Mrs. Miracle 01 - Mrs. Miracle(27)

“She’s in the kitchen.”

Seth climbed out of bed and reached for his robe. As he walked past Jason he took the picture frame out of his hands.

“Where’d you get this?” he demanded before he was all the way into the kitchen.

Mrs. Merkle was standing at the kitchen counter, stirring eggs. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I beg your pardon?”

“This photograph of my wife. Where’d you get it?”

“Oh, Mr. Webster, I do hope you don’t mind. The children were filled with questions about their mother. I assume it had something to do with you going out with Miss Maxwell and all.”

“Where did you get this picture?” he repeated between gritted teeth.

“Yes, well…” She hesitated and dried her hands on her apron. “I found it in the bookcase when I dusted the other morning. Someone had stuck it in between two volumes. Apparently it’s been there for some time. Of course I wasn’t sure it was your wife, but with the babies in her arms, I felt it must have been. Judd has her eyes.”

Seth’s gaze traveled to his son, and he recognized that what the older woman said was true. Judd’s dark brown eyes were the precise shape and color Pamela’s had been. Funny he’d never noticed that before.

“In the bookcase, you say?”

“I apologize if I did something I shouldn’t have.” She certainly looked contrite. “I bought the frame the other day. It seems to go rather nicely, don’t you think?”

Seth sighed. He hadn’t meant to make a federal case out of a silly thing like a photograph. Although he’d been in the bookcase himself more times than he could count, he could easily have overlooked the picture. Who was to know how it came to be there in the first place? Perhaps Pamela stuck it there herself. Perhaps he’d been the one to do it. Not that it mattered.

“Mommy had brown eyes like me, too, didn’t she?” Jason asked, looking at him expectantly.

“Yes, partner.”

“Will my new mommy?”

It was all Seth could do to keep from groaning aloud. He looked to Mrs. Merkle to rescue him, but she was back stirring eggs, humming softly to herself.

“Dad?” Judd pulled at his sleeve. “Will she?”

He squatted down so that his gaze was level with that of his children. “There isn’t going to be another mommy, kids.”

They both looked stunned. He might as well have announced there was no such thing as Santa Claus from the shock he read in their expressive faces.

“But—”

“Mrs. Miracle said there would be.”

Irritated, Seth shot a glance toward his housekeeper, but she was busy with breakfast and either didn’t hear or was pretending not to. He wasn’t about to have the woman telling the children something like that. When he had a private moment, he’d mention it to her.

“I even drew my new mommy’s picture,” Judd told him. The lad raced out of the kitchen and was back a few moments later with a crayon drawing. Seth barely glanced at it and wouldn’t have given it a second’s notice if it wasn’t for two small matters. The woman Judd pictured had short curly hair and was wearing a shiny red dress.

Reba’s hair was short and curly and she’d been wearing a bright red dress. Coincidence. Pure coincidence.

“She’s real pretty, isn’t she?” Judd asked, proud of his efforts.

“She sure is,” Seth muttered with no real enthusiasm.

“You like Miss Maxwell, don’t you?” This came from Jason.

“Yes,” he admitted, “but that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry her.”

Both of his children had that same woebegone look of bitter disappointment. “You’ll look for a new mommy, won’t you?”

“Look for someone with brown eyes and curly hair and a red dress,” Judd advised, and waved the picture under his nose once more.

Seth was saved from having to answer when the housekeeper called them to the table.

He bided his time and waited until after breakfast before he confronted Mrs. Merkle. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where the children were getting the notion that he was about to remarry, and he wouldn’t have it.

“Do you have a moment?” he asked her as he carried the dirty dishes from the table to the sink.

“Of course.”

Ill at ease, and disliking confrontation, he hesitated. “I was wondering if you’d said anything to the children about me remarrying.”

She didn’t answer him right away, which was an answer in itself. “I don’t mean to complain,” he continued. “The kids call you Mrs. Miracle, and frankly, I’ve come to think of you that way. I don’t know what we would have done without you, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t fill the children’s heads with this talk about another mother.”

“So you don’t plan to remarry?” She looked as disappointed as the children.

“No,” he returned emphatically.

If his words discouraged her, it didn’t last long. Her eyes rounded with a hint of mischief. “Not ever, Mr. Webster? Forever is a long, long time.”

“Not ever,” he assured her, raising his voice slightly.

She laughed once, shortly, as if his answer had amused her and she wasn’t able to contain it. “Time will tell, won’t it?”