Twelve Days by Teresa Hill

Author:Teresa Hill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Contemporary, Christmas Stories, General, Romance, Fiction, Love Stories
ISBN: 9780451201454
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2000-09-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

On the eleventh day of Christmas, Rachel could have wept when she woke up and found Sam gone with nothing but a hastily scribbled note saying he'd driven to the next county. After all he'd told her last night, he'd turned around and left before she could say another word this morning.

Two steps forward, one step back. Or maybe she'd gotten the ratios wrong. One step forward, two steps back. They couldn't make it that way.

Rachel was standing there in the kitchen still holding his note when Emma came downstairs, Emma who looked as sad as Rachel felt. They stood there staring solemnly at each other, and finally Rachel held out her arms and said, "Come here."

Emma dipped her head and stumbled forward, her arms outstretched, and soon they were standing there holding each other in the cool of the early morning in the kitchen.

"What's wrong?" Rachel asked.

"Nothing," Emma said, apparently having learned a thing or two from Rachel. "Where's Sam?"

"Gone," Rachel said. "Work."

"Work?" Emma frowned.

"I assumed it was work. What did you think he was going to do today?"

The girl looked surprised and then she looked guilty. What in the world? "Emma, do you know something about where Sam is?"

"Yes. But I can't tell. It's a secret. I promised him."

Rachel frowned. She would love to believe it was something other than work that had sent Sam out of the house so early this morning.

She was running out of time. It was Christmas Eve. What had he said that day on the phone about leaving? Tuesday after Christmas? Just her luck, Christmas came on a Monday this year. Two days, and he was supposed to go.

Merry Christmas, Rachel, and by the way, I'm leaving you.

"Are you okay?" Emma asked.

Rachel didn't know what to say, and then she remembered Father Tim and what he'd said. This was the hard part. The faith part.

So it was going to be harder than she thought. She couldn't shy away from it for that reason.

"Okay," she said, pulling herself together and looking at the worry on Emma's face. "It's Christmas Eve. We have things to do."

"What things?" Emma asked skeptically.

"Things." There must be something. And then she remembered, "Presents? Do we have enough presents? Besides the ones Santa's going to bring, I mean?"

"I know Santa doesn't bring presents," Emma said. "But Zach doesn't. Neither does Grace. So I pretend."

"Oh." Of course. Emma was almost twelve. She'd know.

"You didn't get enough to do Santa?" she whispered, seeming truly worried now.

"No. It's not that. I was just thinking about Sam."

"You didn't get Sam anything?" Emma asked.

"I did."

She'd gotten him some very practical things. He was a practical man, after all, but some occasions called for more than the practical. Surely this Christmas was one of those times. Months ago, when Will had still been here, he'd been interested in her stained glass. They'd started a project together to give to Sam for his birthday. But Will left before the birthday, before the project was ever finished. It was still probably right there in her workshop in the basement where she'd left it.

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