Mrs. Miracle (6 page)

S
eth’s hand lingered on the telephone. Something was wrong with Sharon. He knew his mother-in-law, could sense her uneasiness, her unhappiness. He heard it in the telltale inflection in her voice, the hesitation, the weariness. He wished he knew what he could do to help, or if that were even possible. He felt close to his in-laws. Close and grateful, as well he should.

During his most recent visit to California, when he’d driven down to move the twins back with him, he’d noticed something then. Sharon had laughed a little too loudly, sounded a shade too enthusiastic. Not about the twins leaving; that
had been difficult on everyone. But about life in general. It wasn’t like her.

His father-in-law, however, had grown quiet, introspective. Noncommunicative. He’d seemed prone to hide his face in a book. There’d been some talk about the Palmers taking a cruise, but since then he hadn’t heard anything more about this long-awaited vacation.

Seth had attributed their odd behavior to the stress of his taking the children. But whatever the reason, it didn’t seem to have gone away. The tension was as thick as tar.

Not until he was puttering around inside the garage while the twins helped Mrs. Merkle with dinner did he realize that he hadn’t spoken to Jerry, and neither had the twins. His father-in-law generally made a practice of speaking briefly with the twins each week. Seth understood that the kids’ grandfather didn’t like talking on a phone, but he got a kick out of chatting with his two grandchildren. Not so this Sunday.

Seth reached for the toaster. It had stopped working a month or so earlier, when Mrs. Hamilton had ruled the roost. He’d promised to take a look at it, but this was the first chance he’d had. Not that he held out much hope of repairing it. It would probably save a lot of time and effort if he were to pop into the car and buy a new one. And he might have, if fixing it hadn’t afforded him the opportunity to piddle around the garage and enjoy the solitude.

In another hour the Seahawk football game would be televised, and the kids would be crawling all over him. The toaster offered him the perfect excuse to spend a few peaceful moments alone.

For a long time, Seth had avoided opportunities to think. Then, just when he’d felt it was no longer necessary to restrain his thoughts from dwelling on his dead wife, the children had returned. Every now and again one of the twins would glance up at him and it was like looking into Pamela’s eyes, seeing his wife smile again. He might as well have been hit from behind. The pain was back, ever-present. Ever reminding him of all that he’d lost.

He sought his own company this afternoon for another reason, however. He’d seen her in church that morning.

Her.

He didn’t know her name. A face. A friendly, pretty face, with wide, hauntingly beautiful eyes that seemed to reach out and touch him. She’d been sitting toward the back of the church, hidden behind a marble column, looking as fresh and lovely as a bouquet of springtime flowers.

He should have walked over and introduced himself then and there and been done with it. Instead he’d steered the kids out of the church as fast as he could without being obvious. Later he’d wanted to kick himself. He’d acted like a school
boy, and all over a woman. One whose name he’d been too shy to ask.

She worked at the travel agency next to the Safeway store, that much he knew. He should, since he frequently invented excuses to stop off at the grocery on his way home from the office. Just on the off chance he might see her. Naturally he tried not to be obvious about it, but he couldn’t help wondering if she’d noticed him.

He’d been out of the dating scene for so long, he wasn’t sure how to go about meeting a woman. Not without someone introducing him. The last time he’d walked up to a woman cold turkey and struck up a conversation, he’d been in high school.

He hadn’t minded making a fool of himself back then, but it bothered the hell out of him now. The fact he was interested said a lot. Perhaps he was ready to meet someone. All he had to figure out was how to go about it.

Following the near panic attack in church that morning, Seth was no longer sure of anything. He’d become so disgusted with himself that the only clear option was to drop the issue entirely. It encouraged him that he found himself attracted to another woman. It was progress, he supposed, but he wasn’t in the place where he felt comfortable seeking her out.

She did intrigue him, however, Seth admitted as he dismantled the bottom of the toaster. Crumbs fell onto his workbench, and he brushed
them aside. But there were plenty of attractive women around. If that was what appealed to him, all he had to do was look around the office. There were any number of eligible, good-looking women in search of a meaningful relationship there.

Why her? Why this travel agent?

Why now?

Seth didn’t have the answers to those questions any more than he knew what was wrong with the toaster.

The look in her eyes, he decided. Yes, she was attractive, and even from a distance he could see that her eyes were a pretty shade of blue. Alpine blue, if he were to give the color a name. Deep, dark, intense. It was the intense part that spoke to him. In the fathomless depths he saw her pain. Naturally he could be seeing something that wasn’t there, a reflection off the window, but he didn’t think so. The pain was what he recognized because it was a reflection of his own. Whoever this woman was, whatever had happened in her life, she’d suffered. The same way he’d suffered. He felt her hurt, realized in those brief seconds when their eyes had held that her anguish lay just below the surface the way his did.

Then, too, he could be imagining it all. He wasn’t a psychologist. Nor had he done any counseling. But he’d walked that same rut-filled pathway himself, and he recognized the pitfalls.

So they attended the same church. Great. It was
a beginning. It made matters a bit easier. Now all he needed to do was develop a few more of the social graces, like learning to say his name without stuttering or stumbling over his own two feet.

Hey, introducing himself didn’t sound like such a bad idea, if it didn’t take him five years or more. But for now he was content to let matters be. He wasn’t unhappy. His life had meaning. If he wanted to risk his heart again, it wouldn’t be anytime soon.

“Daddy.” Judd stepped inside the garage. “The football game’s going to start.”

“I’ll be inside in just a minute.”

“Okay.” But Judd lingered. Not that it was unusual. His son enjoyed watching him work. Often Seth invented a project that required Judd’s or Jason’s help. Both had already proved themselves to be worthy nail pounders.

“You know what Mrs. Miracle said?”

Seth didn’t have a clue. “What?”

“She said we should take a vacation.”

Seth hesitated. “A vacation?”

“Yup. During spring break. When’s that?”

“March or April.” He’d need to check the school calendar. It was an odd comment for the housekeeper to make, although she’d made a habit of saying some pretty unusual things. Just the other night she’d gotten a chuckle out of him. She’d said something about a woodpecker owing his success to his head and not just his pecker. He chuckled anew.

“Are we going on vacation?”

He had plenty of vacation time due him, and it sounded like a fun thing to do. “I’ll think about it.” He brushed the bread crumbs from his hands and ruffled his son’s hair affectionately. “First let’s go see the Seahawks whop the Broncos.”

“Yeah.” Judd thrust his fist into the air.

Smiling to himself, Seth walked from the garage into the kitchen.

Mrs. Merkle was busy, Jason at her side, helping her prepare dinner—“helping” being the operative word. What he saw set his mouth to watering. The woman cooked like a dream.

“I’m making pie,” Jason proclaimed proudly. “From scratch.”

“Great.” He beamed Mrs. Miracle an appreciative smile. Apple pie was his personal favorite.

The housekeeper skillfully ran the sharp edge of the knife around the Granny Smith apple. The peeling twisted and curled away from the blade like a tight ringlet. “I always said that a good cook starts from scratch and keeps on scratching.”

Seth grinned, acknowledging her wit. “Judd and I are about to watch the football game.”

“Are we going on vacation?” The same question, this time from Jason.

“I’m thinking about it.”

“There’s a travel agency,” the housekeeper commented, her eye on the apple. “Right next to the Safeway store—you know the one I mean, don’t you? There’s that nice young lady who
owns it. The same one who was in church this morning with Harriett Foster’s niece. I’m sure she’d be more than happy to help you plan a trip with the children.”

Seth stopped abruptly, and so did his heart. “How is it you know Harriett Foster?” To the best of his knowledge, this was Mrs. Merkle’s first week at the church.

“Oh, my, anyone who attends Community Christian knows Harriett Foster.”

It wasn’t possible that the housekeeper knew that he held any tenderness for this nameless woman he’d spotted in church that very morning. Was it?

“You might stop after work in the next day or so. It isn’t too early to book now for springtime,” she continued, concentrating on peeling the apples.

“I’ll need to think on it,” he stated matter-offactly, making sure no emotion bled into his voice.

“Don’t wait too long. He who hesitates misses the worm.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, it doesn’t matter what you miss, just that you’re going to be missing. Right?”

“I suppose,” Seth said, and moved into the family room, where Judd had already turned on the television. It was a relief to focus his attention on the sporting event rather than dwell on Mrs. Merkle’s uncanny suggestions.

“W
e did it,” Jayne announced triumphantly when she walked into work bright and early Monday morning. Reba had been at the office since seven, going over the books, checking the finances. The profit margin on the travel agency was so narrow that she had to keep close tabs on expenses.

She glanced up from the computer screen. “Did what?”

“Escaped Aunt Harriett. She didn’t corner me in church, thanks to you.” Jayne’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “Naturally I screened my calls all day, and yes, Aunt Harriett did try a number of times, but I thwarted her. We thwarted her,” Jayne amended.

Reba chewed on the end of her pen. She hadn’t been able to take her mind off Seth Webster from the moment she’d seen him in church. A little investigative work had helped dig up a few cherished facts. First and foremost was his first name and the fact he’d remained single following his wife’s death.

He had two children. Six-year-old twins. Apparently there was a housekeeper, too, one the children referred to as Mrs. Miracle. The one who’d made a point of making eye contact with her. The woman seemed a bit unusual. She looked perfectly normal, an older version of Mary Poppins. Twinkling eyes, a mischievous smile, a look about her that said she knew far more than she let on. Reba suspected she was reading too much into that pointed look the Websters’ housekeeper had sent her, but it had given her an uncanny feeling.

“What’s with you and Mr. Webster?” Jayne shocked her by asking. It was almost as if her employee had read her mind.

“What’s with me and…Nothing! How could there be? I don’t even know the man.” Reba attempted to hide how flustered the question made her, but it was obvious by the way her hands fluttered over the keyboard.

“But you’d like to know him.”

It would do no good to pretend otherwise. Reba lifted one delicate shoulder. “I suppose…”

“I wish you could have seen the way your
eyes lit up when you first saw him. Even Cindy noticed.”

Reba’s face colored.

Jayne hung up her coat and sat down at the desk across from her. “You know what I’ve been thinking?”

Reba hadn’t a clue, and furthermore she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. “You intend to tell me whether I want to know or not, right?”

Jayne chuckled. “You guessed it.”

Reba waited. Jayne glanced at her almost as if she were afraid to speak. “The church needs an adult, someone who’s good with children, to step in and oversee the Christmas pageant.”

“Yes, and your wonderfully generous aunt Harriett volunteered you. Remember?”

“I’m not the right person.” Jayne’s objection was adamant. “But I know someone well suited to the task. A woman who’s familiar with overseeing large projects. Someone with infinite patience, flexible hours, and a love of children. Someone who sings like a dream.”

Reba shook her head before Jayne got around to making the suggestion. She raised both hands to stop her friend from continuing. “Don’t even say it.”

“You, Reba Maxwell. You’re the perfect choice.”

This was all a bad joke. Limitless patience, her? Besides, Reba knew next to nothing about children, zilch about the Christmas program and
what it entailed, and although she liked children, her experience with them was limited to her teenage baby-sitting years. She’d be an idiot to step into the coordinator’s role with less than a month before Christmas.

“You’re wrong, Jayne. I’m flattered you think so highly of my talents, but in this case it’d never work.”

“You want to meet Mr. Webster, don’t you?”

She hesitated.

“What better way than to involve yourself with his children?”

It was too cold, too calculated. Too ridiculous. Reba dismissed the idea immediately.

She walked over to the coffee machine and refilled her mug. To hear her employee, this might well be her one and only chance of having a relationship. While it was true that eligible men weren’t beating a path to her door, she didn’t think of herself as desperate, either. She was attracted to Seth Webster, but that didn’t mean she was willing to take on the impossible task of directing the Christmas pageant.

Jayne followed her. “You do want to meet him, don’t you?” she stressed once more.

“It seems to me,” Reba said, exhaling softly, “that you inherited more from your aunt Harriett than you realize.”

“Ouch.” Jayne grimaced.

“You deserved that for even suggesting such a
thing. Me directing a Christmas program? Why, that’s the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You’re missing something here.”

Reba gazed pointedly at her watch and removed the CLOSED sign from the front window. “It’s starting time.”

“We’ve got a couple of minutes yet. First I want to know if you heard what I said.”

“Yes, but I don’t have a response.”

“The Christmas pageant takes place Christmas Eve.” Her voice escalated softly, as if this fact were of some importance.

“So?” Reba was growing tired of this conversation. She returned to her desk, intent on refocusing her attention on the ledgers.

“Wasn’t it Christmas Eve your parents wanted you to attend some big family shindig?”

“Yes,” Reba answered tiredly.

“And doesn’t the Christmas program offer you the perfect excuse not to be stuck with relatives you don’t want to see?”

Reba hesitated. Her mother couldn’t very well take issue with her if she was involved with the church Christmas program. Still, she wasn’t convinced a ready excuse would be worth all the time and effort it would take to direct thirty or more grade-school children in some play revolving around the Nativity. There were limits to how far she was willing to go to keep the peace with her family.

Her parents had taken Vicki’s side in the issue. That much had been painfully obvious from the first. But she didn’t want to drag her aunt Gerty and uncle Bill into this mess. If she failed to attend the family dinner, they were sure to feel hurt, especially since they were her godparents.

There was something else, too. The thought of everyone gathered around the festive holiday table, talking about her when she wasn’t there to defend herself…It was grossly unfair.

“As an extra benefit you’d have the perfect opportunity to meet Judd and Jason Webster.” Jayne’s piercing eyes held hers. “And their father,” she added with meaning.

“Jayne Preston, you’re shameless.”

“True. Are you going to do it?”

Reba hesitated, unsure. “I don’t know yet. The church might already have someone.”

“They don’t,” Jayne said, sounding utterly confident.

“And I know why.” She was a fool for even considering taking on the responsibility. But Jayne made a strong point on a number of issues. It did offer her a ready excuse to avoid the family get-together. It wasn’t as if her mother could argue when she learned Reba was involved in a church activity.

Jayne made a good case regarding Reba’s organizational skills. Her hours were flexible, and she could leave the office on short notice. Her staff of two full-time and one part-time employee were
well trained and able to carry on their duties without her standing over them with a whip and chair.

She was a natural with children, although she hadn’t had much opportunity of late to get involved with them. Working with the younger generation didn’t intimidate her, not the way it would others. The truth was, she was desperately lonely. The holidays were always difficult for her. Others had family, friends, obligations. At no other time of the year did it bother her more that she wasn’t married. The Christmas project would help take her mind off all that she’d missed.

But the most convincing argument, the one that carried the most weight, was what her employee had said about meeting Seth Webster. He didn’t know her. Had no reason to make her acquaintance. Weeks, months, could pass before she had an opportunity to invent an excuse to meet him. Yet here was the golden opportunity to not only meet him, but work with his children, get to know him and his sons. Talk about having something handed to her on a silver platter.

“No one knows me,” she said several minutes later, picking up the conversation where they’d left off.

Jayne looked at her and blinked. “You mean at church? Sure they do. Maybe not by name, but certainly they know your face.”

“It’d be like asking a stranger to step in.”

“There’ll be other adults there as well. It isn’t unusual for a number of parents to pitch in.”

“It isn’t?” This gave her hope.

“Mrs. Darling has been teaching the children the music ever since September. I think you’ll find that it isn’t nearly as demanding as everyone’s made it seem. All that’s really required is the right person.”

“And you think that’s me?” She remained skeptical, but Jayne was right: this was a golden opportunity.

“Beyond a doubt. You’re perfect.”

“Hardly,” Reba said. She was a long way from that.

“As an added bonus you get to meet Mr. Webster.”

“Seth,” she supplied without thinking.

“
Seth,
is it? And just how did you find that out?”

The corners of Reba’s mouth tickled with the effort to repress a smile. “I have my ways.”

“I’m sure you do.”

The morning passed quickly. With the holidays fast approaching, the foot traffic was higher than usual. It amazed Reba that people actually expected to walk into a travel agency and book an extensive trip for the holidays. November and December were two of the most popular vacation months of the entire year.

“You’ll thank me for this later, you know,” Jayne commented after Reba called and talked to Pastor Lovelace. He seemed genuinely pleased to hear from her and ecstatic when she told him the reason for her phone call.

“Don’t be so sure. Depending on how this turns out, I might be forced to hire a hit man.”

“Just you wait, you’re going to thank me for this,” Jayne said with utter confidence. Lights from the Christmas tree stand on the other side of the parking lot blinked on in the descending daylight. “Who knows how long it would have taken you to meet Seth Webster if it weren’t for me?”

Reba pinched her lips together to keep from retorting. Yes, meeting Seth was one of the reasons she’d agreed to take over the coordinator’s job, but it wasn’t the only one.

The bell over the door jingled as the latest customer entered the shop.

Reba glanced up and smiled automatically. “Can I help you?” It wasn’t until the words had slipped past her lips that she realized it was Seth Webster who stood in front of her desk.

The air between them sizzled. Reba wondered if anyone else noticed. She did, and she knew he did, too.

“Hello again,” he said, and smiled.

It took a great deal to unnerve her, but he’d succeeded.

“How can I help you?” she asked in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner, gesturing toward the empty chair in front of her desk. Now all she had to do was figure out a way to carry on an intelligent conversation.