Mrs. Miracle 01 - Mrs. Miracle(7)

If the living room was in mild disarray, the kitchen was in chaos. Spilled milk splashed across the tabletop looked like a work of modern art. What had managed to seep through pooled on the floor beneath.

Dirty dishes filled the sink, and the groceries he’d purchased two days earlier cluttered the countertops, along with discarded remnants from breakfast. No one had bothered to tell him milk-soaked cereal that dried onto the sides of a bowl required a blow torch to remove.

“I’ll have this mess cleaned up before you know it,” he promised.

Mrs. Merkle dismissed his offer with a brisk hand gesture and turned her head, but Seth thought he might have seen her roll her eyes. “You’re Judd and this must be Jason,” she said, grinning at the children. She removed the hatpin from her no-nonsense hat and set it aside.

The children were either mesmerized or terrified, Seth couldn’t decide which. They stared up at her with their mouths hanging open.

“Children, you can help by setting the table,” Mrs. Merkle instructed as she casually unfastened the large round buttons of her dark wool coat. She slipped it from her arms and carried it into the living room along with her hat and purse and laid them over the back of the sofa.

While she was out of the room, Seth dumped the tomato-paste-consistency soup down the sink, watching it gurgle like thick toxic waste as the pipe sucked it down. He whirled around guiltily when Mrs. Merkle returned, forgetting for the moment that Jason was clamped to his leg. His weight, although slight, nearly knocked him off-balance, and he caught himself by gripping hold of the edge of the counter.

Seeming not to notice either him or the twins, Mrs. Merkle went about readying dinner. She appeared to be grumbling under her breath. She placed the chicken pot pie in the oven to warm, wiped the table free of milk, and organized the kitchen with a skill and dexterity that left Seth astonished. He wanted to help, wanted to prove he wasn’t entirely worthless, but he couldn’t stop staring. The housekeeper moved with an effortless ease about the room while he stood with the children, watching her with his mouth gaping open in sheer wonder. After what seemed less than five minutes, she had dinner on a clean table, in a near spotless kitchen.

“Dinner’s ready,” she announced, turning to face him and the children.

“It’s a miracle,” Seth mused. It wasn’t until he heard the sound of his own voice that he realized he’d spoken aloud.

“Are you a miracle?” Judd asked the housekeeper outright.

Mrs. Merkle chuckled softly. “Now that, my fine fellow, is a matter of opinion.”

“Mrs. Miracle,” Jason announced, offering the new housekeeper a shy smile.

As far as Seth was concerned, the woman’s arrival couldn’t have been anything but divine providence. Mrs. Hampston had left a week earlier. Seven days, and as far as Seth was concerned the Middle Ages had passed faster.

He’d tried to work a regular forty-hour week, but his involvement with the Firecracker Project required far more of his time and effort than that allowed in a routine schedule. He’d been bringing what he could home with him and working until all hours of the morning, overdosing on caffeine and managing on four or five hours’ sleep a night. As a result he’d shortchanged his children and his employer, and he was killing himself in the process. Another week of this and he’d be a candidate for the loony bin.

Judd and Jason didn’t need to be encouraged to take their places at the table. His children weren’t fools. Dinner, especially one not cooked by their father, put them on their best behavior.

Once everyone was seated, Mrs. Merkle opened the oven door and brought out the hot, bubbling chicken pot pie. The crust was browned to perfection, and the tantalizing gravy leaked up through the sides. The scent all but made his knees go weak. Seth didn’t need to be urged to place his napkin in his lap and grip hold of his fork in eager anticipation.

“Wow,” Judd whispered, and looked to his dad. His tongue moistened his lips, and his eyes sparkled with eager anticipation.

Afterward Seth would have been hard-pressed to say when he’d enjoyed a meal more. He supposed he should be asking his new housekeeper for references, but he was too busy enjoying his dinner to take the time. She had a kind, honest face, but he’d been fooled before. Then again, she could well be the good-hearted, generous soul he’d requested from the beginning.

Frankly, he wasn’t keen on the agency’s placement tactics. They’d waited until he was at his wits’ end before sending him a new housekeeper. Since he was paying top dollar, one would think they’d want to please him.

“This is good,” Seth said, and helped himself to seconds.

“It’s an old family recipe that I’ve updated.”

Seth would have polished off a third slice of the succulent pie, but he was already stuffed. Placing his hands on his stomach, he excused himself and scooted back his chair.

“I’ll help Mrs. Mirkl…Mrs. Meeraki…Mrs. Miracle,” Jason burst forth triumphantly.

“I’ll help, too,” Judd insisted. Always before, his chauvinistic sons had insisted dishes were woman’s work. Even when Seth was up to his armpits in suds, risking dishwater hands, they had refused to help. This attitude, Seth suspected, was the result of living with their grandparents for the last several years. Jerry Palmer’s outdated views of what was and wasn’t fitting work for the male population had unfortunately rubbed off on his grandsons.