The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

mom back?" Emma asked.
    He turned and studied her face, so hopeful, so trusting, as if she had all the faith in the world in the woman who'd deserted her. How could that be?
    "Is that woman your mother, Emma? The one who left you?"
    "Of course."
    "She's always been your mother?" he asked.
    "Yes. Why?"
    Sam shook his head back and forth. "I just can't see her leaving you like that, if she was your mother."
    "She didn't want to," Emma insisted. "She just had to see somebody."
    "Who?"
    "Somebody who could help us."
    "Help you? How?"
    "She was sick."
    As in... mentally ill? That was Sam's first thought. It was easier to think the woman had mental problems than to think she'd simply abandoned them.
    "What was wrong with her?" he asked.
    "I don't know. She didn't want to talk about it because it scared me. She was all we had left, and if anything happened to her, I didn't know what would happen to us. I was afraid I couldn't take care of us, and I—"
    "Okay," Sam said, carefully touching his hand to hers, wanting to soothe her if he could. "I don't do this to upset you, Emma. I want to help. I swear to God, I do. And if your mother's out there somewhere, we need to find her."
    "Do you think something happened to her? Something bad?"
    "I don't know."
    "Because she loves us. She wouldn't just leave us there like that—"
    "Emma, she did."
    "She wouldn't," the girl sobbed.
    "Tell me her name, Emma."
    "I can't."
    "Of course you can."
    "She made us promise not to tell."
    Sam did swear then. "Why?"
    "She said it was dangerous for us to tell and that no one could know where we come from or we might have to go back there, and I don't want to go. I just want to be with her."
    Ahh, damn. Had they been snatched away from their parents by a mad woman? "You love her?" he asked, having to know.
    "Yes."
    "And she takes good care of you?"
    "Yes. When she can. When she's not sick."
    "She gets sick a lot?"
    "Yes."
    "Emma, if she's sick now and can't come back for you, she may need help. If you tell us her name and where to look, we can find her. We'll help her. I promise."
    "They'll send us back," Emma said.
    "Back to whom?"
    "I can't tell. I promised not to tell that, either. But she loves us."
    "I never said she didn't."
    "But you think it. You all think she's a terrible person because she left us there, and she's not. She's a wonderful person, and she's coming back for us. You'll see. She's coming back."
    "Okay," Sam said. "I'm sorry."
    Emma looked even sadder. "She's going to be so worried when we're not there waiting for her."
    "She'll find you. The man at the motel knows where you are. The police know—"
    "She doesn't like the police. She wouldn't go to them. We're not supposed to go to them, either. Not ever."
    "Oh, Emma," he said. Everything she'd told him fit.
    No police. Being scared of having to go back to a place Emma was obviously afraid of. What could this woman have told Emma about her real parents to make her fear them? If she even remembered them now.
    "She'll be worried," Emma said. "I was supposed to take care of Zach and the baby, and I couldn't. But if I had, we'd still be there when she came back and everything would be fine. And it's all my fault that it isn't."
    "No, Emma. No," he said. "None of this is your fault. It was wrong of her to expect you to take care of your little brother and sister for days at a time all by yourself. And you couldn't help it that the motel manager found you all there and brought in social services."
    "I always take care of them."
    "I'm sure you do. But it's not right. Taking care of a baby and a five-year-old is a job for grown-ups, Emma."
    "I can do it."
    "But you shouldn't have to."
    Sam stood there and waited until she calmed down a bit, and then he sat down in the kitchen chair, so they were eye-to-eye. She looked so sad, so lost. If she belonged to that couple in Virginia, she would have been seven when she'd been taken away.
    Seven.
    It hit way too close to home to Sam, thinking of what it must have been like for her. She would have been terrified and lost and so very sad, and... He pushed the thoughts right out of his head, as he always did.
    Except this time, they wouldn't stay buried. This time, though he resolved to simply think of something else, he kept looking up and into her teary eyes and thinking not of himself, but her, and he thought maybe he did have something to give this child. Maybe he could help her after all. Maybe he was the only one who could, because he truly