A/N:I do not own HSM or any of the characters apart from the ones I have created.

Chapter 7

(Gabriella's POV)

It had been two days since the incident at the indoor play ground and as a way of making it up to the kids for leaving early I agreed to take them out to Macdonald's for lunch. It worked on the twins and they were running around the front room, excited at the prospect of getting a toy that shot gunk out of it's nostrils. Addy though wasn't so easy to please. She was standing in the corner of the room with her arms folded across her chest; glaring at me menacingly. I could tell any minute she was going to start throwing a tantrum.

"I don't want to go to no stinking Macdonald's! I want to go and see Lee again!" She screamed at me angrily.

She had been like this since we left the playground in a rush two days ago. At first I refused to let her saying that we had to leave it a couple of weeks; hoping that she'd forget and we wouldn't have to go. But she didn't and for the last two days she had been in a bad mood refusing to do anything apart from ask to go to Lee's house.

Finally I gave in. I hated to see her so angry. It was so unlike her. I had no choice but let her go.

"Fine I'll call them now and see if you can go over!" I shouted as Addy squealed and joined her brothers in running around the front room excitedly.

I walked out into the hallway and began searching through my bag hoping that I had somehow lost the piece of paper Chad had handed to me, but no luck. I groaned. Now my only hope was that they didn't want us to come over.

I tapped in the number and twirled the phone cord around my finger while I waited for someone to answer.

"Hello Danforth residence."

Great. It was Taylor. Chad I could of dealt with but Taylor. She could smell gossip from miles away and if she ever found out who I was it would be the gossip of the century. This was going to be harder than I thought.

I took a deep breath and started talking.

"Hi it's Kira Kennedy. Addy's mom. I was wondering if it was okay for Addy to come over for a play date today?"

I stood nervously waiting for her answer.

Please say no! Please say no! I shouted in my head.

"Yeah that's fine. Is one o' clock alright for you?" Taylor replied.

Damn it!

"Perfect see you then!" I said cheerfully hoping that she didn't notice that I was faking it.

I could tell that she wanted to talk to me about something other than the kid's play date but I said goodbye and hung up before she got the chance.


Two hours later I was sitting in Chad and Taylor's front room watching the kids play. The plan had been to leave Addy here and come up with some excuse that I had to go and do something with the twins but Taylor refused to let me go and said I could bring the twins with me so now I was trapped. At first I was nervous that she knew who I was and she'd just set all this up so that she could confront me but the minute she told me how she met Chad I knew that she still had no idea who I was. I listened to her tell me about her and Chad's life while carefully trying to avoid giving out any information about myself that might reveal my true identity. She was just telling me about how she was a teacher at some elementary school when my cell phone started ringing.

"Hello"

It was Savannah but I couldn't hear what she was saying because right at that moment the kids had decided to turn the sound system up full blast and start singing "I'm a little teapot" from the top of their lungs.

"I'm sorry Sav I can't hear you." I yelled down the phone before turning to Taylor."Sorry can we continue this in a minute?"

She nodded and I walked out into the hallway so that I could hear Savannah.

"Sav what do you want? I'm on a play date with the kids at the Danforth's house." I asked her.

"The Danforth's?"

"Yes The Danforth's" I snapped.

I heard her exhale loudly.

"Bloody hell no wonder your so moody."

"Savannah." I put my hand to my forehead, frustrated. " What do you want?"

"Oh yeah sorry. I need you to come into the office and help me go over the witnesses statements with me."

YES! I thought now I have an excuse to leave.

"I'll be there in half an hour." I told her before I snapped the phone shut and walked back into the front room.

Taylor turned around and stared at me obviously expecting me to tell her every detail of the conversation I had just had.

"Anything important?" She asked casually but I could tell that really she was just looking for gossip. Well she'd be looking for a long time because she won't find any here.

"Yeah sorry but we're gonna have to leave." I told her as I started running after the twins.

"But Mom we only just got here!"

I looked up and saw Addy staring at me, her bottom lip quivering, she was going to start crying.

"I know honey." I told her softly. " But I've got to go to work and you've got to come with me."

"The could stay here if you wanted." Taylor offered.

"No I couldn't possibly." I began but Taylor cut me off.

"Don't think about it. I'd be glad to look after them while you're a work."

No this isn't how it's supposed to turn out. You should be in Albuquerque where you belong not here in New York looking after my kids.

"Great!" I put on a false smile as I grabbed my bag and headed for the front door .

" I'll be back at 6 to pick them up. Thanks Taylor. You're a life saver!"

I walked out the house and drove away with that stupid smile on my face until I was a block away then I pulled over and started to cry.

Why is this happening to me? Why couldn't they have just stayed in New Mexico?

I sat there crying and hitting my head against the steering wheel until I could cry no more then drove away.