Twelve Days (18 page)

If he believed in miracles, he'd have said this was all meant to be. That he and Rachel were meant to come to exactly this point in their lives so they could be here for these children, just when the children needed them and when he and Rachel had to have the children to save themselves and their marriage.

But Sam had stopped believing in miracles a long time ago.

Hadn't he?

Just then, Rachel slipped her hand into his, leaned her head against his shoulder. He didn't pull away, didn't try to harden himself against the feel of her so close to him. He just savored it and the moment and all the possibilities of what their lives might be.

* * *

It took an hour to find a tree everyone agreed upon, even longer with Zach helping to cut it down, tie it to the sleigh, and load up again.

They were all so cold by the time they got back home, but so happy, too. Even though it was late, they built up the fire in the fireplace. Rachel made hot chocolate while he and Zach carried in the tree. They'd decorate it tomorrow, but they didn't want to leave it outside tonight. So they put it in its place in the front room, in front of one of the biggest windows, where it could be seen from the street. And sometime later, once the kids were in bed, Sam found himself sitting there staring into the fire, with Rachel, who sat down on the floor beside his chair, her head resting against his knee.

"It was a good day," she said.

"Yes," he agreed.

"Zach adores you."

"Zach's obviously in desperate need of a man in his life."

"He adores you," Rachel insisted.

"He's a great kid."

"They all are," she said. "And I want to keep them. I promised Emma they could stay as long as they needed to."

"I know. I heard."

"I'm sorry, Sam. I shouldn't have said that without talking to you first. I... I don't know what happened. She was so worried, so sad, and I hadn't really thought it through. I didn't mean to say it. But it's what she needed to hear, and as I said the words, I knew they were true. I couldn't turn them away."

"I couldn't, either," he conceded. That was probably inevitable, right from the start. It still had him angry and uneasy that she'd decided all on her own without talking to him first, but he let it go. He'd known she wouldn't be able to stop herself from loving them, which had him warning, "I'm afraid you're going to get hurt again, Rachel."

"It's a risk, I know. But I can't tell them to go just to save me from the possibility of getting hurt again. Did you really think I was that selfish, Sam?"

"I don't think you're selfish at all."

"I do," she claimed. "I think I've spent too many years thinking about what I wanted, what I thought I deserved, and too little time thinking about you and what you want, what you deserve."

"What are you talking about?"

"Me. Being unfair to you."

"You haven't been unfair to me."

"I have. I've put my own wants and needs ahead of yours for years, for all the time we've been together."

"Rachel, all I've ever wanted was you," he admitted. "For you to be happy."

"What about you? When do you get to be happy?"

"Is this about the baby? About you getting pregnant? Rachel, you didn't do that alone. You had help. I'm every bit as much to blame for that as you."

"Blame?" Her face fell.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said. "We talked about this the other day. The timing was awful. We both know that."

"But I was happy about it. I'm sorry. I know the timing was awful. I know what it cost you. But as scared as I was, I was happy, too, because I knew you'd marry me. I knew my parents would have a fit and worried that they'd dislike you even more and I knew you probably wouldn't get to go to school the way you wanted. But I knew we'd be together and I was happy. How selfish is that?"

Sam stared at her, wondering why they kept coming back to this point and why it was so important to her. Could she possibly not know how he felt about her? How he'd always felt?

"Did you think you had to get pregnant for me to marry you?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"Rachel—"

"There's more," she said. "I... I wasn't sure I'd ever find the courage to tell you this. I should have, I know, but I was so ashamed.... Sam, I wanted to marry you. I was afraid you'd never ask me, because of my parents and because of everything else. And... remember the night we were out by the lake, and we didn't have a condom, and we wanted to make love, and I told you it was safe?"

"Yes."

"It wasn't. At least, I didn't think it was, and I didn't plan that, Sam. I didn't. It was one of those things, those split-second decisions. It was wrong. I know it, and I'm sorry. I didn't think it was safe at that time, and I lied to you and told you it was. I thought we'd leave it up to fate that night. That if we were meant to be together, it would happen. But I wanted to get pregnant, because I wanted your baby and I wanted you to marry me."

Sam didn't say anything at first. He was too surprised.

"That must have been when it happened," she said. "And I'm sorry."

"Sorry about what?" he asked carefully.

"That I misled you. That I was selfish and unfair to you and took that decision out of your hands by getting pregnant. I'm sorry for everything that happened after that."

"Sorry that you married me?" he found the courage to ask, something he should have done years ago.

"Sorry that I forced you—"

"Rachel, you didn't force me to do anything. I knew we were taking a risk that night. I knew we shouldn't have. We did it anyway. Both of us. Because we wanted to." Once he'd finally given in and let himself have her, he'd hardly been able to keep his hands off her. "And nobody forced me to marry you."

"You couldn't have walked away. Not with me pregnant with your child."

"Men do it all the time."

"Not you. You're not like that. I knew exactly what you'd do."

"I did exactly what I wanted to do," he said. "I wanted to marry you. I was grateful for the excuse."

"Sam?"

"Didn't you have any idea how much I wanted you? How much I needed you and loved you? All these years, Rachel, how could you doubt that?"

"I made you give up so much—"

"Did you hear what I said a minute ago? You were the only thing in this world I ever loved back then. The only thing left now. I loved our baby, and I loved Will and you. That's it."

She was crying then, and he pulled her up onto his lap and into his arms.

"I thought it was all my fault," she sobbed. "Our baby... I thought I deserved to lose her, because I'd tricked you. Because I'd been selfish. I thought that was my punishment."

"Oh, Rachel." He tightened his arms around her, pushed her hair back from her face, and kissed her forehead. She was shaking so hard, he thought he might be the only thing holding her together at the moment, and it scared him. He'd never realized, never imagined. "You've been feeling guilty about this all these years?"

"Yes. I didn't have the courage to tell you."

"Rachel, we made our daughter together. Both of us. And we would have loved her, if she'd lived. But it wasn't your fault. Innocent children don't die because their parents..."

"What?" she asked. "Because their parents made a mistake? Is that what you were going to say? It was more than a mistake."

"It's no reason for a child to die. There's no damned reason for that," he argued. "God knows we've tried to make sense of it long enough. We both know there's no sense to make of it."

"It was wrong," she said. "I was wrong to do that."

"Maybe. But it's not like you're the only person in this world who's ever made a mistake. Do you think they all deserve to lose their children?"

"No."

"God," he muttered.

He'd always thought it was him. That he was the only one who'd felt so guilty when their baby died. Who still felt guilty to this day. But she did, too, and it seemed that's where all the distance between them had started. A fissure in the rock of their marriage that lengthened and widened with time, until she was on one side of it and he was on the other, so that he could hardly reach her anymore.

"This has been eating away at you? All these years?"

She nodded.

"Oh, Rachel."

He knew how terrible that was, knew all about locking the pain inside. They had done so many things wrong, he saw now, both been hurt in so many ways. When she'd said that all along she'd wanted him, just him, some terrible knot that had been in his stomach almost since the first time he'd seen her had eased. He'd always wanted her. Hadn't he shown her that? Hadn't he loved her enough? So that she felt secure in that love? Believed in it?

He didn't think he'd ever felt secure in hers, but... "All that time, all I had to do was ask, and you would have married me? Without the baby?"

"Of course," she said.

He took a minute to absorb that, to draw the knowledge inside, to let it spread throughout his entire body and warm him right down to his soul. It didn't solve everything that had gone wrong over the years, but she had wanted him, despite everything.

"I would have asked, Rachel," he told her, "if I'd ever thought I had anything to offer you."

She raised her head from that spot where she'd buried it against his shoulder and looked him right in the eye. "You would have?"

"Yes."

He both saw and heard the little catch in her breath, the flicker of need in her eyes, the way she just melted against him, boneless and tired and spent.

"I didn't care about those other things." She curled up against his chest, clinging to him. "I just wanted you. If you'd asked, I would have said yes."

* * *

Rachel stayed there for a long time, just holding him, not wanting to let him go. The guiltiest secret she'd ever had was out now, and he'd forgiven her. She'd sat there in the sleigh and thought about how much she wanted to know about him, how much he'd kept from her, and realized that she was being a hypocrite for being so angry at him when she'd kept things from him, as well. And maybe it was a tiny inkling of maturity inside of her that instead of asking him about his childhood secrets, she'd bared a secret of her own.

And now she had his forgiveness, a gift she'd never expected. His absolution for the worst of it—that irrational yet nagging sense of guilt that she'd made one split-second judgment, one mistake, kept one secret, but that wasn't anything that should cause anyone to lose a child.

She was letting herself dream Christmas dreams where everything just worked out when she drifted off to sleep. It was much, much later, once it was pitch-black outside and the fire had burned down to nothing but embers that she came awake, startled by something.

"Shh," Sam said. "It's late. I'm just taking you to bed."

"What?"

"Go back to sleep, Rachel."

She wanted to sleep in his arms. She wanted him to make love to her, the way he once had, when he'd wanted her so desperately, before all the sadness had crept in.

He carried her up the stairs and laid her gently beneath the cold sheets. He tucked her in, kissed her forehead, and when he would have left, she grabbed on to his hand and wouldn't let him go.

"It's cold in here," she said. The bed was always so cold without him.

He hesitated. She closed her eyes and wished so hard.
Stay with me, Sam. Just stay.
Still he turned to go.

She set aside every bit of pride she had. What did it matter in the face of this? Of losing her husband.

"Couldn't you just sleep beside me?" she asked. "Please?"

"There are things we haven't talked about, things I haven't told you."

"I know," she said, thinking,
Not now. Don't tell me now when we're so close to fixing things.

"I... I don't even know how to tell you."

"Just sleep beside me, Sam. Sleep in our bed and hold me. Let that be enough for now."

And so it was.

He slipped out of his clothes and shoes in the dark, leaving on nothing but his briefs, and slid between the sheets, lying on his back, his arm stretched out above his head. Which Rachel took as an invitation. She settled herself against his chest, one of her legs entwined with his, her breathing a little easier once his arm came around her.

She was starting to think there were miracles left in this world after all.

Chapter 10

On the sixth day of Christmas, Rachel woke slowly, having slept better than she had in ages after drifting off in front of the fire in her husband's arms and sleeping that same way in this very bed.

She rolled over onto his side of the bed and caught the faint scent of him there on the sheets and a hint of the warmth of his body. He had been here.

And Sam McRae loved her at one time. If he had once, maybe he still did, or maybe he could again.

She wished he were still here. That she'd woken up with him beside her, the way he used to be. She wished she'd come awake to him kissing her, his big, warm body on top of hers, his body already hard with need, him slipping inside of her when she was still warm and boneless with sleep. Mornings had been like that once. That dreamlike quality. The ease of long-time lovers. The need that could come so quickly and be so strong, they'd both be in a frenzy in moments, her body shuddering and her crying out and him lying heavily on top of her fighting for air. Sometimes the whole thing seemed like a dream.