to normal. He wanted to fall to the ground and curl up into a sweaty ball - he wouldn’t have believed that he could run nearly five miles without expiring. He said, walking closer to where Debra stood on her back porch, “I’ll leave, but not before I say what I have to say.”

Debra eyed him, wishing that she was in a better mood to handle this. “I work for you, I watch your children. There can’t be anything between us, not ever. It’s wrong.” She couldn’t believe this talk was happening - she’d only been his nanny for a few days.

Eric shook his head. He’d had more than a few moments to think things over while he was running and the first conclusion he’d come to was that what had happened in that stable was the furthest thing from wrong. Sure, it could have gone better - he could have thought it out better, but liking someone wasn’t ever wrong. At least liking someone when you lived in a world of darkness and loneliness wasn’t wrong. Debra had shined a light on him and for the life of him, he couldn’t go back to withering alone, shaded in pain.

Eric said, “I don’t have the answers for everything, and I never claimed I was the smartest man, but I do know that I like you.”

Debra glared at the man. “Go on and have yourself a good like then. I don’t have to like you back.”

Eric frowned. “But you do, though, don’t you?”

Debra put a hand to the bridge of her nose, sighed, and said, “You’re not going to let this go are you? One kiss and what - you’re sure I’m the right one for you?”

Eric chuckled. “I said I didn’t have all the answers. I just know that after today, after learning what a wonderful woman you are, I can’t just go back.”

“I quit.”

Eric felt his brows knit. “Quit?”

“Well you can’t have it both ways. Either I’m your nanny and we’re friends, or I’m not and you continue your like fest.”

Eric scratched the back of his head. “Fine then.” He grinned, breached the last couple of feet between him, Debra and the porch she stood on, and with a hopeful look, he asked, “Would you be my girlfriend?”

Debra felt her eyes widen, felt as every bodily process she had going came to an abrupt halt. She was sure that in the span of seconds she’d stopped breathing, her heart failed to beat. Was this actually happening?

Eric stood outside with Debra on her back porch for what he felt was a longer eternity than the kiss between them had lasted. He couldn’t admit it to himself, but he was afraid she’d reject him.

“Fine.”

Eric blinked. “Really?” The relief, possibly even joy, in his voice sounded silly to him, but there it was and he couldn’t undo it.

Debra sighed, not happy with the mistake she knew she was making, but seeing the look on his face, knowing that in a small secret place in her heart she was just as happy, she couldn’t bear to tell him different. She said, “Really really.”

Eric knew at this point that he didn’t have to ask Debra if it was alright to kiss her. He lifted a hand to cup her face, and looking directly into her eyes, letting her see how serious he was, he kissed her for the second time that day.

It should have been their first kiss, truly. She relaxed to him, a relent in many ways, and Eric sighed as he let her go. “That was perfect.” He sighed again and said, “I wish I could stay longer, but I have to go and get the boys from my mother’s. If they’re there too long, she gets antsy and her hair starts to fall out.” Eric winked at Debra just to see the smile on her face.

“Okay.”

Eric turned to leave, noticing that the sun was just beginning to descend and turn the bright yellow of day into that orange of early evening, and he asked, “Can I call you later?”

“Sure, Dr. N…”

Eric fixed her with a look and Debra blushed. She swallowed once and amended her words, “Sure, give me a call, Eric.”

~*~*~

Debra was pleased to note that her house was better looking and that Annie had stopped crying when she stepped inside. Nikki sat on the couch, her eyes wandering over a magazine she held, and just as Debra stepped foot into the hall, Nikki said, “You think that’s wise?”

Debra turned around. “What are you talking about?”

Nikki set down her magazine. “You think messing around with that doctor is going to make all your problems disappear? He’s a doctor. What on Earth do you think he sees in you? Once he’s finished, he’ll leave.”

Debra thought that a dragon was going to climb out of her mouth and set her sister on fire with its angry breath. At any moment, she knew that she was going to explode. What possessed her sister to say things like this to her?