The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

happened to her.
    She remembered the place where they used to live, remembered how it had been there. All the yelling and how afraid she'd been. She and Zach and the baby couldn't go back there. Not ever. And yet if their mother was gone...
    Emma looked over at Rachel, who said they could stay as long as they needed to. She wasn't going to make them leave after Christmas.
    Emma wanted to believe Rachel about that.
    Of course, she'd believed her mother, too, when her mother said she'd only be gone for a day and now it had been eight.

Chapter 9

    Sam held the reins as the horse made his way along the path through the woods to one of the back pastures. There were rows and rows of trees for the public at the front of the farm, but the family got the privilege of taking the sleigh and finding a tree in one of the back fields.
    It was beautiful back there, the light of the moon shining off the snow, the utter silence. There had been times in the past that it seemed he and Rachel were the only two people in the world.
    They'd made love in the snow one night when they set off to find their tree, and had nearly frozen to death. It had started as a snowball fight, back in those years when they still laughed together, and the next thing he knew, he had her pinned to the ground beneath him, tugging at her clothes, crazy to touch her and have her touch him. It had been urgent and frenzied. Cold hands and cold skin, her warm mouth and welcoming arms. Now he had trouble remembering the last time she'd welcomed him into her arms, had opened herself up to him and truly wanted him, needed him.
    A part of him wanted her so badly he could hardly stand it. Rachel, the woman he'd loved for so long. Sometimes he thought she had truly loved him, that she was the only one who ever had. And sometimes, he thought she'd willingly give him up now in favor of what was truly important to her. Children. They'd always seemed more important to her than he was.
    And here he was, hurting and acting like a child himself, foolishly wanting to measure her feelings for them against her feelings for him, sometimes even resenting the fact that they made her happy when he never had. It made him feel as if he were six again, or eight, or nine or twelve or fifteen. How many places had there been? How many relatives and strangers who'd found a way to let him go?
    Shit! Sam wasn't going to spend his life whining about how difficult his childhood had been. He didn't want to examine it in minute detail and make excuses for everything in his life. These kids just reminded him too much of himself, and damned if there wasn't a part of him who wanted to save them from all he'd endured.
    He and Rachel could give them what they wanted—a place all their own, a place to belong and feel safe and be loved. He went to sleep and it was the last thing he thought of. Woke up, and it was the first thought that rushed through his head. If they had no place else to go, he and Rachel could keep them. She would be happy, and if she was happy, he could be happy, too.
    Of course, there were only about a dozen little variables capable of ruining that whole plan, like the fact that he was supposed to be leaving her in eight days.
    He'd been so sure nothing could save their marriage, and now he wondered if he was about to give up the best thing he ever had. The only woman he'd ever loved and the closest thing to a home he'd ever known.
    These children had done that to him. They were really good kids, and they'd made him hope again. He wasn't that comfortable around them or that sure he could be a good father to them, but he understood them. He had something to give them.
    It had been that way with Will. He'd seen so much of himself, of his past and the chaotic life he'd led, in Will. One of the hardest things about letting Will go was knowing what Will was going back to. But he wasn't going to think about Will today. He couldn't.
    Sam thought about what he had in this sleigh, his wife and a worried almost teenage girl, a funny, adorable, lost boy, and a beautiful baby girl born near Christmas, like a gift. He saw them all as a gift, as elusive as all those things he'd always wanted and never gotten as a boy.
    Or was this his gift to treasure? Would the world finally send him something as precious as everything he had in this moment in this sleigh?
    "That's it!" he heard Zach shout, realizing they'd come to one of the clearings, deep in the woods. Zach stood and pointed to a huge fir