A/N: I finished the latest Murder, She Wrote novel today, called "A Killer Christmas," by Jessica Fletcher and Terrie Farley Moran. It's great - if you haven't read it yet, go do it (although this one-shot won't ruin the novel in any way if you haven't). This one-shot was inspired by a conversation from the novel that Jessica has with Maureen. Jessica remembers an incident with Frank when he went ice fishing and tracked mud into her freshly cleaned house.

I imagine this happening before Little Frank comes to live with them.

It was a cold Saturday morning in the middle of January. Frank had gone ice fishing with a couple of the men from town. Normally, I would have gone fishing with him, but as he had been invited by male friends, he did not think they would appreciate his wife tagging along. Despite the fact that this wife knew how to fish.

No matter. It had been a hectic week. Teaching high school English was always hard work, but in January, it was made more difficult by the fact that three other teachers had been out sick with the flu. Cabot Cove High was a small school in a small town. Having these teachers out ill for most of the week meant that our remaining teachers, me included, had to become creative about how to manage extra classrooms as well as attempt to teach something useful to the students in attendance.

As I had come home each night exhausted, everything else that I would normally do during the week had been put on the back burner. However, waking early this morning before Frank left, I had gained the motivation needed to complete all my chores today, in the hope that we could have quality time and relax together once he returned home.

Frank was a wonderful husband, but we did have a traditional marriage. He was the breadwinner and as a real estate agent, often worked nights and weekends. Having a free Saturday morning to go ice fishing with friends was a rare treat that I wanted him to freely enjoy. As a full-time teacher, I worked during the week while still doing most of the cooking and cleaning, but I did have my weekends free, although I often spent weeknights grading papers.

Even though Frank helped me with the cleaning on occasion, I bought into the societal notion that it was my work to do, and so I was hesitant to accept his help, unless we were having company, or I was ill myself. He grilled wonderful steaks though, which I happily allowed him to do whenever the mood struck.

At thirty-five, I still hoped for children, even though my doctor in Portland had recently told us that they would likely never happen. We had started to suspect as much over the last few years but hearing him after my last miscarriage less than a year ago, it certainly felt final. Frank has given up; he has never said, but I know. Just like I know that I will probably always hope until I reach menopause. From a purely medical standpoint, we should be able to have babies, yet it has never happened. Pregnancies yes, but never a baby to hold. I blame myself, as I have conceived, but I have never been able to carry a baby to term, nor even past the first trimester.

But I love my husband tremendously and if we are never blessed with children, as long as I have Frank by my side, I will be happy. While I fear grief over not having children will always remain, having his love and support will sustain me. I hope I am offering him the same.

This Saturday morning, despite my exhaustion, my mission was to clean the house and grocery shop before he arrived home. Hopefully, by lunch, he will be home, and we will have the remainder of the weekend together.

After cleaning the stovetop, counters, and washing the dishes in the kitchen sink, I spent time making a grocery list and before the store got too busy with weekend shoppers, I rode my bike down to get everything we needed for the week ahead. With only the two of us and the fact that we had a good storage freezer that I kept stocked with fish and other protein, I could usually fit the three or four bags of food in my bicycle basket after my weekly trip. In the weeks that I need to buy more or restock the freezer, I wait until Frank can drive me.

Within an hour, I was back home. I cleaned the refrigerator out and organized the groceries I had purchased, before getting out the broom and mop. Making quick work of the kitchen floor, I moved to the living room and began vacuuming, carefully using the attachment to clean every step of the stairs. By the time I reached upstairs, I had broken a sweat.

Trying to decide what I should do next, I had moved to the bedroom and had just pulled the comforter off to strip the bed to change the sheets, when I heard the back door open, and slam closed.

"Jessie? Jessie? Where are you?"

Frank was home. Looking over at the alarm clock on the bedside table, it was only eleven o'clock, but his voice sounded upbeat and exuberant.

As I left the bedroom in a hurry to see what he was excited about, I could hear him walking around downstairs. His footsteps sounded heavy. Was he wearing his boots inside after I had just mopped and vacuumed? I could hear him rustling around in the kitchen with what sounded like paper. What was he doing?

"Jessie? Come here! I have something to show you!"

Halfway down the stairs, the only thing my vision could take in were the muddy footprints on my previously clean, living room carpet. I saw red. The nerve of him to walk into my clean house after he knew I was home cleaning all morning! How dare he?

Furious now, I could not wait to give that man a piece of my mind, but as I crossed the threshold of the kitchen, I saw my dear, sweet husband bent over the largest northern pike I had ever seen. The fish appeared to be about twenty inches long, and close to thirty pounds. It covered the entire kitchen table, as he had placed it in the middle of a wide piece of butcher paper that he must have stopped for on the way home.

Every blistering comment I had intended on saying to him left my mind though, when he looked up as he heard me enter. The wide grin on his face that extended to his blue eyes, which were crinkling in the corners, reminded me of how he looked at twenty. When I met him for the first time in his military uniform, he took my breath away with his traditional tall, dark and handsome looks. While I was not sure if I had fallen in love with him at first sight, it had not taken me long when he looked at me like that with his boyish grin.

Instead of giving him a piece of my mind, I took a deep breath, aware of the muddy footprints that were also all over the kitchen floor as well as the fact that the insufferable man was still wearing the muddy boots!

His grin faltered for one moment, not sure what was wrong, but sheepishly, his voice lower now, he said, "Look, Jessie, at what I caught today. I figured I could cook it up for us tonight and we can freeze the rest. I know how hard you have worked this week, and I thought the least I could do would be to make dinner tonight for us." Even though I could see it clearly on the butcher paper, he held it up to show me proudly. "The guys measured it and it's twenty inches long and twenty-nine pounds."

While I had not yelled at him when I entered the kitchen, I had not smiled at him either, but at this point, I could not help it.

"Congratulations, darling. I don't think I've ever seen such a large fish," I could finally say, as I moved within his reach, to kiss him on the cheek.

"Thank you, sweetheart." He set the fish back down on the paper, quickly wrapping it up and putting it in my clean refrigerator, before turning back towards me, and pulling me into an embrace.

Leaning into his body, I relaxed. While I had been upset at him for messing up my clean floors, it was never worth hurting him when he came home so happy to see me. Feeling his hands rub up and down my back, he must have looked over my shoulder at the floor, because he murmured, "Oh Jessie, I got mud all over the floor." Pushing me away from him, he looked me in the eyes, "That's what's wrong. I knew something was when you came into the kitchen. I got mud all over your floors." Glancing around, he took in the high shine on the rest of the floor where the cleaner from the mop had worked its magic, and I watched his face fall even further, understanding what he had done. "And you have already cleaned them…I'm so sorry, sweetheart–I got excited, and I didn't think–I walked into the living room, too." Noticing his boots now, he hurriedly reached down and took them off, all but throwing them out the back door to clean later.

Coming back inside, he pulled me against his body tightly. "Will you forgive me?"

"Of course."

"Why didn't you say something?"

I chuckled, before I said, "Oh, I planned to, believe me. I saw red when I came downstairs and saw the mud on the carpet."

"But?"

"But then I saw your face and you smiled at me with that big grin of yours. I remembered the way you looked when I saw you for the first time and…I couldn't spoil your happiness."

His blue eyes darkened hearing my words. When I finished, I did not have time to take a breath before his lips were on mine, crushing me to him. The moan that left my throat was swallowed by his mouth, making my body grow warm.

His hands reached lower and lower, before cupping my bottom and bringing me against him, making sure I understood that he wanted me. Moving his mouth down my neck, I knew he tasted salt on the skin of my neck from sweat.

"Darling…" my voice filled with lust; I tried to get his attention.

"Hmm?"

"I am sweaty from cleaning, and you smell like fish."

His chuckle vibrated against the soft skin of my neck, and I groaned aloud, as there was nothing to stop the release from my mouth now.

"Well, sounds like we are even then…although, I am not complaining about you being a little sweaty. I plan on joining you in that regard shortly."

With that, he picked me up and started for the stairs.

"What are you doing, Frank?"

"What does it look like? I'm carrying you, sweetheart."

"To where?"

He waggled his eyebrows, before he whispered in my ear, as though it was too salacious to say aloud, "To the bedroom."

"I was changing the sheets."

Pausing for a moment in the doorway, I watched him survey our bed, taking in the comforter on the floor, the sheets still on the bed, which I could tell he was trying to remember if they were the ones that had been on it all week.

"Those are the sheets from this week, right?"

Nodding my head, I said, "Yes, I hadn't pulled them off yet when I heard you call from downstairs."

With a smirk and a wicked gleam in his eye, he walked the few feet to the bed and dropped me in the middle of it, already climbing on top of me, as I felt him begin to remove my clothes, realizing how aroused we both were already. Kissing me aggressively, he murmured, "This is perfect…I'm going to make love to my gorgeous wife, and then we are going to shower together to get the fish and sweat off." I was down to my bra and underwear now, and I stopped him long enough to help him out of his shirt and trousers, before wrapping my legs around his waist to pull him into a deep kiss.

Moving down the center of my chest, he unhooked my bra, as I felt the cool air hit my breasts. His voice husky now, he said, "And after the shower, I promise to clean the floors and make dinner, and you can change the sheets. Deal?"

I could not stop the moan that left my mouth again, as his mouth closed over my nipple, but somehow, I managed to get out, "Deal."

No further thoughts were needed. Frank was all I would ever need.