A Season of Angels Page 0,9

have caused a whole lot of comment. To her credit, Goodness had resisted, although on second thought, she did an excellent Carol Burnett.

"What if Gabriel hears about this?"

"Don't worry about it." The archangel would eventually find out, Goodness knew. There would be no keeping it from him, but even that hadn't been enough for her to resist singing with Monica.

"He might take you off the assignment."

"Not a chance. Gabriel's shorthanded as it is. If he was going to pull me off this prayer request it would be for something a whole lot more troublesome than singing." The prayer ambassador was far more concerned by the consequences of her folly. Monica had fallen into the arms of that hard-nosed, disgruntled private investigator. If anything unsavory had happened, Goodness would have held herself personally responsible.

Chapter 3

"Timmy," Jody Potter called from the compact kitchen. "Dinner's ready."

"In a minute." The nine-year-old kept his gaze level with the television as he worked the controls of the video game. "I'm just about to save the world."

"Timmy, please, we go through this every night." Jody's nerves were on edge and had been ever since she'd found the letter. The folded sheet of paper had slipped from Timmy's school binder when she'd set it on the kitchen counter the night before.

A letter to God, but this wasn't any ordinary letter. Timmy had asked for a father. Jody's first instinct had been to sit him down and explain that he already had a father. Only Timmy had no recollection of Jeff, who'd died when Timmy was barely ten months old.

Timmy had no way of knowing how proud Jeff had been of his son. How he'd insisted on holding him each night when he returned from the office and feeding him his last bottle. Timmy didn't remember that it was his father who'd sung him to sleep and then stood by his crib, gently patting his back. Her son couldn't possibly remember that Jeff had burst into tears of joy the night Timmy had been born.

What Timmy wanted now was a father who was alive. Someone who could throw a ball and catch better than she could, according to his letter. Someone who understood and enjoyed football. Someone who would be a friend.

What Timmy accepted far better than she did herself, Jody realized, was that Jeff was forever lost to them. Her son was looking for a replacement.

"I won," Timmy cried, leaping to his feet, holding his hands high above his head while he danced around the living room.

"I'm relieved to know the world is safe at last," Jody muttered, carrying the meat loaf over to the round oak table. "Can we eat now?"

"I guess." From habit, Timmy hurried into the bathroom and washed his hands, drying them against his thighs as he joined his mother moments later.

They sat down at the table together and Jody passed the vegetables.

Timmy stared down at the bowl and frowned. "I hate green beans."

"Take three." Jody didn't know why she chose three, but it seemed a reasonable number and she was hoping to have a heart-to-heart talk with her son. A confrontation over green beans would be detrimental to her plan.

Timmy judiciously sorted through the vegetables until he'd located three stubby green beans. Then he carefully placed them on the edge of his plate where they were in danger of slipping unnoticed onto the tablecloth. He paused and glanced up at Jody, who pretended not to notice.

She waited until he'd drowned his slice of meat loaf in catsup and loaded his plate with fruit salad and mashed potatoes before she broached the subject of his letter.

"We were supposed to write someone for Christmas," Timmy explained after she mentioned having found it. "I'm too old for this Santa Claus stuff so I went straight to the source. It was silly anyway, the post office won't mail a letter to God. The teacher made a fuss about it and now you are too. What's the big deal?"

"Nothing," Jody was quick to assure him. "It's just that I hadn't realized you wanted a father so badly."

"Every kid does," he said. "Don't they?"

"I guess." Jody's own father had died a year earlier and she missed him still. It had been a crushing emotional blow she hadn't expected. Her father's heart attack had taken the family by surprise. Just a week earlier, he'd been in for his yearly physical and was given a clean bill of health. Both Jody and her mother had been rocked by shock and