He pulled out his phone and dialed. Joy answered before the first ring finished.
“What’s wrong?” she shouted, panic in her voice. “What happened to Chantal?”
Whoa. Calling was a mistake!
“Joy, wait. She’s fine.”
“What? What’s wrong, Seth?” He had to pull the phone away from his ear. She was shouting so loud he could hear her without the phone.
“Sorry. Chantal is fine. Nothing has happened.”
“Give me the phone,” Chantal said, wiggling her fingers for him to hand it over. He shrugged and passed it to her. She leaned her elbow on her crutch and held the phone to her ear.
“Mom. Mom! I’m fine. I just have a question.” Seth could hear Joy talking, but couldn’t make out the words. “Mom!” Chantal raised her voice. “I have a question. I’m fine.” She listened for a second. “We can’t find enough skirts unless you can make three smaller.” She listened again. “K. Bye.”
She handed the phone back to Seth. He put it up to his ear.
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Seth Mathison. I nearly had a heart attack. I thought something had happened to Chantal. Never again.”
“I am sorry. I didn’t think it through.”
“Obviously not. Get the skirts. I can alter them if they aren’t enormously oversized. Did you get ties?”
“Neckties? No. Do we need ties?”
“I think the boys would look dapper with neckties.”
Dapper?He rolled his eyes. “I’ll check with Mikki and get back to you.” He hung up as Mikki shook her head no. “We could probably do without them anyway.”
“They would look good,” she said. “Let me make a call.” She talked and pushed the rack towards the lobby. Seth and Chantal followed.
“Mom was really mad, wasn’t she?”
“Yup. But it’s okay. I’ve been shouted at before.” He winked at her. “My sisters shout at me all the time when I mess up.” Well, one of them did. The other barely spoke since her daughter died. Therapy was helping, but her recovery was slow and painful. Even though he was a firefighter, and had experienced tragedy and loss, Seth had done therapy as well. The entire family had, but Chantal didn’t need to hear about that.
Joy joined them on the way to the lobby and told them her helper had already taken her selections to the desk. Mikki entered their purchase into her computer. “I’m giving these to you at cost,” she said and named a ridiculously low price.
“That’s way below our budget. We were given funds to pay for this. You don’t need to cut your profit out,” Joy said.
“Tell you what, if the organizers agree, you can give the leftover funds to your charities and split it between them with my compliments.”
“That’s so generous,” Joy said, her eyes tearing up.
“We’ll make sure you get a receipt,” Seth promised and slid her enough cash to cover the bill. “All we need now are the ties.”
“My friend is having neckties for the boys and pendants for the girls delivered to the train. She runs an accessory shop. She’s hooking you up for free. But if you happened to mention our businesses to others, that would be great.” She gave them the name of her friend’s shop.
“You can count on that,” Seth promised.
Chapter Six
Joycouldn’tbelievetheirgood fortune. “That was incredibly generous of Mikki,” she said as they loaded garment bags into the car.
“It’s Christmas, a time of hope and generosity,” Seth reminded her.
“Christmas magic,” Chantal exclaimed.
Joy couldn’t help but share an amused glance with Seth. His lips turned up and his brown eyes sparkled. She realized, once again, that he was a very handsome man. Tall and broad-shouldered, he was exactly the type of man she’d go for, if she were looking. At the vet clinic where she worked, she was almost the same height as most of the men. Being five foot seven, she looked up at Seth; he had a good five inches on her, maybe more. She liked the feeling of looking up at him. Wait, she wasn’t looking for a man. Not a temporary one, not a permanent one. At least not until Chantal was much older.
