The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

can have the sleigh tomorrow night. You want to go with us to get the tree, don't you?"
    "Yes." He grinned at her, the best grin she'd ever gotten out of him. "Sam said we can cut it down. With an ax!"
    "You think you're big enough?"
    "Uh huh. I'm strong."
    He was excited, too. They stomped the snow off their boots and went inside. Rachel tugged off his boots and unbuttoned his coat. That's when she found the book tucked inside.
    "What's this?"
    "My Chris'mas book," he said.
    "Can I see?"
    He nodded. She took it, turned it over, and found an edition of The Night Before Christmas illustrated with her grandfather's work. Not her first edition, but an inexpensive one, with the same story and the same illustrations.
    "It's magic," he whispered.
    Delighted, Rachel asked, "Really?"
    Zach nodded and pointed to the cover. "It's the Chris'mas house! We're in it now!"
    "That's right. And you already had this? Before you came here?"
    He nodded mischievously. "I di'n't reco'nize it at first. 'Cause the lights 'n' stuff weren't on it. But it's a sign. Emma said so."
    "Oh?"
    "Ever'thing's gonna be all right. Nothin' bad can happen in this house."
    Rachel wished nothing bad had ever happened here, and she didn't know what to say to that statement. She had a little boy who desperately needed reassurance. She settled for telling him, "I used to come here when I was a little girl, as little as you. It was always a happy house."
    "Magic," he insisted, satisfied and happy at the thought.
    Rachel thought of letting herself believe just for a moment. It was seductive, the idea of Christmas magic, of any kind of magic at all. But once, she'd believed that there'd been magic in this house and in the season. Love and light and all that goodwill, all swirling together to make Christmas magic.
    She took it inside of her, just for a moment.
    Magic.
    What would that be like?
    Maybe like someone bringing her children after she'd wished and hoped and prayed for so long. Long after she'd despaired of it ever happening?
    What if this was meant to be? That seductive thought crept into her head, swirling around like fake snow inside one of her grandfather's snow balls. Part of her wanted to believe these children were meant to be here. That someone or something had brought them to her because they all needed one another so desperately.
    There'd been a time when she'd believed in so much goodness in the world and in God's guiding hand in it all. But she'd stopped asking God for anything years ago and had never felt the distance between her and whoever might be running the universe more than when she and Sam lost their baby, more recently when they'd lost Will. It had been the last blow. The one to end all blows. She'd given up then. No wonder she was such a mess.
    "Miss Rachel?" Zach whispered again.
    "Yes."
    "Are you sad?"
    "Sometimes," she admitted.
    At the moment she felt utterly lost, found herself questioning all the anger she'd directed toward a God she thought had let her down and betrayed her in the worst way. Questioned the way she'd always found someone to blame for the bad things that happened to her. It was so much easier than blaming herself or accepting the terrifying notion that bad things simply happened in this world. Very bad things. That at times there seemed no rhyme or reason for it.
    How could someone ever accept that? It was terrifying.
    Zach tugged on her hand until she bent down, and then he wrapped his skinny arms around her and gave her a big squeeze. Rachel thought he might have ripped her heart in two at that moment. She slipped to her knees, kneeling in front of him, and found her arms full of little boy.
    "Mmmmmm," he hummed, squeezing tighter. Finally, he stepped back and asked, "All better?"
    There was an adorable grin on his face, a wealth of warmth in his deep brown eyes and that childish belief in magic, including the magic of hugs. She blinked back tears and smiled a genuine smile.
    "My mommy says hugs make everythin' better," he confided.
    "She does?"
    He nodded vigorously.
    "She's a good mommy?"
    "The best."
    He seemed to genuinely believe that, and Rachel wanted to believe it for his sake. All morning she'd been imagining what the couple in Virginia had gone through, all these years never knowing if their children were alive and where they were and how they were being treated.
    It made her think of her baby. At first, she'd tried not to imagine exactly where her daughter might be, except maybe in nothingness. Not