The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

he was smaller, fussed over him and did that fake, cloying kindness bit he found so humiliating. Kids were mostly curious and asked all sorts of questions he didn't want to answer. Later, when he was older and—granted—much angrier, they'd been wary of him and sure he was trouble. The worst had been coming here at fifteen to live with his grandfather, who had to have been one of the most miserable human beings on earth. Everyone had hated his grandfather. God knew, his grandfather had hated him and his mother, too.
    "But, Sam..."
    His hand dropped to his side. He didn't want to touch her anymore, and he certainly didn't want to talk about this.
    "Not now, Rachel," he said. "Not here."

Chapter 8

    Rachel held Zach on her lap trying to comfort him after the prick of the needle scared him and maybe hurt him, too. Surprisingly, Emma cried a bit, too, both at the needle and the DNA swabs the doctor took of her and Zach's cheeks. Grace, watching the two of them, dissolved into tears herself, and Rachel wished she could join them, but she was the grown-up here. She was supposed to cope.
    Still... she was a bit dazed by it all. By what might have happened to the kids and by what she'd overheard Sam say.
    They drove home in a tense, miserable silence broken up only by Zach's sniffling and Emma's soothing words to him. Rachel made sandwiches for lunch, and they ate in somber near silence, even Zach having nothing to say.
    Sam disappeared before anyone else was even done eating claiming he had work to do. Rachel held Grace close and rocked her until she was asleep. Zach lay on the rug in front of the fire, supposedly watching a video but looking as if he might drop off at any moment, and Emma hovered close beside him. Rachel left them there like that, Emma promising to listen for the baby and to keep an eye on Zach, and went to find Sam.
    He was in his office with his back to her standing by the narrow window, simply staring at the snow, and he didn't turn around when she called his name. He was closing her out yet again. So often of late, that was his answer, to close her out. To be fair, she'd done the same thing to him.
    What did one more secret really matter when he was leaving her anyway? she asked herself. But it did. It felt like such a betrayal. He'd been her husband for twelve years, and she thought she knew him, as someone can only know a person after years together. How could he not tell her something that obviously hurt him so much?
    "Is it true?" she asked. "What you told Emma?"
    "What did you hear?"
    "That your parents died when you were in kindergarten. That you lived with an aunt for a while and a lot of other places over the next ten years before coming here to your grandfather."
    "That's true," he said bleakly.
    "Sam! I thought it happened right before you came here. That you had your parents until you were fifteen." That until then, he'd had a good life, a good loving home.
    "I never told you that, Rachel. I didn't lie to you."
    She paused, considering exactly how she'd come to her mistaken conclusions. He hadn't ever wanted to talk to her about it. Oh, he'd told her about his parents. It was obviously painful to him, and she'd taken his reluctance to talk as that—memories that were too painful. But if he'd only been five or six, how much did he even remember? How much more had he lost than he'd ever explained to her? How much was he holding deep inside?
    "Maybe you didn't lie," she said. "I suppose I heard stories around town, and you let me go on believing them. But you certainly didn't tell me the truth."
    His life must have been so much more chaotic than she'd ever imagined, so much worse. And he'd never let her inside even enough to tell her.
    "I suppose I didn't," he admitted. Then, "Does it matter?"
    "Of course it matters," she cried, thinking of every bad thing they'd ever gone through together. "I always thought you were so strong, and I always admired that. God knows, I needed it, too. But there were times, Sam, when I wondered, too, if you just didn't care that much. I'd look at you, and it seemed like you were never upset, never hurt, never scared, and I'd think, maybe it just doesn't matter to him. Maybe nothing does."
    "It's not that, Rachel," he whispered, looking every bit as stern and untouchable as she'd ever seen him. "It was never that."
    She supposed it wasn't, now that she knew his big secret. How could she have hoped to understand him without knowing that?
    In her family, if