The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

the house. She couldn't help but wonder if they were scared. They had to be cold, and she'd bet they hadn't had enough to eat lately, maybe not for a long, long time. It hurt to think about that, hurt in places Rachel hadn't hurt for a long, long time, places in her heart she thought had died. It would be better if all those sad, lonely corners of her heart just shriveled up and died. Miriam knew that. She had to understand. So Rachel couldn't understand why her aunt was doing this to her.
    Then, in the worst betrayal of all, her aunt leaned into the car and came out with a baby in her arms.
    "Oh." Rachel closed her eyes. A baby.
    Miriam walked right up to Rachel and put the child into her arms, giving Rachel no choice but to take it.
    The other two children gazed up at Rachel waiting for her reaction, their own expressions hard to read. Sadness, uncertainty, fear? Little children shouldn't ever be afraid.
    So although Rachel wanted to shove the baby back into her aunt's arms and run inside, locking the door behind her, she didn't. Not at first. She didn't want the children to think she was rejecting them. She wasn't. She was rejecting pain and her own memories and the most dangerous thing of all. Hope.
    For years, Rachel had had a dream. An utterly illusive fantasy that one day she'd open her front door and someone would put a baby in her arms. It was her own personal version of the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. They could put her on national television if they wanted, broadcast live from her front porch, if she ever won the baby sweepstakes.
    A little shiver ran down Rachel's spine. She'd had the baby dream just a few days ago. It had snowed in her dream, she remembered, and it was snowing today. She'd missed that, too; there was a soft, pristine white blanket of snow covering the ground, and it was cold. Just like in her dream.
    The dream, too, always started with the doorbell ringing. Sometimes Rachel opened the door and saw no one. Then she looked down and found a basket at her feet, an oval-shaped basket filled with something that might have been mistaken for laundry. But the linens would wiggle, and she'd pull them aside and find the baby waiting for her. In a basket at her front door, like a present.
    Sometimes—the last time she had the dream in fact—she opened the door and found a person standing there. She didn't know who, didn't see anything except the baby in that person's arms. She held out her arms and found them filled with a warm, soft, sweet-smelling baby. Right there, on an otherwise absolutely ordinary day.
    Just like today.
    "Miriam?" Rachel protested as her aunt herded the children inside, as if she still lived here.
    "Inside, Rachel. These children are cold and tired. They're probably hungry by now, too."
    "I hungry," the little boy piped up.
    "See," Miriam said, as if that excused everything.
    "You didn't stop by for me to feed them," Rachel pointed out.
    "No, but I know you would never turn away a hungry child. Your mother raised you better than that."
    "And surely your mother raised you better than this," Rachel said, about to be seduced by the warm weight of the baby in her arms.
    They all traipsed down the front hall and to the right, to the big kitchen. Miriam walked right to the refrigerator and opened it.
    "Oh, Rachel. You've been baking already." Miriam turned to the boy and the girl. "You have never had anything as delicious as pumpkin bread made with my mother's recipe. She used to live in this house. I did, too. I used to sit in this kitchen, right where you are, Emma, and watch her bake. We'd have a fire, and the whole house would smell so good, and then when it was finally done, we'd put real whipped cream over it. The bread would be hot enough to melt the cream, and it would run down the sides, like ice cream. It's delicious."
    "Bread?" the boy said, obviously not impressed.
    "More like cake," Miriam explained. She'd already gotten the bread out of the refrigerator and was headed to the cabinet for plates. "You do like cake, don't you, Zach?"
    "Uh-huh." He nodded vigorously.
    Oh, God, Rachel thought. He was hungry. And he was so thin. He didn't have a warm coat, either. He just had a thin jacket, like the girl. Emma and Zach, she thought. Hungry and cold. In her house.
    "You can't do this, Miriam," Rachel complained.
    "In a minute, dear." She put slices of bread in the microwave to warm, and found the whipped cream. And then when the bread was ready, put a generous