Twelve Days Read Online Free PDF Page B

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