The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

said.
    "I thought it was because you blamed me, too."
    "Sam, I never did. Never."
    "And I never blamed you. As much as I wanted someone to blame, it was never you."
    He didn't know what to say then, what to do. He ended up walking over to the chest, which was still open, and pulling out the pair of booties. So tiny, so delicate. He forgot sometimes how truly tiny she would have been, even if she'd been born at the right time, and he really didn't want to cry right now. He despised tears; he'd been taught to at a very young age and he didn't care about any of this new-age man shit that said it was perfectly fine for a man to fall apart. He didn't think it was.
    But the booties were tiny. What in the world would her feet have looked like? Suddenly, he wished he'd looked, wished he'd held her, as the doctors had told him to do. He wished he'd had just that little bit of time with her and that maybe the memories he had left were even stronger, the way she smelled and the feel of her in his arms.
    He wished he and Rachel had done this a long, long time ago. Had talked this out, had gotten the poisonous grief and guilt out of their systems before it had taken such a toll of them.
    He felt her hand on his arm, and then her cheek pressed against his shoulder.
    "We have to stop this," he said, more gruffly than he intended because he was trying to keep his voice from breaking. "We have to stop hating ourselves. We have to let it go."
    "I know. I've just held on to it for so long, I don't know how to let it go."
    He got himself under control, at least enough to face her, and for the first time, he thought about the future, about all the possibilities. Him and Rachel and children. And then he had an idea.
    He took her face in his hands and tilted it up to his. His gaze locked on hers, and in a moment, he saw everything there. The young girl he'd first known. The one he'd fallen in love with. The one he'd held so tightly while they'd buried their baby, and the one he'd ached for, for so many endless nights. She was still his, despite all they'd gone through and all the things that had threatened to tear them apart.
    "Do you trust me?" he asked.
    "Yes," she cried.
    "Then listen to me. I forgive you, Rachel. I know what happened. I know what you did. I know why you did it. I know how much you've suffered over the years, and I don't blame you at all for what happened to our baby. I don't think it was your fault. I never thought it was."
    She closed her eyes, dipped her head until it was nestled against his chest, and she was trembling. He held her even tighter.
    "I forgive you, too," she cried. "Can you let me do that for you? Can we do it for each other and put it all behind us? Finally?"
    "We can try," he said.
    "I want to, Sam. I want that more than anything."
    * * *
    By the eighth day of Christmas, Sam still felt shell-shocked, like someone who'd been purged of a poison or had woken up after a long, long sleep.
    He knew enough about guilt to realize that it took more than a few words to absolve a person of emotions he'd hung on to for more than a decade. But things definitely looked better.
    He was actually looking forward to Christmas, and since he couldn't get any work done, he might as well get ready for it. Rachel and the children were baking today. She always made baskets of goodies she delivered to the neighbors, and she had a whole crew of women baking for the elderly people served by the Meals on Wheels program she helped start. He was no help when it came to baking, and Rachel had given him a pointed look when he'd claimed he had nothing to do that day, reminding him that Christmas was next week and then looking over at the children.
    He suddenly found himself with a large number of people on his Christmas list this year. He was in the bike department at the town's only toy store when he ran into Miriam.
    "Bikes?" she asked.
    Sam ignored that. He felt foolish enough, looking at bikes while there was snow on the ground. Bikes implied that the person riding them would still be around in the spring when the snow thawed.
    "Did you hear back on the blood tests?" he asked instead.
    Miriam nodded. "That's why I came over to talk to you. They were negative. The children don't belong to the couple in Virginia."
    Sam nodded. He'd known that after what Emma told them yesterday.
    "Still," Miriam went on, "from what Emma said, about being afraid of the police and running away, someone's probably looking for them. Someone other than