To Begin Anew (Blue Jay Romance) (2 page)

“You already know someone you want to be friends with, don’t you?” He kept his tone light.

A cautious smile erupted on both the boys’ faces. “Yeah. There’s a boy named Trevor and we even saw him in church last Sunday.” David looked at Danny for confirmation and a silent signal was passed between them. “Danny likes him, too.”

Eric knew that was David’s way of saying, “I really like this kid!” A wide grin appeared on his face and his eyes shone just a little at the thought that maybe - just maybe - things were starting to return to some semblance of normalcy. Well, a new type of normal, but normal just the same.

“Really?” their father exclaimed. The boys nodded, though not as enthusiastically as he would have hoped. “Maybe you should tell him you saw him there and offer to sit with him next week.  It would be okay with me.” He was doing his best to encourage the boys. They needed him to be both dad and mom right now and he was determined to give it the best he had.

When breakfast was finished and the twins went into their room to get dressed for the day, Eric cleared the table and quickly washed the few dishes. Soon they were all headed out and he’d dropped the boys off at the local elementary school.

Julia Caldwell, the temporary nanny he’d hired, would pick up David and Danny after school and watch them for a few hours until he got off work. He knew he needed to find someone else to do this because, as sweet and nice as she was, Julia was also the kind of woman that tried too hard to get his attention. Not only was he not interested in her that way - or anyone else for that matter - but she was much too assertive for his taste.

Everyone he talked to about this seemed to agree that he should contact a woman named Debra Brown. She’d raised her younger siblings and did a mighty fine job of it according to all reports. From everything he’d been told, she was the perfect one for the job. Now all he had to do was find the time to contact her about helping him with the twins. Maybe he could do that today before he picked them up from Julia’s house.

~*~*~

Debra sat back on her sofa and patted her stomach. A good meal should be followed with a good nap, though wasting the day away in the arms of her sofa cushions wasn’t going to accomplish anything. Taking a long swig of her coffee - lots of milk and a tad bit too much sugar - she lifted herself up and made her way to her bedroom, where she showered and got dressed for the day.

The town of Blue Jay was so small that owning a bike was more efficient than bothering to pay for the gas it took to keep a car guzzling away. Debra owned a car - she had to or else she’d never actually leave Blue Jay - though she took pleasure in riding her bike and satisfaction in the definition it gave to her muscles. It also gave a chance for anyone out and about to wave hello, which was fine with her because she didn’t own a phone. At least not one she let people know about.

The majority of her grocery shopping was done on the weekends, though Debra found that she liked to buy the fresh apples put out every Thursday by Mr. Tidsdale and his sons. They had their own small orchard at the edge of town and their apples were to die for. Thursdays were rare days in the sense that she had them all to herself and she found that questing for perfect apples was just about the only adventure she was allowed in life.

“That you, Debra?” a woman called out, her voice crinkled like tin foil.

Debra heard her name, had time to look before she crossed a street that began the block for Joe’s Grocery. She spotted old Mrs. Williams and her husband, Fred, and waved them hello before she shouted, “Good morning!”

If she didn’t hurry up and pedal faster, Mrs. Williams would rope her into stopping and then she’d miss out on the first of Tidsdale’s apples. The picked over ones would be wormy and bitter and even the life story Mrs. Williams never tired of hearing out of Debra wasn’t worth wormy left behind apples.

Debra pulled into the grocery parking lot, hopped off her bike and wheeled it to the bike rack Joe installed for the locals - who else would there be - and she stuck it in place before she skipped into the store.

“Mornin’ Debra,” Joe muttered from behind his newspaper as she walked in. He didn’t have to look up to know who it was.

Debra flicked Joe’s paper as she passed him, her eyes on the finish line. She was Christopher Columbus discovering the Land of Red Fruit and nothing and no one existed or mattered. She reached out a hand, aiming directly for the first beautiful ruby gem, but just as her hand was about halfway there, the apple disappeared.

“Where’d my apple go?” It was all she could think to ask. It was a child’s question and the pout was without a doubt present.

“Your apple?” asked an incredulous voice from somewhere to her right. The voice was mellow, not too deep, and it held a slight rumbling twist that made it interesting, a voice you could really listen to and relax with.

Debra looked to her right. She instantly wished she hadn’t in the same instant she felt her cheeks puff and her eyebrows knit. She wasn’t going to enter this event wisely. She didn’t care who it was who’d taken her precious apple - the what to and how for was already on its way. Even if her apple thief happened to be Dr. Eric Nelson.

“Yeah,” Debra grinned, “
my
apple.” She was smiling because her hand had already traveled the distance it needed to snatch the apple from Mr. Good-Voice’s hand and as his eyes widened in shock, she took a bite out of it.

“Was that necessary?” Eric’s voice was filled with a mixture of amusement and irritation, all the while sounding pleasant and patient. It was probably a doctor thing.

Debra swallowed her mouthful of apple. “Sure it was.” She grinned wildly at the doctor, now smiling because she remembered who he was and could now appreciate how handsome he was. The blush on her face as she grinned like an idiot didn’t help build a good case that she made sane decisions. Still, he had taken her first apple. Sane or not, if he was going to live here, he’d have to know how things went.

“What if I had already taken a bite out of it?” Eric lifted an eyebrow. He was smiling at her now, his arms folded to his chest as his eyes roamed over her. Was he judging how fast he’d have to be so that he could snatch his apple back? His voice had a tinge of challenge to it and, for a moment, she thought about rising to the occasion.

Debra shrugged, knowing she shouldn’t pick fights. She sighed, “The world may never know.” She stared at him for a moment, and when he didn’t make a move, she knew her browning Precious was safe. She caught him staring at her, but ignored it. Staring was rude, but it wasn’t illegal. Maybe he’d never seen a crazy person up close, who knew?

She moved beyond Eric and, pulling a couple dollars out of her pocket, she set the money on Joe’s checkout counter. Debra stopped moving as she reached the frame of the exit door and, looking back at Eric, she stuck her tongue out at him. “You know what they say though, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” She laughed before she stuck the apple in her mouth and moved to pick up her bike from the rack.

Eric was coming through the store’s door, his face scrunched up to ask a question, but all Debra did before she pedaled out of the lot was wave at him, her mouth contently occupied with the spoils of battle. Doctor zero, native townie one.

Eric stood still for a moment, letting the events of the apple-munching incident absorb into his skull. Did that woman really just
do
that?

He actually had to laugh and in the action he was surprised at how painless it was. Laughing, genuine and from the gut, had cost him in recent months. He’d felt as if laughing, enjoying life, was wrong. Tina had been an endless source of laughter, had given him happiness and strength. When she left him, she’d taken his laughter with her.

The mirth that bubbled up now felt better and better. Eric couldn’t help the amusement he felt with the woman and the apple. He’d come to this small town wanting to get away from the people who treated him differently because they’d seen his mug on television and, in some way, he truly loved the way the woman had seen around him to her prized fruit. She hadn’t fawned or gushed - well she had blushed - and she’d talked to him as if she hadn’t a clue about is celebrity. How refreshing it was not to be recognized.

The older man with the newspaper sitting in one corner of the store had to be the man who owned the grocery, but he looked so far removed from everything that Eric doubted the man knew what planet he was on, let alone anything else. The old man was grizzled, a beard haphazardly growing out of places on his face and with salt and pepper brown hair, he looked the part of the small business owner.

As Eric approached him, he could see a faded name patch attached to his shirt, like a car mechanic he thought, and it said ‘Joe’. Eric shook his head and walked out of the store, no longer interested in breakfast, knowing that if he didn’t get in gear, he’d be late to work.

“Look who it is, Ma!”

Eric blinked, his eyes already rolling to the back of his head in a mental sigh as he caught the not-so-subtle tones of recognition in a voice that sounded older than the hills that surrounded Blue Jay. He looked to his left and saw an elderly couple walking in his direction, the older man jabbing the older woman in the ribs and pointing at him as if he had six eyeballs and antlers.

“Who, dear? I don’t see anyone,” the old woman said.

“You wouldn’t see anything if it walked up to you and kissed you on the nose,” the old man countered. His accent would have been interesting, a treat, if it wasn’t so thick a spoon would stand up in it.

Eric let his eyes wander over the couple and, while they looked so wizened by age that their wrinkles had wrinkles, there was a kindness in their eyes and friendliness to them that made him smile. The older man approached him, stuck out an ancient hand and said, his white hair waving in the breeze, “My name’s Fred Williams, and this here’s my wife, Verna.”

As Fred mentioned her name, Verna looked up at Eric and smiled. “Oh, I see now. It’s that man from the TV.”

Eric took Fred’s hand and shook it gingerly, afraid that if he gripped it too hard he might break it. He smiled politely. “Nice to meet you. I’m Dr. Eric Nelson.”

“Oh, I knows who ya are, boy. Just wanted to make your acquaintance, seein’ as how you’re one of us now,” Fred replied, letting go of Eric’s hand.

“One of us?” Eric asked.

“You know, one of the locals now, livin’ here in Blue Jay. Ain’t it a nice town? Not like those big cities, no sir. We got everythin’ anyone ever needs raht ’cheer.”

Eric found himself nodding. Of course Blue Jay had everything. It was why he’d chosen to come here when he’d had a million other choices at his disposal. Although, it was lacking something. He asked Fred, “Do you know who I would ask around about for a good nanny? You know, someone to look after my boys while I’m at the hospital?”

Verna spoke up, her grey-milk blue eyes smiling at him. “You’d want Debra Brown. She ain’t one of those nannies you’d find in the paper, but she done a good job raising her siblings and that girl has her head screwed on straight. She runs that Bed-n-Breakfast in town, you know? You’ll find her there.” Verna paused, her hair equally as white as her husband's and waving an equal hello to him in the wind. She continued, “That’s a good girl there, Dr. Nelson. You don’t want to be askin’ her for help ’less you really need it, ya hear?”

Eric asked, “Do you have the number or the address? I’m still finding my way around.”

Fred replied, “Ain’t but the only Bed-n-Breakfast we have here, boy. You’ll find it easy ’nuff, and the phone book has the number. I don’t recollect it offhand.”

Eric nodded and looked at his watch, resisting the urge to sigh. He was late for work, but a good lead on a nanny was a good lead on a nanny and if anything catastrophic went on at the hospital, his cell phone would have vibrated in his pocket. He could be a little bit late - anyone would understand that his children came first. He was also more interested in this Debra Brown than he could admit to himself. Literally anyone and everyone he talked to, whether it was this old couple or his paper boy, spoke of Debra like she was a saint to be revered. Of course, she wasn’t a saint. He knew that no person was who was living could be one, but she sounded like just the person he needed to get his life back in order.

~*~*~

Debra rode her bike straight to her parent’s house, the one she now lived in and had turned into her business. As she set her ‘Crimson Flyer’ against the side of the fence, she rushed inside and shut the door behind her. It wasn’t until she slumped to the floor that she realized she still had the apple in her mouth.