Mrs. Miracle Page 0,13

"Will you be all right by yourself?" What Reba really needed was a few minutes alone to compose herself.

"Sure," Jayne assured her, although they both knew it wasn't true. Office procedure stated that no employee should be left alone to deal with both the phone and the foot traffic.

"I'll be back shortly," Reba promised on her way out the door.

"Take however long you need."

Sunday morning Reba arrived for the worship service ten minutes early, knowing Jayne would be waiting anxiously for her. She stood inside the vestibule as the organ music filled the small sanctuary.

She didn't have long to wait. Jayne, with her two daughters in tow, arrived shortly.

"Thank goodness you're here."

"Have you met up with Aunt Harriet?"

"Not yet. I managed to escape her just now in the hallway outside the girls' Sunday school classroom. I pretended not to hear her."

"Mom, can I sit with Becky?" Seven-year-old Suzie tugged at Jayne's sleeve.

"Even my daughter's looking for a way of avoiding my aunt," Jayne whispered out of the corner of her mouth.

"Can I, Mom?"

"All right, but no talking, understand?"

Suzie was off like a shot.

"Let's take a seat," Jayne urged, glancing over her shoulder. She accepted a bulletin from one of the deaconesses who acted as a greeter and slithered up the side aisle, seeking, Reba assumed, the one spot in the entire church where her aunt wasn't likely to see her.

Not that Jayne had much chance of escaping the inevitable, Reba suspected.

"Oh, good," Jayne muttered after they were seated. Cindy sat between them on the hard wooden pew.

"What?" Reba whispered.

"Aunt Harriett's playing the organ."

Reba's gaze sought out the middle-aged woman sitting at the organ. She didn't mean to smile, but she would have been able to pick out Jayne's aunt Harriett from a police lineup. The woman wore a dress that seemed to suggest anything fashionable must surely be a sin. Her glasses rode down on her nose so far, they threatened to glide right off. Her pinched lips made her look as if it required a substantial effort to smile.

"Do you see her?" Jayne asked, leaning her head close to Reba's.

"Shh..." Six-year-old Cindy pressed her finger to her lips and glared accusingly at the two adults.

Smiling to herself, Reba straightened and focused her attention straight ahead. She'd come for the express purpose of lending her friend moral support, but she was glad she'd come. The music, even if played by Aunt Harriett, was wonderful.

An older woman entered the church, a round portly soul, grandmotherly and kind looking. She paused, her gaze gentle yet focused as she looked squarely in Reba's direction and smiled as if she'd known Reba her entire life. The directness of the stare caught her unaware. The older woman's eyes brightened, and she nodded as if acknowledging someone.

Reba supposed her face was new and the woman was making an effort to welcome her. She responded with a smile.

To puzzle her further, the woman glanced pointedly over her shoulder at a man with two small children at his side. Reba's gaze followed the woman's.

It was him. Him. The man she'd seen so often at the grocery outside the strip mall. The very one who'd captured her attention weeks earlier. The one she found herself looking for day after day. The one who seemed as needy as she was herself. Another lost soul in a world full of the walking wounded.

"Who's that?" she asked, gripping Jayne's sleeve in the same urgent manner in which her young daughter had earlier.

"Who?" Jayne asked, tilting her head closer to Reba's.

"The man with the children."

"That's Judd and Jason Webster," Cindy supplied, drawing daisies on the church bulletin. "They're in my Sunday school class. They're twins."

"He's married, then?" Reba's heart sank with the realization.

Jayne looked to her daughter.

Cindy shook her head. "Their mommy died in a car accident a long time ago. They don't even remember what she looks like."

"Do you know his name?"

Cindy nodded. Her grin spread from ear to ear; obviously she was pleased to be the center of attention, the one with all the answers. "That's Mr. Webster, their dad."

Chapter 6

Some marriages are made in heaven, but they all have to be maintained on earth.

- Mrs. Miracle

Sharon Palmer's marriage was dying. A long, slow, painful death. She sat on the edge of her mattress and brushed her fingers through the thick tangles in her dark, rich hair.

She'd slept far later than normal, but she didn't feel rested. A part of her longed to crawl back into bed, bury her