The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel Read Free Page A

take care of them for a few weeks."
    "I can't do that."
    "What if it was Will, Rachel? What if we need to place him in foster care again? If it weren't for people like you, I'd have no place to put him."
    "Will should be here already," she said. "He would have been safe here. We loved him, and we would have taken good care of him."
    "Then take care of these children instead. Do for them what you can't do for him anymore. Give them everything you wanted to give him."
    "It's not the same thing," Rachel argued.
    "It's exactly the same thing. They're every bit as lost as he was."
    "It's too hard, Miriam. It hurts too much to lose someone I love."
    "Then don't love them. Like these children a lot. Give them the best you can, temporarily."
    How could anyone take a lost child into her home and not love that child? Especially children who needed so desperately to be loved?
    "This is what they need, Rachel. This is what foster care is. It isn't perfect. I know that. But it's all these kids have right now. It's what's going to keep them safe and warm and well fed and not quite so lonely. You can do all that for them. Staying together means everything to them. Emma begged me to take them back to the hotel and leave them there. She's sure she can take care of them herself, as long as they can stay together."
    "I just can't."
    "No, you won't. Because you're scared and you're thinking of nobody but yourself."
    Rachel gasped, hurt. "Miriam?"
    "Life hasn't been fair to you, Rachel, and I'm sorry, but life isn't fair to anyone. Everyone gets hurt along the way—some more than others—but don't you dare think you're the only one." Miriam shook her finger under Rachel's nose. "Let me tell you something, you always had a safe, warm place to sleep at night and food in your belly and someone to take care of you when you were little. You had a whole lot of somebodies. Two parents and me and Aunt Jo and your grandparents and a whole host of other people. You still do. You've never been where these kids are now."
    Rachel was shocked and a bit ashamed.
    "I can't think of you right now," Miriam said. "I have to think about these kids. I'm all they have, and I'm going to make sure they're taken care of. That means their needs outweigh the fact that I know you and love you and hurt for you, for all the bad things that have happened to you. I know this will be difficult for you, but you have the time to take care of these kids, and I know you have the love."
    "But—"
    "I'll find out where they belong or I'll find someone else to take them. Right after Christmas. I promise."
    Rachel sat there, stunned. Miriam took advantage of that, too. She put the baby back in Rachel's arms. Baby Grace snuggled, all warm and soft, against her neck. She made a little rumbling sound as she breathed, and she was surprisingly sturdy, the way one-year-olds were. Rachel hadn't even looked at her face, but she knew it would be perfect. Absolutely perfect.
    "Sam will never agree to this," she said, a weak protest at best.
    "Don't ask him. Tell him. Or better yet, I'll tell him."
    Rachel laughed, giving in. Oh, God, she was giving in, because she had a baby in her arms and she couldn't stand to think of these poor children scattered from one end of town to another. "I've never seen this side of you before," she told her aunt. "I never knew you could be so fierce."
    "Tough love." Miriam grinned. "We had a seminar at work last month. I've been nice too long."
    Rachel laughed a bit, looking out her window and thinking. It was almost Christmas. Somehow, she'd missed that, too. When Will left it had been hot—Indian summer—and now it was almost Christmas.
    She used to think Christmas was pure magic, especially in this town, in this neighborhood, in her grandfather's house. She and Sam had lived with him the first two years of their marriage, working on the house when they could, with Rachel taking care of her grandfather until he died and left the house to them. Rachel had always