By the time spring rolled around things at the farm were bustling from sun-up to sun down, including Max. 

Rosie spent most of her free time there, sometimes trying to help and sometimes just watching. 

Hannah still followed Max everywhere and even though she’d told him it wouldn’t make difference, Max set up a dog bed in the corner of his bedroom.

Her own job kept her busy as well. Working for Wendy was as therapeutic as it had always been. Grandma Murphy still made an occasional appearance but had toned it down on the Henry the VIII routine. 

She still rode her bike to the bus stop every day and rode the bus to work. She still went to her camper to clean and trade outfits every few days. There was something about having her own space that she couldn’t give up. Deep down she knew it was because it was something she worked so hard for, something all her own. 

In theory, she wanted to say yes when Max asked her to move in. She wanted to be the kind of person who could make a quick change on the fly but that wasn’t her and Max knew it. He accepted her quietly placating rejections with ease and grace. 

In fact, he had a knack for knowing when she needed a little space. She’d go to leave for work one morning and he’d say, “Why don’t you call me from the trailer when you’re ready to be picked up tonight.”

There were no questions about why she might want to go to the trailer. 

There was no pressure that she should invite him. 

There wasn’t even any assumption she’d go back to his house when it was all said and done. 

Once in a while, when she was out there, Dallas would swing by unannounced. 

“Sometimes I drive by. Just to make sure everything’s secure,” he explained once. 

Some nights, he’d sit on the patio and watch the woods with her. Some nights, he’d talk about missing his family a little. He wasn’t the most talkative guy when it came to his feelings. She knew how he felt so she didn’t push. Some nights, he asked about her past. 

There were times she told him some things. 

But there were still times it hurt too much.

Rosie finished making Max’s bed and gathered their laundry. After putting it in the machine she grabbed a half a mug full of coffee and headed for the porch. 

It was fun, watching the interns working the farm. Max was in his big spring planting rush and had all hands on deck. She could watch from the porch swing as they drove tractors to the fields and pushed wheelbarrows around. 

Last week, she’d seen Denny, an intern, with a love seat on a pallet headed out to the field. That had stumped her, but she knew she’d see it, eventually. Max would tell her when he was ready. 

A love seat, she wondered with a snort. What was he up to now?

* * *

“Are your eyes closed?” Max asked, the smile in his voice loud and clear.

“Your hands are covering my eyes,” she deadpanned. “What difference does it make?”

He kissed the back of her head, “Humor me,”

She did, and it wasn’t hard at all. “My eyes are closed.”

He was walking her through the back field, grown up with corn. The ground was uneven under her feet but she trusted Max to not let her fall and eat dirt.

“Where are you taking me?” She asked with a smile of her own. 

“It’s a surprise,” he said. 

“Is it a good one?”

He laughed, “Why would I get you a bad surprise?”

She shrugged. 

“It’s a good one,” he assured her. “Just keep your eyes closed and keep walking until I tell you to stop.”

He led her through the fields until she felt grass under her feet again. Even then, they walked for a ways before he stopped, never taking his hands off her eyes. 

“Can I look now?” She asked.

“Now, I’m nervous,” he admitted. “Maybe I overstepped.”

“Now you’re making me nervous,” she told him reaching up and pulling his hands down. 

“Oh,” she breathed. 

If there was anything she had dared to imagine, this would not have ever made the list. Not even close. 

“Oh,” she said again.

“Is it–" he broke off. “It is too much?”

It was her trailer. 

Not her trailer. A trailer. Happy string lights, patio chairs outside and all. She turned back around and still saw the lights of Max’s house in the distance. 

She looked back at the trailer. 

There were lights on inside and she could see books beyond the curtains and pictures on the walls. 

She looked at Max. 

“Is this-” She barely dared to ask on the off chance it wasn’t real. What if it wasn’t for her? What if this was something else?

“It’s for you,” he said, not making her ask. “It’s yours. If you want it.”

“Why would you do this?” She breathed. 

“Because I want you here with me. On the farm. Forever.”

Rosie turned her head to look at him.

“But I know you like space and that’s okay, too. I just was hoping you’d be okay with having a space here.”

He’d recreated her safe place in his safe place. 

Maybe, together, it could be their space. 

“You did this for me?” 

It sounded so ridiculous to ask. Of course, he’d done it for her.

“Baby, I’d do anything for you,” he told her, pulling her into a hug. “If you hate it, we’ll get rid of it. I just wanted you to have somewhere you could go if you needed it.”

“Without having to keep my trailer,” she understood.

“If you want to keep the other place, we can. Shit, I’ll buy the whole damn thing if you want and you can go there any time.” He shook his head. “This is not coming out the way I want it to.” He held her out by her shoulders and spoke directly to her. “I made you this. I’ve asked you dozens of times to move in with me and you always tell me no. I know part of the reason is you like to have your own space. I wanted you to see I’m fine with you having your own space. I want you to have your own space, here.”

“I love it,” she admitted letting him and his nerves off the hook. 

Having her own place but still on the farm solved one of her hang-ups.

“Are you sure?”

She smiled and lifted onto her toes, pressing a kiss to his lips. 

“I’m sure.” Rosie grabbed his hand and led him to the camper. “Come show me!”

He followed with a laugh. “It’s just like your other one.”

She did the ridiculous eyebrow bob. “So, there’s a bed?”

Max’s pace quickened until he reached her and scooped her up. “There’s a bed.”

* * *

April dawned and so did the warm weather. Rosie rolled over and looked at Max, taking a rare Sunday morning to sleep in. He’d gotten a haircut and was back to looking like the clean-cut boy next door. 

She tried to imagine him, drunk in a jail cell, but couldn’t. That’s what he’d been arrested for. Drunk and disorderly. He’d been twenty-two and dumb, he’d told her. 

She just couldn’t see it. 

She’d seen drunk and disorderly. Heck, she’d lived with drunk and disorderly. Max, wasn’t it? 

He’d been so ashamed when he’d told her, like somehow, his one mistake had tarnished his whole life. 

But, it hadn’t. Wasn’t his life more than the mistakes he’d made? Hadn’t he worked hard enough to overcome those? Wasn’t he a better person than that?

He’d looked at her and asked if she was the pot or the kettle. 

Maybe he was right. Maybe officer Murdoch was right. 

She was worth more than her past. Hadn’t she done enough to be a good person to overcome what her mother had done?

She was trying. That was all she could say for herself. Trying was something she could get up and do every single day. 

And she got to do it next to the man lying next to her.

Rosie reached out and poked his shoulder.

He mumbled something and rolled over to face her. 

“Hmmm,” he hummed. 

“It’s my birthday,” she whispered. 

His eyes popped open. “Seriously?”

She smiled at his expression and nodded. 

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have gotten you something. Done something. Taken you out to dinner.”

“You’ve given me plenty,” she told him. “More than I would have ever thought to ask for.”

Max grabbed the cover over his shoulder and pulled it while he moved on top of her. 

“Well, I would have gotten you more,” he laid a series of kisses on her neck. “Now, you’ll have to get by with what I’ve got on me.”

Rosie laughed and looked down. “You’ve got nothing on you.”

“We’ll make do.”

* * *

“You should be ready for me now,” the woman said. 

Rosie was lying in Max’s bed, his arms around her.

The woman she’d seen in her dreams a few times was sitting in the chair across from Max’s bed. 

“Am I asleep?” Rosie asked. 

“For now. But I’m coming for you.”

“Why?”

“It’s been long enough,” she shrugged. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

“For me? Why?”

“I didn’t know about you until after you ran. Once in a while, I get a good read on you and we connect, but other times, you go dark. You’re good at building your walls up. Don’t you remember me?”

“Should I?” Rosie asked, sitting up, holding the sheet to her chest.

“We’ve met before, in dreams. Sometimes, you push me out. Sometimes, you recognize me right away.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.” The woman smiled and blinked out of Max’s room. “Time to wake up now,” her voice thundered in Rosie’s head. 

* * *

Rosie’s body jackknifed off the bed. A sense of urgency filled her as she flung the covers off and jumped out of bed. 

“What’s the matter?” Max asked concerned but sluggish. 

“She’s coming for me,” Rosie told him. She could feel a desperate clawing inside of her pushing her to go. 

Rosie didn’t know where she needed to go or what she needed to do, she just knew she had to do something, right now.

Max followed suit and got dressed. 

“What do you mean she’s coming? Who’s coming?”

“I don’t know,” Rosie pulled her skirt on. “She came to me again and said I need to wake up. That she’s coming for me.”

Max’s head popped through the neck hole of his t-shirt. “Who came to you? The lady that stands on the side all creepy and not saying anything?”

She’d tried to explain the dreams to Max, but it always sounded convoluted and hard to convey.

“Yes,” Rosie said. “And she said, I’m coming for you.”

“Wait.” He grabbed her arm when she tried to leave the bedroom. “Baby, can we not go running headlong into a stranger?”

She shook her head. “I have to go.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

He followed her down the stairs and straight out the front door.

Rosie stopped short. 

The woman was leaning against a car, arms crossed as she waited. Her hair was deep brown, hanging around her shoulders and cascading down her back. There was a small smile on her face, familiar in a way that made a tingle race up Rosie’s spine.  

Her eyes were the same shade as Rosie’s, minus the spot. 

Rosie grabbed for the rail to steady herself.

“It’s you,” Rosie said. 

The woman nodded. “I’m Toby.” 

“Wait,” Max started.

“Mom wasn’t great with names,” Toby said, her eyes boring into Rosie’s. “Toby is far better than October.”

“Try living with Happy for a while,” Rosie murmured.  “You’re…”

“Your sister,” Toby confirmed. 

“Holy. Shit.” Max breathed. “How?” 

“The usual way I’d imagine,” Toby mused. 

“She’s my sister.” Rosie stood rooted in place.

She had a sister? A real, blood related family member. 

“I was in foster care by the time you were born,” Toby said, pushing off the car and walking to the porch. “In fact, it wasn’t until Butch Hardy started digging around that anyone brought up the fact that our mother had already lost custody of one child.”

“How does that happen?” Max asked, slipping a hand in Rosie’s. 

She was glad for his support. Without it, she’d be floating into a void untethered. 

“It’s a complicated system with complicated problems. In his search for Happy, Butch stumbled across me. His face was about the same as yours is now, I’d say. He’s a good guy that made some shitty mistakes and paid for them. His guilt helped me get through school and land my first job.”

“You’re my…”

“Sister,” Toby repeated, again. “I thought you’d have figured it out by now. We look enough alike.”

* * *

“You okay,” Max asked quietly. 

Was she okay? There was a quivering rooted in her heart. Something emanating from deep in her soul at the thought of having a sister. Someone that somehow belonged to her and that she might belong to someone else. 

She looked up at Max and let out a watery laugh. 

“You know. I think I finally am.”