The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

kitchen.
    It was an unusual meal for them all, the room echoing with conversation and laughter. The kids had all new clothes on, and Emma thanked him rather shyly for everything they'd gotten the day before. She had on a soft, pink sweater and a matching skirt, and it looked like Rachel had braided her hair, because the style looked like one his wife sometimes wore. She was a pretty girl, he realized, thinking that she seemed impossibly young and somehow very hopeful, reminding him long, long ago of his wife the first time he'd seen her coming out of church one Sunday with her family.
    He'd been standing in the park across the street—anything to get out of his grandfather's house—and he heard her laughing and turned around to see who'd made that sound. She looked like a girl who'd been pampered her whole life, which was true he found out later. But instead of turning up her nose and looking away or staring at him as if he were some foreign creature caught under a microscope, she smiled at him, just as shyly as Emma was now.
    Sam had to look away for a moment, too caught up in the past to say or do anything. He hadn't believed then that Rachel could truly be his, and before too long, she wouldn't be.
    They finished their dinner and all of them helped the kids pile into coats, hats, mittens, and boots to go outside and watch the Christmas parade. It came right past the house.
    Sam hadn't intended to go, but Frank was here and he suspected Frank would think it was odd if Sam didn't go. So they all traipsed out into the cold, and Sam stood there on the fringes of the scene, Rachel holding the baby, rubbing her nose against Grace's tiny one, and Grace laughing at that. It took Emma and Frank to keep Zach out of the street and out of the way of the parade, he was so full of energy.
    The whole scene was so perfect. He had the oddest sensation of standing on the edge of what his life with Rachel might have been. That he'd found a wrinkle in time, and slipped through. That somewhere, this was his life, completely different and as full and wonderful as anything he could have ever imagined. One step to the right, he thought. Or to the left. And this is what he could have had?
    Instead, he was about to end up with nothing.
    "Sam?"
    He heard Rachel calling his name and realized he'd turned and started walking away. He couldn't let himself get any closer, couldn't stay.
    "I have to go inside," he said and fled.
    * * *
    Fifteen minutes later, Frank caught him and said, "I think you and I have some things to talk about."
    Sam hesitated a moment, then looked his father-in-law in the eye. Instantly, he felt every bit as guilty as he had the night he and Rachel had gone to tell her parents that she was pregnant and that they intended to get married. Frank had never forgiven Sam for daring to touch his precious little girl.
    "What can I do for you?" Sam asked.
    Frank's gaze narrowed in on Sam's, his big bad father expression coming across his face. "Anything you want to tell me, son?"
    Sam took a breath and squared his shoulders. "About what?"
    "You and my little girl. Because she hasn't looked too happy lately, and I've been hearing some things, things I don't like."
    Damn. It was starting to come out.
    Sam hadn't remembered until after he'd agreed to take the room above Rick's garage that Frank used to play poker with the guy who was currently renting that room from Rick. And his buddy Rick never shut up. He could just see Rick saying something to the man who was moving out of that room about the fact that Sam was moving in and the news getting back to Frank.
    He wondered if it was too late already but tried to brazen it out. "I don't have anything to say, Frank."
    There'd come a day when he'd have to explain himself to his father-in-law. This wasn't it. Not when he hadn't even told Rachel yet.
    "You promised me," Frank said, scowling at him and suddenly full of fatherly outrage. "You promised you'd do anything in the world for her."
    "I would," Sam said, but there were some things that were simply out of his reach.
    Frank swore softly. "One thing about you—I've never known you to turn around and run when things got tough, and I know, things between you and her have never been easy. But you never ran out on her. You better think about what you're doing, son. You better think long and hard."
    Sam had thought about it. He'd thought of nothing else, it seemed.
    "You told me you'd always be there for her," Frank said. "That you were