Twelve Days (5 page)

Sam turned away. He and Rachel had a baby girl once. She hadn't lived a day. They were cursed when it came to children. He'd accepted the fact that they weren't ever going to have any, and he didn't want to see this angel of a baby girl in his wife's arms.

"Why don't you all clear out. I'll clean up the mess," Sam said, then turned to the boy. "Come here, Zach."

He lifted the boy off the stool, carried him to the edge of the kitchen, and set him on his feet.

"I'm really, really sorry," Zach said solemnly.

"No big deal. We have more glasses than we need in this house. More milk, too."

The boy turned and left. Rachel and the baby and Miriam left. The girl, Emma, lingered behind.

"You don't want us here, do you?" she asked.

Sam scowled at her. He couldn't quite help it.

"You don't like kids?" she suggested.

"I wouldn't know. I've never had kids."

"Why not?"

"It's a long story," he said. "One I'd appreciate you wouldn't discuss with my wife. She tends to get a little upset when she talks about it, and she's been upset enough already."

"I won't upset her," the girl claimed.

"Oh, yes, you will." He was certain of it.

Looking scared, the girl asked, "Are you gonna send us away?"

"Rachel said you're staying, so that's it. You're staying," he said, then decided as reassurances went, it sounded fairly weak. "And I'll be in a better mood tomorrow."

"Okay," she said tentatively.

"It's not that I dislike kids," he explained. "And I'm not usually like this. I'm not usually so loud or so..."

"Grumpy?" she suggested.

Sam winced. "Yes," he said grumpily. "It's just... It's been a bad day."

It was the day he had finally said it out loud. He was leaving his wife.

That made it real, didn't it? He hated it, and saying it out loud made it real. It seemed he could hear the clock ticking in his head, counting down his last days with Rachel. He'd set into motion a horrible thing, and he worried that he could never take it back, now that he'd started it.

Sam looked up and saw the girl regarding him warily.
Damn
. "Don't worry," he said. "Rachel's... well, she's the best. She'll take good care of you."

"I can watch Zach and the baby. I'm good at it. If you'll just let us stay, I can keep them out of your way. We won't be much trouble." Seeing Sam throwing paper towels over pieces of glass and puddles of milk at the moment, Emma reconsidered. "Well, not much trouble."

"I meant it, Emma. You can stay," he said, not looking at her, concentrating on the mess. Working with wood was messy. Messes didn't bother him. Rachel getting hurt would. "Until after Christmas, anyway. That's what Rachel's aunt said. She'll find someone else to take you by then."

"Okay."

"And you don't have to take care of anybody," he felt compelled to add. She was just a girl. "Rachel's always wanted kids. She'll enjoy having you here."

"She seems nice. Just... sad."

Sam dumped the worst of the mess in the garbage can in the corner and frowned. "She is sad. Maybe you and Zach and the baby can cheer her up."

Sam wanted that. He wanted all the old hurts to go away, and he didn't see how that was going to happen if they were still together. So he was letting her go, hoping she'd find someone else who could make her happy. He sure as hell hadn't, not for a long time.

And maybe somewhere along the way, he'd learn to be happy, too.

Happy without Rachel?
He shook his head. He'd never imagined that, and he thought it was the ultimate in irony, now when he'd given up and decided to go, that someone had brought three children into their lives, however temporary that might be. He'd always thought she could have been happy with him if they'd had children.

"We could help," Emma said quite seriously, but hopefully. "Zack is kind of silly, and everybody likes Grace. Everybody smiles at her."

The look on her little face was so earnest Sam could hardly look at her. He felt like the big bad wolf, snarling and showing his teeth, terrifying already traumatized children. God, he hated himself today. He leaned against the doorjamb, suddenly so tired he could hardly stand up, feeling so old, so worn down. Hell, he was only thirty-two years old. How could he be this tired?

"We'll have a better day tomorrow," he said. Surely he could do better tomorrow.

Emma bid him a wary good-bye. Sam finished cleaning up the mess, then went to find Miriam. She owed him some answers. They faced off on the front porch, so the kids and Rachel wouldn't hear.

"What do you think you're doing, Miriam?"

"Trying to help those children."

"Bull."

"It is not. And watch your mouth. I'm a lady."

"Miriam—"

"Sam, don't hate me anymore for what happened with Will, okay? I love you and Rachel, and I tried my best to help you and that boy. Taking him away from here was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do."

"I don't want to talk about Will," he said. "I want to talk about these kids. What do you know about these kids?"

"Not much. They're all siblings, we think. We think they gave us their real first names, but they won't tell us their last name or where they're from or what their mother's or father's name is. A clerk at the Drifter said they checked in four days ago with a woman he assumed was their mother. She paid cash for two nights, gave him a false address in Pennsylvania and a fake name, and he never saw her again. He opened the room on the third day, when she hadn't checked out or paid for another night, and found the kids inside, waiting for their mother to come back."

"Shit!" Sam said. "She just left them? Left a baby that age and a boy and a girl who's all of eleven and didn't come back?"

"Near as we can tell."

"And that woman could show up tomorrow, and you'd give those kids back to her, wouldn't you? If she came up with the right story, and you believed her and the judge believed her, you'd give her her kids back?"

"I don't know, Sam. I don't make the rules. I just have to follow them."

"Well let me tell you something, the rules suck!"

"Sometimes, they do."

"Oh, hell, Miriam." He got all choked up, worried he would embarrass himself, like he had when she'd come to take Will away. "Rachel can't have these kids here and not fall for them, and I don't know if she can take getting hurt again. I don't think she can take losing one more person she loves."

Sam winced at his own choice of words. Maybe he was thinking selfishly here. Maybe he was hoping she could take losing one more thing.
Him.
But that was it. Nothing else.

When he'd come out of the office and she'd looked so uneasy, Sam had thought for a moment that she'd heard him on the phone, that she knew. He had no idea what she'd say to him. Maybe she'd ask him to stay. Maybe she'd say she still needed him or that she just didn't want to be without him. But he wasn't holding out much hope of that, either.

"I don't want her hurt, Miriam." That was his bottom line.

"Neither do I, but I don't think she can hide inside this house much longer and never come out, either. I know sitting in that rocking chair of my grandmother's isn't doing her any good."

"What are you talking about?"

"Rachel," she said. "God, are you in as bad a shape as she is?"

"What's wrong with Rachel?" he growled.

"She doesn't do anything anymore. She hardly ever comes out of this house. She just sits here. Sam, where have you been?"

"Right here," he argued. But hell, he hadn't. He'd been working and sleeping in his office or in the front bedroom upstairs.

He'd been avoiding her and their problems, thinking they might get better on their own somehow, but it wasn't going to happen. Then Rick had mentioned that his friend Stu was moving out of the spare room above Rick's shop and did Sam know anybody who might want it. The more Sam had thought about it, the more he had known it was time. There was no point in going on any longer the way things were between them.

Rick's place was cheap and it was close to Sam's shop and office. He wouldn't move his office right away. He couldn't take being so far away from Rachel, at least not at first. He'd still keep an eye on her and help with the house. As much as they'd done to the old place, it always needed more.

He'd decided. All he had to do now was hold out until after Christmas, tell Rachel and go.

Then all he had to do was learn to live without her.

Now it seemed he'd been so caught up in his own problems that he hadn't been paying enough attention to her.

"What's going on between the two of you?" Miriam asked.

"Nothing," he lied. The family gossip system was more highly developed than any communications satellite in the world. He wasn't interested in being fodder for the family roundtable. This was between him and Rachel.

"Sam—"

"We haven't gotten over Will, okay?" That shut Miriam up. She still felt guilty, and Sam was mad enough to use that against her right now. "So, Rachel doesn't go anywhere?"

"Not for weeks," Miriam said.

How could that be? She'd always been busy, taking care of her sick grandfather, helping Sam get the business off the ground, and later with her stained glass. She did amazing things with the glass, first on jobs Sam had taken on and then on jobs of her own. She helped her sisters with their kids, helped take care of her father now that her mother was gone. She volunteered at the church and for Meals on Wheels and all sorts of organizations around town. He'd always been proud of all she did, all she gave to everyone around her.

"I know she cleared her schedule a lot while she was working on the Parker mansion the past year, but..." She'd finished that weeks ago, hadn't she?

Sam had trouble remembering what day it was lately. Until he'd given himself a deadline to move out, he simply hadn't cared.

"All her volunteer stuff?" he began, shaken and trying not to show it.

"She's turned it all over to other people. No one's seen her outside the house in weeks—before the birthday get-together, at least. Everyone who's knocked on your front door has found her here, full of excuses as to why she can't do things, and yet she never actually seems to do anything," Miriam said. "Looks like you've got some things to take care of."

"Yeah. You, too. Find out who these kids belong to, Miriam. Quickly."

"I will," she promised. "Take good care of Rachel."

Sam held his tongue. He'd never been able to take proper care of Rachel. Still, the thought of her sitting here all day in that damned rocking chair in the corner... He had come home one evening around dusk and found her sitting in the dark, asleep in the rocker.

It had seemed odd, but she said she hadn't been sleeping well. He wouldn't know about that because he hadn't been sleeping in their bed. So he had let it go. He'd turned and walked away, as he so often did these days. He wondered what else he'd missed.

Chapter 3

The afternoon was chaotic between getting the children settled and Rachel holding her breath while Sam was outside arguing with Miriam on the porch. But he gave in, because when he came inside he had some plastic shopping bags from Wal-Mart. At first, all she could think was that was so odd. Sam didn't shop, except for building supplies. And then she realized he'd given in—that the children were staying and these were their things.

Rachel saw Emma staring at the bags. Her cheeks turned ruddy and she hid her face against the top of the baby's head. They had so little.

"We'll go shopping tomorrow," Rachel said, thinking to reassure her.

"We don't need much," Emma insisted.

"Then we'll just get what you need," Rachel said. But they wouldn't. They'd get a lot. "It'll be fun. Especially picking out things for Grace. They have the cutest clothes for babies. I have nearly a dozen nieces and nephews; I shop for them all the time."

Usually, it hurt, shopping for children she'd never have. But this time, she'd enjoy it. She'd dress Emma in something brand new, too. Something stylish, if she could figure out what stylish was to an eleven-year-old girl. It would be a good day. She'd make it one.

A moment later, Zach came whizzing around the corner. He'd found a set of Matchbox cars her nephew left behind and was on his hands and knees racing in a circle through the house—the hall, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and back to the hall. Every thirty seconds or so, he came through like a whirlwind, and this time, he zoomed into Sam. Still on his hands and knees, he looked way up at Sam and said, "Sorry."

Sam took a breath and let it out slow. "It's okay, kid."

"Can I ask you somethin'?"

With a pained expression on his face, Sam said, "Sure."

"Have you been bad?" Zach asked quite seriously. "Is San'a mad at you?"

Rachel started to laugh. She couldn't help it. Sam stared at her, a dazed expression on his face. She couldn't tell if he was really mad or if it was something else. But she stopped laughing.

"Not that I know of," Sam said finally.