Rosie woke to a strip of sunlight in her eyes. She lifted her hand to block the light and looked around.

"Good morning," Max's voice, deep and rough from sleep, came from behind her. His voice rumbled through her and she realized they were both still on her little couch.

"Oh God," she groaned as she tried to sit up, her back aching. "Why did we sleep on the couch?".

He laughed and wrapped an arm around the top of her chest, pulling her back to him. "You fell asleep watching some creepy zombie show. I was too scared to walk home."

"I didn't expect you to walk home," she argued. "But, the bed would have been more comfortable."

"After you fell asleep I put on a documentary. Guess I crashed too."

She closed her eyes and reveled in the feel of his hard chest behind her, his breath puffing in her hair.

"Is she here?"

Rosie's eyes popped open and she looked around.

"Who?"

"Hannah," he said it like it was obvious.

"No.” She sat up and looked back at him. "She's probably outside with Gizmo."

"He can see her too."

“They like to chase each other around. Remember that day when you were here and Gizmo came flying out of the woods?" At his nod, she continued. "Hannah was right behind him."

"She always did like getting into trouble with other animals."

"Yeah, well, she's why your poor sheep has been hiding in that corner. Hannah just corrals her there and barks her fool head off."

He tilted his head and stared at her. "Is that who you were shooing that day?"

"The minute she ran off the sheep did too. I felt bad for her."

"That's crazy," he exclaimed bewildered.

Rosie knew he didn't mean to say she was crazy. She was aware how unbelievable her talents could be, but the words struck a nerve. It put her right back in the Coleman Institute where she never wanted to be again.

He pulled her back and kissed her hair.

"What you can do is crazy. Unbelievable." He sighed. "It sounds bad no matter how I say it. I believe you, Rosie and I don't think you're crazy. Not even a little bit."

"I didn't say anything."

"Don't worry. Your eyes said it all."

"I'm sorry," she started.

"You have nothing to be sorry about." His stomach growled. "Other than trying to starve me.”

She looked around. "Is there any left-over pizza?"

"Yeah right," he scoffed. "I polished that off last night. Let's go get breakfast."

"Don't you have a job?" She sat up and pulled out of his arms, turning to face him.

"You're sexy in the morning." He had a smile on his face but his golden eyes seared her with heat.

She covered her face in embarrassment. "Don't do that."

He laughed again. "Do what? Tell you you're sexy?"

"Yes!" She squeaked with a giggle that made her feel ridiculous.

His hands wrapped around the sides of her head and he pulled her closer but she ducked her head.

"I'm not kissing you before I brush my teeth."

"You better get in the bathroom and get working then, because I'm not waiting much longer to kiss you," he warned.

Heart pounding, she fled to the bathroom to clean herself up. When she finished Max was gone, so she took the opportunity to throw on a pair of her favorite ripped jeans, a sweater, and her well-loved flowered combat boots. She found Max waiting right outside the door watching the woods.

When he saw her, he sent her that full bodied, sexy smile.

"My turn," he said before he slipped past her and into the camper.

She didn't think he meant for his smile to be that sexy. Frankly, he'd sent it her way a few times and she'd interpreted it as completely platonic. But this morning it seemed different somehow, more poignant. It was strange to be so attracted to Max. Not that she'd never experienced attraction but she'd never felt comfortable enough to act on it. She'd never cuddled on a couch before and had definitely never slept with a man – even if it was just sleeping and nothing more.

Rosie took a few steps forward and squatted down, scratching Gizmo behind his ears. She rubbed her hands back and forth through his thick fur as he stood and rubbed one side of his body against her palm and then the other. Hannah looked on in question, her tail thumping against the ground.

"Sorry Hannah. I can't touch you," she told the shaggy dog.

The camper door opened behind her and Rosie stood nervously, turning to find Max watching her. She resisted the urge to shove her hands in her pockets which she was glad for because he reached her in three quick strides. She needed her hands to balance when he grabbed her head and swiftly brought his lips to hers, her hands filled with the front of his shirt.

"I used your toothbrush," he said, right before his lips touched hers, soft and hot, insisting she reciprocate. She didn't hesitate to join in, opening her mouth and touching her tongue to his lips. He groaned, his hands sliding down to her shoulders and back, ending on her butt. He pulled her tighter against him which made squeak in surprise.

Suddenly her feet were off the ground and she was spun around, her back pressed to the outside of her camper. Their mouths moved hungrily against each other and she instinctively threaded her fingers through his hair. His hips pressed against the apex of her thighs, sending tiny jolts of lightning through her core. The next time he pressed against her she pressed back. Max made a deep growling sound.

The sound of a siren pierced the air. Rosie let out a strangled scream while Max dropped her legs and shielded her from the intrusion. He turned around, blocking her view.

"You're such an asshole," he said.

"Nothing going on my ass." It was Dallas. "I have a bone to pick with her."

"Yeah, well, she's busy."

Dallas laughed. "You can feel her up while I talk to her."

Max laughed too, their banter casual. "Not gonna happen."

"Come on," Dallas complained. "He sent me looking for you all over goddamn town, you know."

He was talking to her. She peeked out from behind Max and looked at Dallas, rugged and imposing in his uniform.

"You didn't find me."

It was a lie and he knew it. "Whatever you need to tell yourself, honey. I want to know why you disappeared."

Max took a step away from her and faced her, silently telling her he'd like to know the answer too.

She looked between them and stubbornly kept quiet, folding her arms over her chest.

"You called me in the middle of the night," Dallas said with a frustrated sigh. "Hysterical, begging me for help and then you disappeared."

She shrugged. "You came. You went with Max. That's why I called you."

His head reared back and he stared at her in confusion. "Did you think I'd forget you were there? Why didn't you come with us?"

"You didn't need me. You had it covered."

"That's not the point," Dallas argued and turned his frustrated gaze to Max. "Did you not talk to her about this?"

Max looked uncomfortable. "It hadn't come up yet."

Rosie realized whatever they were talking about was something they had discussed before. She took a step back, away from Max which he immediately noticed. He grabbed her hand and didn't let her get any further.

"No," he told her firmly then turned to Dallas. "Just go, man. I'll call you later."

She watched Dallas fight his desire to stay and argue although she didn't know what he was so mad about. Max's grip was tight on her wrist, not giving her any room to wiggle away.

He finally threw up his hands and rolled his eyes. "This is nuts, you know. People don't call for help and disappear. That's some crazy shit, Rosie." He spun on his heel, got in his cruiser and drove away.

"It's just hard to understand, that's all," Max's voice was gentle. "You weren't there when I woke up. I was confused. Dallas couldn’t find you when he showed up at my house and no one remembered you leaving. Then we couldn't find you."

She took a deep breath to calm her heart rate. It was the thing she hadn't even been able to explain even to herself. That inexplicable reason she stayed in the shadows. Her deep-rooted fear of living in the light and all it entailed. The shadows were where people like Rosie lived, where she could hide and no one noticed her.

Somehow, here, they'd noticed her.

"I don't know why I hid," she whispered. "I'm just used to hiding."

He cupped her shoulders and turned her to face him, not letting go. "Baby, you can hide from everyone else but you can't hide from us. We're you're friends."

Frustrated, she told him the same thing she'd told Wendy. "I don't want any friends! I don't need friends!"

"But you have us," he said simply.

"I didn't ask for friends."

"I know."

"I'm better at hiding."

"Nah," he smiled down at her. "You just think that. We'll get it all figured out."

"Don't do that," she snapped.

"Do what?" He asked, unruffled by her frustration and anger.

“Don't make promises you can't keep."

"What? That we'll get it all figured out? I believe that, Rosie."

"You don't even know what you're trying to figure out. I don't know what my problem is half the time." She held a hand to her forehead in frustration. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

He leaned in quickly and placed a kiss on her lips, catching her completely off guard.

“We'll figure it out." He slipped her hand inside his and tugged her toward her bike. "Come on. You can ride on the handlebars."

* * *

They ended up at Max's where he whipped up some egg sandwiches. She hadn't said much since they arrived, just sat on the other side of the counter watching as he worked in the kitchen. Max was comfortable in everything he did, from working on his farm to cooking in the kitchen. She wished she could be so at ease with everything. She wondered what it would be like to just enjoy being who you were and being comfortable in that.

He slid a hot sandwich across the counter to her and sat down.

"Are you working tonight?"

She nodded, her mouth full.

"Wendy said you’ve been mostly in the office but picked up new clients. How’s that going?"

"I've never met them. They aren't home when I'm there."

"Do you like it so far?"

"It's alright," she admitted. "Not much different than before other than the hours. How's the lamb?"

She'd thought about the baby sheep a few times over the last few days, wondering how it was faring with the big girls.

Max's face lit up with a smile. "She's great. We feed her and she spends all of her time with Cocoa."

"The bigger sheep?"

"The one you said Hannah was bugging."

Rosie nodded.

"Is she here?"

"Hannah?" He'd been looking around suspiciously since they walked through the door, like he expected her to pop up and beg for scraps at his feet.

"She ran out back when we got here."

"So, she came with us?"

"Ran beside the bike."

He shook his head in disbelief and muttered, "So crazy."

Max let her finish her sandwich before he started with more questions. "Okay,” he pulled her plate aside and faced her. "Time to talk more about the bomb you dropped on me last night."

Warily she leaned away from him. "I don't do parlor tricks."

"Parlor tricks?" He asked confused. "I don't need you to prove anything to me. I want to know about whatever's been going on since your bike accident."

"Oh," she said.

"You said there's someone stalking you. That she wants to be found."

She nodded and resisted the urge to look away.

"Can you find her?"

Her entire being shied away from that idea. Nothing ever good came out of finding the dead.

When she was younger she'd done her best to help the police by locating the remains of spirits that had come to her. Slogging through woods and swamps, and blindly following ghosts. Eventually, they moved on to the other side while she stayed behind and endured sidelong glances and whispered conversations.

Max changed tactics. "What about the sleepwalking. You said that's new?"

"It's all her," Rosie told him and finally looked away. "My accident..." she trailed off and tried again. "I came around the corner and she was right there, just standing in front of me." She turned her eyes back to him and felt the ridiculous sting of tears remembering what she'd seen of the woman's death. It had been truly horrible. "I tried not to hit her. I dumped the bike but I still slid right through her."

He lifted a hand to her face, his thumb stroking her cheek.

"I can't touch them," she whispered, her lower lip trembling. "I touched her and it was awful. Now she won't leave me alone. I see her in the woods and in my dreams. In my dreams I'm following her, through the woods and into the water."

"And then you're in the water?" At her nod, he asked, "Is that where she is?"

"I don't know. He killed her in the woods"

"Who killed her?" He sat up, alarmed. "Rosie, someone killed this lady?"

She pressed her hands to her throat. "He squeezed so tight. So hard."

“How do you know that?"

"When we touched, I saw how she died. Now she won't leave me alone and everything's been totally out of whack."

"When we went to Smith's Cove you couldn't hear me. Was that her?"

"It's just water. All I can hear is water in my ears."

“How do we get her to go away?" His voice was firm.

She didn't miss that he said 'we'. "It’s never happened to me like this before so I don't know. I wish I did," she told him. "Jay's trying to help, with the crystals."

"Somehow I don't think crystals are going to solve the problem."

She agreed but was willing to try anything.

"What happens if we try to find her?"

At best, she got run out of town and became known as a lying charlatan or at worst, a raving lunatic.

"How do I explain that?" She asked. "Finding a dead body? Are you ready to go out looking for a corpse?"

"Dallas-"

"Is a cop," she interrupted. "He'd have a million questions I wouldn't be able to answer."

"He'd believe the truth, baby."

"No, he wouldn't," she argued. "And even if he did, I'm not prepared to be the police department's go-to psychic bloodhound. I don't want to be used and then called a fraud if I'm wrong. I don't need to be talked about and laughed at behind my back."

His face held a trace of awareness. "You've worked with the police before."

"I tried. It didn't work and I won't go there again, Max. I won't. I don’t want Dallas to know."

"Then we need to find another way because you can't keep getting dragged to the cove. That's not safe."

She shrugged, not sure how to take his help.

"You said you had a dream about what happened here. Is that part of the ghost thing? The thing with the lady in the woods?"

She shook her head. "No, that's something else."

Rosie watched him carefully knowing it was too much, too fast.

"We don't have to talk about that," she offered, giving him an out. "We don't have to talk about any of this."

"I don't know anything about ghosts. I don't know anything about whatever kids of dreams you're having. You're going to have to give me a learning curve here."

"It's okay," she assured him. "You don't have to worry about it. I have to get going to work soon anyway."

"Will you stop doing that?" He sounded put out. "Will you stop telling me everything's okay? Like that gives me permission to not worry about you. I worry about you, Rosie. I'm going to keep worrying about you. Probably even after we get this shit figured out so you're going to have to get used to it."

She had no answer for that other than to argue that he was wrong and doing that would get them nowhere.

"Sometimes I have dreams about things that haven't happened yet."

"Like seeing the future?" His eyebrows were nearly to his hairline.

"Something like that," she said, thinking about the woman from her dream.

"And you had a dream you needed to come here?"

She thought about the woman that looked exactly like her and the exploding fireball.

"Yeah," she answered simply, leaving the rest out.