The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

after they lost the baby, but before the other things, the things that had cemented that first, terrible loss and sealed their fate. Rachel frowned at the idea that their fate was truly sealed, that it had been years ago. What had all the intervening years been? Nothing but her and Sam playing out the hand fate dealt them? Was there no way to stop it? No way to change it?
    And then there was no time for thinking at all. Because Zach was running for the ladder, and Sam was still three stories up. She managed to stop Zach from grabbing on to the ladder and knocking Sam down, but barely.
    Emma took Grace into the house, and Sam climbed down. Zach was so excited, he was practically dancing at Sam's feet. He had all sorts of questions about the lights—how many were there, and how did they get them to stay up, and could he help. Sam answered all the boy's questions, and then Rachel gave Zach one of the smaller shopping bags and asked him to take it inside. He did, bouncing as he went, leaving her with Sam.
    "The house looks good," she said tentatively.
    Sam nodded, looking at it instead of at her. She thought about taking him by the collar of his coat and turning him to her, making him look, saying, See me, Sam. Me. Think about leaving me now. Can you do it? Can you give up on us? After all these years? All we've been through?
    But she didn't. Not yet. She was still too afraid of what he'd say. Afraid he'd say, Yes, I can go. Because I don't love you anymore, Rachel. Maybe I never did.
    "I spent a lot of money," she said instead.
    She went to the car and opened the door, showing him all the packages. He didn't say anything, just took what she handed him. And then the thought of money had her stomach clenching tightly. What was she going to do for money if Sam left? She made some money off her stained glass, but truly she'd always done it for the challenge and the sheer pleasure of it, not for the money. And what she'd made in the past wasn't enough to support herself, certainly not enough to keep up this house, which she honestly loved and would hate to leave. She hadn't even thought of it before, but what about the money?
    Oh, she had people who wanted to hire her now. At least, they had after she'd finished the Parker mansion. Melissa Reynolds, whom she went to school with, had a gift shop in town and often talked to Rachel about selling small custom-made glass products, wind chimes, sun-catchers, small windows, mosaics, maybe even stained glass panels to fit in doors and windows. But Rachel had never talked to her seriously about prices or quantities of products or anything like that.
    "Rachel?" Sam said. "It's fine, Rachel."
    But it wasn't. She was an incredible anachronism in this thoroughly modern world. She'd never had a real job. Oh, she'd always been busy, and Sam had told her more than once, when she'd worried about what she was contributing to the family finances, that he never would have gotten the business off the ground without her. Truly, they'd worked side by side in the first few years. Every minute she hadn't spent taking care of her sick grandfather or her mother, she'd spent helping Sam.
    But the business was his. She'd helped get it started, but it would never be hers. She would never claim a share of it. It wouldn't be fair. And she certainly would never expect Sam to go on supporting her once they were no longer man and wife.
    She felt so ridiculous. She was a grown woman, thirty years old. How could she be so unprepared to take care of herself?
    "Rachel, I don't care how much you spent on these kids, okay?"
    She nodded, her gaze locked on his for a moment, that sense of panic rushing over her again. What was she going to do?
    "Look," he said, still caught up in the kids and clothes, thinking that was all this was about, "I know what it's like to live in hand-me-downs. To have—"
    He stopped abruptly, his face flushed in the cold, and she puzzled over what he'd been about to say. Sam had lived in hand-me-downs?
    She remembered him in disreputable-looking jeans, the fabric worn almost white and so smooth, clinging to every muscle in his thighs, and some kind of shirt. Nothing that nice, but she hadn't seen Sam as the kind of boy who'd ever care that much about what he wore, and the snug, worn jeans fit with that bad-boy image of his. She'd never given his clothes a second thought. His grandfather was known as a tightwad around town, but she didn't think he was poor. She hadn't thought much about