The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

in on her face, as if taking in everything Rachel had to say. "To wake up in a strange place, in that odd little crib. Not knowing where you are or where your mommy is.
    "But we're going to take good care of you. I promise. Sam's bringing your bottle, and then we'll give you a bath, and we'll find you something warm to wear. Today we're going shopping. We'll find you such gorgeous things. Something pink, I was thinking. Do you like pink, Grace? It'll be perfect against your little pink cheeks and your mouth."
    Grace purred up at her, still fascinated, blinking sleepily and stretching some more. This was the way Rachel had dreamed she'd spend her mornings, curled up in her bed in the first flush of dawn with a drowsy, hungry baby beside her, here in her house with her husband.
    But they'd never had that. Rachel still felt guilty about the baby she'd lost not long after she and Sam got married. There'd been complications and she'd hemorrhaged badly. In the heat of the moment, the doctors felt they had no alternative but a hysterectomy, which meant there would be no more children. Not from her body. She felt as if her body had betrayed her, as if she'd let Sam down and her life had taken a wrong turn way back then, and she'd never been able to get it back on track.
    Grace cooed up at her. The baby batted her hand against Rachel's, and Rachel fought back tears as she tried once again to soothe her.
    "You're so adorable. I just don't know how anybody could walk away from someone like you," she said.
    Rachel hadn't been able to walk away, not from the memory of her daughter or from Sam. Her father had wanted her to go to college in the fall, as she would have the year before if not for Sam and the baby. But Rachel couldn't. Her grandfather was getting weaker by then, and he needed Rachel. So did Sam. He worked like a demon at his job and on the house. Rachel helped him, took care of her grandfather, and told herself that someday there would be children. Except it had never worked out, and here she was thirty years old and childless, about to be husbandless. It seemed she would be starting all over again, just as her father had urged her to do, except she'd do it at thirty instead of eighteen.
    Rachel had no idea how to even begin.
    "I guess you're starting over, too," she told the baby, brushing her cheek against Grace's. "And we have things to do, you know. We have to decorate the house for Christmas, because Zach's worried that Santa isn't coming, although I'm sure he is. It's no telling what he'll bring you. I'm sure you've been such a good girl."
    Grace shoved the side of her fist into her mouth and started sucking furiously, but stayed quiet except for the noises she made trying to satisfy her hunger.
    "I know," Rachel sympathized. "I'm sure you're just about to starve. But Sam's coming. We'll get your tummy all nice and full and everything will look better then, I promise, sweetie."
    She crooned to the baby a bit more until Sam was back with the bottle. Grace reached for it the minute she saw it, and soon she was sucking away, quite happily tucked into her spot at Rachel's side.
    "She's really adorable, isn't she?"
    Sam stood there awkwardly and said, "Yes."
    "Emma told me Grace is almost one, so she must have been born around Christmas."
    "She's not a present, Rachel."
    "I'm sure she was to somebody."
    "Somebody who abandoned her at a cheap motel on the edge of town."
    "We don't know what happened. " Rachel was torn. She wanted these children to have someone to love, but worried they'd be left again someday in another motel, in another town. Who would take care of them then?
    "If you and I had children, you would never leave them anywhere, no matter what happened to you. You'd defend them to your last breath."
    Yes, she would have. She would have done anything for them, just like she would do anything for these children.
    "I know it's an awful thing," she said, "to have left them there. I'm not going to defend their mother for that. But they seem to be such good kids. Kind and gentle and loving. I think someone must have taken good care of them along the way. That was all I was thinking in saying we shouldn't judge this woman without knowing anything about her. I want to believe there's someone who cares about them, someone who wants them."
    "If there is, Miriam will find her."
    Rachel nodded. He didn't want her to get too attached to the kids. She knew that. She was telling herself that about once every minute. And