She had a fair amount of unvarnished honesty between her and the sisters. But right now she couldn’t be.

She couldn’t ask for help.

Because the source of her issues was their brother. And she knew that they wouldn’t want to hear about the fact that he was the best sex that Sammy had ever had. And also...

It felt too personal. For the first time in her life she didn’t want to share details. Didn’t want to get into anything like that. For the first time sex felt intimate. And she just... She couldn’t bring herself to speak any of it out loud. Like it was a sacred verse that she had to hold to her own chest. A wish that might not come true.

She didn’t know what she was wishing for.

“I just didn’t need any,” Rose said.

They weren’t all the same. For some reason that revelation hit her hard and real as she looked at Rose’s red face. It was easy to think that Ryder, Iris, Rose and Pansy were the same because they had been raised by the same parents, whom they had lost.

But Ryder had assumed a parental role, and Iris had taken a somewhat secondary position to that. Pansy and Rose had been children. Pansy had taken on the mantle of preserving her father’s legacy to an extreme place. And Rose...

Rose was such a little, vibrant thing. Brimming with life and vigor. Almost as if she was daring the world to come at her. Except, she also stayed in her very safe space.

It was easy for Sammy to think of Rose as being a child, but of course she wasn’t. Of course she was a woman now, and she was still here. Working the ranch. Staying in her place that she had carved out for herself.

Sammy had to wonder if Rose ever felt like she did. If she ever felt like she was stuck behind a wall that she couldn’t break through.

Of course, Rose was twenty-four, not thirty-three. So whatever Rose had to work out it was a little bit less sad than Sammy.

“Is this your dream?” Sammy asked.

Rose wrinkled her nose and cast Sammy a strange look. “Is what my dream?”

“Staying here. Working on the ranch.”

“I love what I do,” Rose answered simply.

“I know.” Of course, Rose was always making suggestions for other people’s lives. Meddling in the kindest and sweetest way possible. And it made Sammy wonder why she wasn’t quite so active in her own life.

So good at psychoanalyzing other people, Samantha.

She ignored that mean inner voice.

They started walking down an informal path, beaten by the cows, through the field. They moved the cows all around, and currently they were in a pasture across the property.

The calf they were searching for was so small, there was a serious concern about him being separated from his mother for too long. And she knew that Rose’s real concern was that it had been taken by a cougar. Which, in this area, wasn’t an unfounded concern.