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Freya smirked. “I told you so.”

She shrugged. “You said I would fuck him. Not fall in love with him.”

Freya rolled her eyes. “Fine. You got me there.”

Alana took a sip of her coffee, then stabbed a forkful of pancake. “Boy, I cannot wait to give you crap when you meet the love of your life.”

“That will never happen,” Freya deadpanned. “I have yet to meet anyone who lives up to my standards.”

“Oh my god, Freya, lighten up.” Sophie chortled.

The three of them stared at Sophie, who was now digging into her breakfast. She blinked up at them, then shrugged. “Sorry. This pregnancy is making me irritable.”

Alana squinted. “Anything else we need to discuss today, Bean?”

She hesitated as she fidgeted in her seat. Eventually she sighed and calmed her body as she faced Alana. “I always had a crush on Chris. Even when you were dating him, Lana. It was this obsessive feeling that I couldn’t control. We didn’t see him much after you left though, and the memory of him sort of slipped my mind. Then one day last year, I was at the brewery getting lunch with the girls and I saw him working and…I don’t know.”

She swallowed the bile that climbed up her throat. She felt allergic to this conversation, but it needed to happen. “How long has it been going on?”

“We’ve been sort of…seeing each other for a little less than a year. It’s like, suddenly I turned eighteen and poof!” She shimmied her fingers. “He noticed I was a woman.”

“How did your conversation last night go?” she asked.

She pursed her lips. “He has lots of big plans in his head for what we should do. It was…overwhelming.”

“What do you want to do?” Freya asked.

She rubbed her stomach. “Keep it, of course. But I don’t exactly want to leave home. Or get married. I know I’m young to have a kid, but I still want a few more years in this house. I…I couldn’t fathom leaving the farm quite yet.”

“And did he take that well?” Alana asked.

She shook her head. “It looks like a lot of the magic is over.”

“I’ll kill him,” she growled.

To her surprise, Sophie laughed. “No, don’t do that. I think he needs to let go of his grand ideas and figure out solutions with me.”

Alana played out what she heard Chris tell her in the fields. I’m in love with her. “Do you love him?” she asked.

Sophie hesitated. “Is it bad if I’m not sure?”

“No.” Freya shook her head. “Not at all. You can take your time. Don’t hop into a relationship to please everyone around you. Do it for yourself, when you’re ready.”

Alana looked down at her hands, then up at Freya. She saw her sister’s cheeks turn pink from her advice, then watched as she slowly looked across the table. Past Alana wouldn’t have missed an opportunity to call her sister a hypocrite. But this Alana? Something inside her had altered that summer, a slow mending of her heart. She knew Leo was a huge part in helping her heal. So was being back on this farm, being reminded of her family’s legacy and her part in it.

She remained calm as she watched her family and all of the complicated feelings she had for each of them. In that moment, she vowed to work at fixing what had been broken, and she wasn’t afraid of doing the job before her. To be the eldest daughter that this family needed.

“One last thing,” Alana started. She exhaled, long and slow. “I told him about the soil.”

Freya and Sophie glanced at one another in silence, then over at Otto. The three of them waited for a drastic reaction, especially after everything they had been through.

Yet Otto surprised them yet again with a smile and a nod. “It only seems natural that he knows.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“Of course.” He leaned against the table. “He’s worked here for years, he’s helping to save this farm, and he’s in love with my daughter. He’s a part of us. He should know.”

“We’re not sure if he loves me, Papa,” Alana corrected.