Redeeming Rafe by Alicia Hunter Pace

going to work. You’re going up there and you’re going to tuck those girls in. I know you don’t know what you’re doing here, but it’s time you figured it out.” And he turned and walked toward the staircase like he was sure Rafe would follow him—which Rafe did.

Chapter Eight
    “Bethany, Hannah,” Abby said to the sitters. “Thanks for getting the kids into their pajamas. You can go across the hall to my room and watch television. We’ll get them down. Just leave the door open and keep a check on them after we go back to the party.”
    Gwen pulled the trundle from under the new day bed. “I can’t believe Lucy got this room done so fast. It’s gorgeous.”
    It was. With its pale green and yellow walls and nursery rhyme toile, it was a dream of a room.
    “Have the girls asked for their mother?” Gwen asked.
    “No. It makes me wonder how much they actually saw her.” Abby straightened the blankets in the cribs.
    “They forget easily at this age. Julie, come here, sweetie. Get under the covers.”
    “The babies aren’t under the covers,” Julie protested.
    “They will be soon,” Gwen said. “You’re the big girl. You need to show them it’s time.”
    Julie reluctantly rose from the rug where she’d been playing with Carter, Phillip, and the twins. Bella knocked over the blocks Phillip and Carter had stacked, and they all laughed like it was Comedy Central.
    “I think at this age, it’s all about the caregiver,” Gwen said.
    “Sometimes it seems they’re looking for someone,” Abby said. “But they’re more puzzled than sad. And who knows? It could be the grandmother or aunt they’re wondering about. I guess what counts is that they’re happy, but it makes me sad to think if something happened to me, Phillip would just shrug and glom on to whoever wiped his bottom and gave him apple juice.” She stopped and laughed. “Listen to me! I’m a monster—wanting my two-year-old child to mourn me.”
    Abby picked up Bella and put her in her crib. She always went down easier than the other two despite—or maybe because of—her liveliness.
    “If you’re a monster, so am I, but I don’t think we need to worry about that.” Gwen lowered her voice. “How’s Rafe doing?”
    The question of the century. “Sometimes he seems to be making progress.” She could have sworn he turned a corner the day she pointed out Alice’s scar, but then he took two steps back. “Other days—I’m not sure. I know this is new to him, but how can you help but fall in love with them?”
    Even now, Alice was giving Phillip a wide-mouthed, wet kiss. Abby put a pacifier in Bella’s mouth, patted her back twice, and she was gone.
    Gwen retrieved Carter and put him in the trundle bed. “Rafe will come around. He just needs some time. I think it would be easier if the girls didn’t look so much like Camille.” Gwen said this matter-of-factly, as if Abby knew it. “And you know, of course, that Rafe had a very special relationship with his little sister.”
    “No,” Abby said slowly. “If I ever heard that, I forgot.” She knew Rafe’s parents and Camille had died in a fire and that Rafe, Gabe, and Jackson had witnessed the whole thing—but the rest was new information. If it were true, it might explain some things.
    “According to Jackson, Camille could tell Gabe and Rafe apart from a very early age and preferred Rafe to everyone else almost all the time. It was especially hard on him when she died—not that any of them had an easy time of it.”
    “And no one thought to tell me this?”
    Gwen sat down beside Carter and stroked his hair. “I guess we thought you knew. And this has been really fast. Everyone’s been busy, especially you. This is the first real conversation you and I have had since the girls came.”
    It was true. There had been no time to talk to anyone about Rafe’s behavior. “As awful as that must have been for him, in a way, it’s good news. At least it explains why he’s so