Sarah breathed in the crisp fall air and felt grateful for good company and healthy exercise.

She and Kate’s daughter, Darcy, were taking pumpkins out of wheelbarrows and stacking them artfully on crates in the Pumpkin Land section of Harkness Farms.

Sarah had never seen anything quite like it. Pumpkin Land was as big as a football field and comprised of a row of “spooky” scenes of witches, vampires, and fairy tales set behind a fence to the back, a huge section of mums in various pots on one side, an indoor display of Halloween decorations on the other, a line for the hayrides in the north corner, and, taking up the entire center of the field, dozens of wooden crates containing pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.

In the big red barn nearby, Kate and a few of the other adult kids were baking pumpkin pies in the lower level kitchen. The scent of the spices wafted from the open basement windows toward Pumpkin Land.

The whole thing was truly magical. She only wished Orson were old enough to appreciate it.

As fast as Sarah and Darcy could stack the pumpkins, Darcy’s foster brother, Will kept delivering them.

And Will’s wife, Tess, sat on the haystacks carefully set up as a family photo backdrop, cuddling baby Orson and singing to him.

As far as new beginnings, this had to be up there with the best of them.

Sarah only wished she could stop thinking about Max, wondering what he was doing, how he was feeling.

“You getting tired?” Darcy asked.

“No, sorry,” Sarah said, tearing her eyes from the sight of Orson, wide-eyed over a scarlet leaf that had just landed next to him in Tess’s lap.

“He’s so cute,” Darcy chuckled. “I don’t know how you get anything done.”

“I don’t really get anything done,” Sarah admitted. “Well, you know, you’ve got Luke.”

Darcy and Finn’s son was at school now, but Sarah had met him first thing this morning.

“Luke’s amazing,” Darcy concurred. “And he definitely takes the spotlight. I don’t know if you knew this, but Luke was adopted. So I didn’t get to know him when he was Orson’s age.”

“I had no idea,” Sarah said. She had just assumed, based on the resemblance.

“He looks just like me, doesn’t he?” Darcy said.

Sarah nodded.

“I think maybe I’m starting to look like him from hanging out with him so much,” Darcy joked. “You know, like they say people start to resemble their pets?”

“Are you calling my nephew a pet?” Will asked, winking at Sarah.

“He’s a canine,” Darcy shrugged with a teasing expression on her face.

“He’s lupine,” Will retorted, and made as if to playfully smack her.

Darcy ducked and gave him a light roundhouse kick in the butt.

“Oh boy, now you’re in for it,” Will shouted.

Darcy took off and Will dashed after her, leaping over the wheelbarrow Sarah had been emptying.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah,” Tess said. “I wish I could say they were showing off for you, but it’s pretty much like this all the time.”

Sarah was getting ready to say it was fine - better than fine, it was wonderful - when she noticed the band of kids running for them from the house.

“School bus must have let off,” Tess said. “Though Kate’s normally strict about giving them milk and cookies and half an hour of homework before they’re allowed to help with Pumpkin Land.”

“Sarah, Sarah,” Hannah called out. She was one of the older girls, tall and slim with long hair.

“What’s up?” Sarah asked.

“There’s someone here to see you,” Hannah said.

“It’s a man,” one of the little boys put in, waggling his eyebrows.

“Mom said to tell you it’s Max,” Hannah continued, elbowing her little brother.

Max.

Darcy and Will were back, smiling, but calm again, listening.

“We’ll hang onto Orson for you if you want to run in,” Tess offered.

“No, thank you,” Sarah said. “I don’t think I’m the only one Max wants to see.”

She took Orson from Tess, amazed at how having his little body in her arms made her feel like she could do anything.

She headed straight for the house, not waiting for the kids, who were already stacking pumpkins to beat the band as Darcy asked them if they’d had their snack yet.

When she was halfway there, her sister came out the back door with a stormy look on her face.

“He says he wants to talk to you alone,” Mandy growled.

“It’s fine,” Sarah said.

“It had better be fine,” Mandy said. “He’s in the living room. I’m going to wait in the kitchen and if you give the signal I’ll be out in a hurry.”

“If you’re in the kitchen I won’t have to give a signal, you’ll be able to hear everything,” Sarah said, trying to hide her smile.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“I’m just enjoying that you’re more freaked out about this than I am,” Sarah admitted.

They had reached the farmhouse.

“Do you want me inside or outside?” Mandy asked.

“Outside maybe,” Sarah said.

Mandy nodded.

“But don’t go too far,” Sarah added.

Mandy’s expression brightened slightly.

“Love you, Sarah,” she said.

“I love you too,” Sarah told her.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped in the back door.

Kate’s kitchen was dim compared to the sunny day outside. Sarah walked past the gleaming copper pots on the wooden island and headed into the living room, which looked smaller with Max in it.

He stood before the fireplace, his big body so still, his expression inscrutable.

“Hello, Max,” Sarah said, stepping into the room.

“Oh,” said Max.

He gazed at Orson, his brown eyes rapt.

Sarah began to wonder if this conversation might go a bit differently than she’d planned.

“This is Orson,” she said.

“Hello, Orson,” Max said softly.

Orson chuckled and reached a chubby hand in Max’s direction. The dimple appeared over his right cheek.

Max smiled wonderingly, raising his hand to his cheek to touch his own dimple.

“Just like yours,” Sarah whispered.

“I’m so glad to meet you,” Max told Orson.

“How did you find us?” Sarah asked.

“It’s a long story,” Max said. “But I have my own connection to Kate Harkness. My parents came to see her when I shifted as a toddler. When you said you were at a farm in Pennsylvania, and I knew you had our baby…”

Our baby.

“I’m glad you came,” Sarah said. “I want Orson to know you, on your terms, of course.”

Max’s expression turned furious and he tore his eyes from Orson for the first time since Sarah had entered the room.

“You don’t understand,” he said, his voice low.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve never understood,” he continued. “You said we had a one night stand, you said we slept together. We didn’t Sarah. We made love. And whether we meant to or not, we made a family that night.”

Sarah stared at him, dumbfounded.

“I tried to reach you for weeks, and you wouldn’t pick up because you assumed I was only calling because I felt bad?”

He began to pace up and down the room.

“And last night, you tell me we have a baby, the best thing anyone has ever told me, the happiest news of my life. And then you follow it up by saying I don’t have to be involved?”

“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered.

He paused in the middle of the room, gazing at her with tortured eyes.

“Sarah, I don’t feel bad, I don’t want to avoid responsibility, and I’m definitely not being nice. I love you. And I’ll do whatever it takes to be way, way more than just a part of your life and his. I’ll sell the business and move to Glacier City, I’ll work two jobs so you can stay home, I’ll serve you and your girlfriends high tea wearing a Chippendales outfit if it will make you happy. All I want in return is for you to open your eyes and see me for who I am - the man who loves you. Unconditionally.”

Sarah stared at him in wonder, puzzle pieces clicking in her head.

“Can you please do that for me?” he asked, stepping over to her and cupping her cheek in his hand. “Please, Sarah.”

His touch sent lightning through her veins as it always did and suddenly she recognized that it wasn’t just a physical response, it was emotional.

“I can do that,” she whispered.

“Excellent,” he smiled down at her.

She lifted her chin for a kiss.

“Hold that thought for just a sec, baby,” he said, slipping something out of his pocket.

He pulled out a plastic toy key ring and held it out to Orson, who eyed it delightedly, and closed his little starfish hand around it.

“A ring for Orson,” he said. “You’ve already got the keys to Daddy’s heart, my beautiful boy.”

Before Sarah could respond, Max was kneeling in front of her, holding out something that she couldn’t see because of the tears suddenly clouding her vision.

“And a ring for Mommy,” Max said. “Because I want to earn the keys to hers.”

“You already have,” Sarah breathed.

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes,” someone shouted from outside the open window.

Max laughed and stood up, wrapping Sarah and Orson in his arms. “Sounds like we have an audience.”

“Er, my sister was a little worried about how this visit might go,” Sarah said.

“If she’s protective of my mate and my son then I love her already,” he said.

“And I love you,” Sarah said, letting out the words that had crowded her heart for a year. “So much.”

“It’s about damned time,” Max said with a wink.

He leaned down and kissed her so softly, so tenderly, she thought her heart would break.

And then the back door slammed as Mandy and the Harkness clan all came stampeding in to congratulate them.