The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

the X chromosome. The all-knowing-mother gene. Rachel had hardly ever been able to put anything over on her mother or Miriam.
    "Sam and I talked about a lot of things. Oddly enough, he was interested in the fact that single people could be foster parents or adoptive parents."
    "What?" What did single people have to do with anything?
    "Singles. Foster parenting. Adopting. For instance, if you were single and wanted to continue foster parenting these children or to be considered as an adoptive parent, we could probably make that work just fine."
    "Oh." Rachel was suddenly feeling awful.
    "Why would your husband ever be interested in something like that?"
    Miriam headed down the back hallway before Rachel could stop her. She stood in the doorway leading to the family room, Sam just waking up and staring at the both of them as if he weren't quite sure where he was. But Miriam knew exactly where she'd find him this early in the morning, and it wasn't in his wife's bed where he should have been. Miriam gave Rachel another one of those mother looks. That I-knew-it and why-didn't-you-tell-me look, all at once.
    "Dammit," Rachel muttered under her breath. She did not need this. She didn't intend to explain her marriage to anyone, especially not her entire family.
    Rachel grabbed her aunt by the arm and tugged her back into the kitchen. "This is none of your business," she said.
    "Rachel, I'm not trying to be nosy. I'm worried about you. I was worried before I brought these children here, and now I'm worried even more. You and your husband aren't sleeping together?"
    "I don't think it's any of your business where we sleep," she said.
    "If you're going to try to adopt these children someday, it is."
    "We can't adopt them now, can we? They're not free for anyone to adopt."
    "No. Not now."
    "Then until we can, it's none of your business."
    "Rachel," she said, the hurt obvious in her voice. "I care about you very much, and I promised your mother before she died that I would look out for you, as if you were my very own daughter. And obviously, you've needed a mother now for a while, and I haven't been here. Not the way I should have been. I love you. Don't you know that?"
    "I know it," she said wearily, then pulled her aunt close for a quick hug. "I do. I'm sorry. I... I didn't want to talk about it. Not to anybody."
    Not even her husband. Obviously that had been a mistake. Maybe keeping it from Miriam was, as well.
    "Okay. We can talk." She glanced nervously toward the stairs, could hear Sam climbing up—leaving her to deal with Miriam alone, which she actually thought was better. Maybe she could calm Miriam down and convince her not to talk.
    But a moment later, she heard one of the children coming down the stairs. Her household was coming to life. This wasn't the time for this conversation. She needed to tell her aunt about Sam. About him losing his parents at five, not fifteen, and what in the world had likely happened to him in the meantime and what it might still be doing to him today. "But not now. I'll call you, okay?"
    "All right. How are the children?"
    "They're fine. We had pictures made in front of the town tree, and we baked like crazy yesterday."
    "Good. I may be able to use one of the pictures on some new bulletins. Lost kids in their Christmas best. That ought to get people's attention."
    Rachel nodded, thinking that was the last thing they needed.
    "They still haven't said anything that might help us find them?"
    "No," she claimed, not liking the lie at all. But she and Sam had chosen their path. They'd made a promise to Emma. As Rachel saw it, little rights or wrongs didn't matter nearly so much as the promise they'd made to keep these children safe.
    "I told Sam before, and I want to tell you today that we'll find someone who knows them," Miriam said. "People abandoning their children, unfortunately, is not that rare, but their consciences will finally kick in and they'll come back. Remember that, Rachel. I really don't want to see either you or Sam hurt again. I thought long and hard before bringing them here. I worried about what I'd be doing to you."
    "It was the right thing," Rachel reassured her. "The best thing you could have done. We needed them, and they needed us."
    "Good. Just be careful. Remember what I said about liking them a lot—"
    "Too late," Rachel said with a wary smile. It was probably too late right from the start. "I couldn't stop myself from loving them."
    Miriam looked even more worried