Free Twelve Days by TERESA HILL

more days with Sam. She wasn't going to let herself think beyond that.
    "Let's go find Zach," she said.
    * * *
    The boy followed Sam around like a lost puppy desperate for attention. He didn't even look where he was going, sometimes stepping all over Sam's heels, and he was way too eager to please. He'd smile up at Sam with those puppy-dog eyes and that quirky little grin, and sometimes he still looked afraid. That part got to Sam every time. Zach was still afraid but not enough to leave Sam alone.
    "I thought Rachel was taking you to buy clothes this morning," Sam said.
    "I got clothes on." Zach shrugged, as if he didn't care in the least. "She made me wash behind my ears and brush my teeth and ever'thing."
    Sam stared back at him, seeing himself at Zach's age and someone else entirely. Someone else Sam had loved and lost. Any instinct he'd ever had about how to deal with kids seemed to have deserted him in this moment. He didn't like feeling so inept.
    "So... where's your mother, Zach?" he tried. If he couldn't deal with them, maybe he could find out where they belonged.
    "I'm not s'posed to tell," the boy whispered.
    "Why not?"
    "She told me not to."
    "Who told you not to tell?"
    "My mom."
    "Before she left you at the motel she told you not to tell anyone where she was going?"
    Zach nodded solemnly, looking a bit upset. Damn. Sam truly didn't want to upset him. But it was for the kids' own good and Rachel's. Rachel who looked so perfect, so content with a baby in her bed in the morning. Rachel who'd finally noticed he was sleeping somewhere else and said something about it. He almost thought it would have been easier if she'd never noticed.
    Sam looked back at the boy, thinking the kid just had to go. All of them had to go before Rachel started thinking that maybe these children would stay and that everything would be better. Neither one of them could afford to think like that, and he could question a lost little boy if he had to, to protect Rachel.
    "So, your mother... What else did she say, Zach?"
    "That she's comin' back. We were s'posed to wait for her. Right there. Because she's comin' back."
    Sam doubted that. "Has she ever left you before?"
    "With Emma, y'mean?"
    Sam suspected Zach got left with Emma a lot, and Emma was great with him. But she was just a little girl herself. "I mean has your mother ever left you anywhere and not come back? Not for a long time. Like days?"
    "When she went to get Grace out," Zach said.
    "Out?" Sam grinned in spite of himself.
    "Of her tummy. Grace grew in her tummy. From an egg," Zach whispered. "You know, kinda like a chicken. I don't understand it all. But they had to go to the hospital to get 'er out."
    Like a chicken? Grace would love hearing that someday. Zach laughed a bit. He was a cute kid when he laughed.
    "So, that's the only time your mother ever left you? Overnight?"
    Zach nodded. "She's a good mommy. She's comin' back. Maybe we should be there. Don'cha think? How's she gonna find us if we're not there?"
    "I bet Miriam left a note or something, Zach. If she comes back, Miriam will tell her where you and Emma and the baby are."
    "I love 'er a lot," Zach said solemnly.
    Sam nodded, his throat going tight again. He hadn't been much older than Zach when his own mother died. He remembered being bewildered and so eager to please, to find a place to belong again, and worrying that he never would. Damned if that fear wasn't coming true now. Soon he'd have a room over a garage and not much else.
    Sam started to wonder where the children would go, too, after Christmas. Miriam couldn't have been serious about splitting them up.
    "What's your mother's name, Zach?" he said with new urgency.
    "Mommy," he said.
    Sam sighed. "What's her last name? You know, when people say Mrs. So-and-so, what do they call her?"
    He refused to say a word.
    "It'll help us find her, Zach. You want us to find her, don't you? Then you should tell me everything. Where did you live? Before you came