The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

one corner where he and Zach were working on putting together Zach's new bike, and Rachel warmed up muffins she'd made the night before and put the turkey in.
    She was planning to sneak upstairs to have a shower and get dressed before the family descended upon them but Sam stopped her.
    "I still haven't given you your present," he said.
    She blushed, thinking of the robe and the way they'd spent the evening. "I thought I got my present last night."
    He actually blushed a bit himself. "I have something else."
    "I have something else for you, too. Wait just a minute."
    She went downstairs instead, to the basement. When he renovated the carriage house and moved back there, she'd taken over the space to work on her stained glass. And yesterday, despite having the children underfoot, she'd managed to finish a present for Sam.
    He'd had a logo made for the business six months ago using an image of their own house with the business name, and Rachel had decided he needed a sign to go with it. She'd been working painstakingly on recreating the logo on a sign made of stained and beveled glass. It was a foot and a half square, held within a wooden frame, and she planned to hang it from the mailbox, and when sunlight went streaming through the glass, it would be wonderful. Her favorite part was the names, McRae Construction, and underneath that in smaller script, Props. Sam and Rachel McRae.
    Zach and Emma had helped her wrap it the day before, and Grace had been persuaded to stick on a big red bow. Rachel carried it upstairs and put it at Sam's feet. The children gathered around, and he let them rip off the paper for him. They giggled as they worked and then beamed up at him when he got his first sight of it.
    Rachel worried that perhaps she'd overstepped, giving him a sign for his business that listed both their names as a couple on it and one that showed his business being located here, at this house. She was nervous about that—overstepping—but Sam seemed genuinely touched by her gift. He stood there staring at it for the longest time and had to clear his throat twice before his gaze met hers and he thanked her for it.
    "It's beautiful."
    He touched it reverently, tracing the image of the house, and she thought, Oh, Sam. Please stay.
    * * *
    Sam was touched. He loved the sign. When Sam managed to drag his attention away from it, he remembered what he'd found for her at the auction he'd taken Zach to. He brought it to her then, and she let Zach open it.
    "Careful," Sam warned.
    Zach frowned as he uncovered the dusty, even rusty piece. "It's that old thing."
    "Very old," Rachel said, getting down on her knees and inspecting it more closely.
    Zach shook his head. He hadn't seen the appeal when they'd bought it and now maybe even thought Sam was insulting his wife. "It's broken, too," he complained.
    "Chipped," Rachel said, reaching for one of those places. "Still, it's in remarkably good shape given how old it is."
    "What is it?" Emma asked.
    "A rose window." She said it almost reverently. "They used to put them in churches. In the grand cathedrals in the Middle Ages. They'd be down front, behind the altar."
    Beautiful circles of stained glass.
    "I've always wanted one," Rachel said. Turning around, she pointed to the landing where the stairs made a right-hand turn. "For there, right above the stairs. There used to be a rose window there. The oldest photos we have of this house show it, but it must have gotten broken a long time ago and someone just took it out, rather than try to get it repaired."
    "Can you fix this one?" Sam asked.
    "I don't know if I can match the glass exactly. I don't even know if anyone makes it anymore. But it'll be fun trying to find out, trying to see how close we can come to restoring it to its original shape."
    And Rachel would do that. She liked putting things together, fixing them. She was good at it. Look what she'd done with Sam so long ago.
    "I can fix it," she said, then looked up at him. "It's the one we saw in that old house in the next county, isn't it? The one that was sold before we got there?"
    "Yes."
    "How did you find it?"
    "The dealer who bought it had an estate sale three days ago. I took a chance he might sell it there."
    "It matches the colors on the house," Emma said. "It has the same blues and lavenders in your stained glass and the same gray that's on the outside of the house."
    "Yes, that's another reason I wanted it," she said. Then she stood up and wrapped her arms around