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turning on the light, she moved into her living room and sank onto the sofa. The darkness closed in around her, hiding her, letting her hide. From what, she wasn't sure. Herself. Her feelings. The future.

The future?

She wondered if she dared trust another man again. Expose herself to another bout of pain.

Gradually a smile came into place. Seth wouldn't hurt her, not when he'd been so deeply hurt himself. Her heart was safe with Seth Webster. Of that she was confident. Safe and secure.

Chapter 12

A skeptic is a person who when he sees the handwriting on the wall claims it's a forgery.

- Morris Bender, as told to Mrs. Miracle

"Daddy, wake up!" Judd bounced onto Seth's bed with all the energy of a Saint Bernard puppy.

Seth longed to bury his head beneath his pillow and possibly would have if Jason hadn't hurled himself into the bed after his brother. Whatever chance he had of returning to sleep was forever lost. This was what he got for letting the kids crawl in bed with him on weekends.

"Is Miss Maxwell going to be our new mommy?"

"Ah..." Seth groaned. He needed coffee and a shower before facing an inquisition from his two children. The word "mommy" implied marriage, and he wasn't anywhere close to considering a step that drastic. Sure, he'd enjoyed Reba's company, but that was a hell of a long way from taking the proverbial plunge into matrimony. The mere word put the fear of God into him.

"Mrs. Miracle showed us Mommy's picture last night," Jason announced.

Seth's head reared back with shocked surprise. He didn't keep out any pictures of Pamela. Like the piano, they'd all been removed and stored carefully in the attic. It'd been a rash thing to do, perhaps even unreasonable, but at the time it had seemed necessary.

One evening, several weeks after he'd sent the boys to live with their grandparents, Seth had gone on a rampage through the house, collecting every snapshot, every photograph, he could lay his hands on. His shoulders had shaken with emotion as he'd gathered them together. Sometime later he'd tucked them away in the storage space in the attic.

No longer would he be blindsided by the pain. It wasn't until much later that Seth realized that out of sight didn't mean out of mind. Pamela's picture didn't rest on the piano any longer, but she was with him. Every time he walked in the house she was there to greet him. To welcome him. To tell him she was pleased he was home. Not with words, naturally. But with memories.

After time, when the pain of losing her wasn't as sharp, he found comfort in those small remembrances. At his loneliest moments, he sat in the living room and wrapped them around himself the way one did a winter coat in the dead of a snowstorm. He closed his eyes and pretended.

Imagination was a powerful thing, and it didn't take more than a small dose to conjure what his life would have been like had Pamela lived. Even with the solace he'd received from those visions, he'd never crawled back into the attic and retrieved the pictures.

"I'd almost forgotten what Mommy looked like," Jason said, "until Mrs. Miracle gave me the photograph."

"Which photograph?" Seth demanded, and Jason flinched with surprise. He didn't mean to shout. His anger certainly wasn't directed at them. The incident with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was one thing, but Pamela's picture was another in a long list of the unexplainable.

"The one in my room," Jason answered. "I'll get it."

He was gone in an instant, flying off the bed with an agility and speed reserved for children. Before Seth could think to call him back, he returned, holding an eight-by-ten-inch frame against his chest.

"This one," he announced breathlessly.

The photograph was of Pamela soon after the birth of the twins, the very one he'd loved the most. Pamela radiantly happy, a newborn infant on each arm, smiling at him, smiling at the camera.

Seth was furious, so angry that he couldn't speak.

"What's wrong, Daddy?" Judd asked, cocking his head to get a better look at his father.

"I need to talk to Mrs. Merkle."

"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,