Oops here's another story because the world of FF doesn't seem right until I've got too many stories to keep track of and update in a timely fashion. This one's its own independent storyline and is inspired by watching Season 1 on DVD, which was my favorite season. With some of the best episodes on it and best of all, Novelli.

This takes place sometime after the end of the third season which I didn't really like as much (except for several episodes) and features that ranch which Matt apparently forgot he owned after the first season and his attempts to regain his roots with the help of one good woman.

Hope you enjoy it!


C.J. rode the buckskin mare down the old cattle trail through the patch of dogwood trees that sprouted up from the ground every so often to provide some shade in the pasture. She stopped at the end of the trail and put her hand above her eyes as she looked in each direction. She smiled in satisfaction at the band of mares and foals that nibbled on the grass without a care in the world. The valley had been lit up with rumors of coyotes running loose but she had yet to see or even hear one.

What she heard now was the whirl of chopper blades approaching her and she looked up and saw the familiar sight of a helicopter swooping down over a nearby ridge and blowing up the branches in the trees as it approached.

She sighed inwardly knowing who piloted the copter and why he had arrived. Her best friend Matt had just found out who had purchased the ranch he had put on the real estate market just six months earlier. She nudged her horse with the squeeze of her legs and continued down the trail. She watched as the helicopter approached and finally landed in the middle of the pasture, blowing up some dirt as it settled on the ground with the rotary blades slowing to a stop. The door opened and out stepped a tall, man with a muscular build dressed in a business suit and tugging at his tie, while he carried a brief case in his other hand. She didn't get off of her horse but folded her arms as he approached, while her horse danced beneath her.

"Easy Chelsea," she whispered as she patted the mare's neck, "It's just Houston. He looks like he just stepped out of a business meeting in that god awful suit of his bought off the rack at Neiman Marcus."

The mare settled down as the man approached quickly, reaching the worn fencing and then deftly hopping over it. C.J. raised her brows when he approached her.

"Haven't seen you in a while," she said.

"You haven't been at the office," he said, "Murray told me you extended your sabbatical."

She nodded, pushing back the wavy mahogany curls out of her face absently while she studied the man in front of her. He looked ill at ease in his suit and tie and yet, she had to say he filled both out well. Most women would agree and most women who had crossed paths with him had done that, engaging more in a game of show than tell.

"Yes I did," she said, "I've got more work to do on the ranch."

He looked around at the acreage that surrounded them.

"Why didn't you tell me you bought it?"

She snorted.

"I did tell you," she said, "You just didn't listen. You were busy working with your new partner and hanging around what's her name."

He glared.

"Business has been piling up so much, I haven't had much time to spend with what's her name."

"You've got Zack to help you now," she said, her arms still folded, "which should leave you plenty of time for a social life and you can work your way through the rest of the female population of L.A."

He ignored her dig and just stared at her sitting on her horse as if she belonged there.

"C.J., you bought my ranch."

She looked at him nonplussed.

"You put it on the market," she said, "and I didn't want it to be picked up by someone else. Some developer had just offered five times what it's worth to build something on top of it but I beat him out under the dime."

Matt had known that because his realtor had told him about the offer which had just come out of the blue that had nearly dropped him in his tracks but he had already inadvertently accepted C.J.'s offer based entirely on gut instinct. He scratched his head.

"So this is where you've been all this time?"

She nodded.

"I fixed up the house, which needed a new roof and some new flooring on the atrium and that barn out back."

"Who's helping you," he asked.

"Bo and Lamar drove in all the way from lower Texas to help out," she said, "It's been like old times, well mostly."

Matt heard the wistful tone in her voice and knew he had hit a sensitive spot that she had kept hidden for a long time, he suspected. In the past few months, she had spent more time away from the office and away from him only he had been too busy to notice. She had sold her house and had said she wanted to get away from the frantic pace of L.A. Still, he had focused on rebuilding his relationship with his long-lost uncle and even longer lost cousin. C.J. had never begrudged him his desire to reconnect with what was left of his family tree but he hadn't seen her around as much either in recent months.

And she spoke the truth. He had been busy hanging out with some gorgeous ladies after his broken engagement to Elizabeth. But what else could he do, he had to prove he still had it as a man. But women weren't his first love…other things were more important. Like..

"How about my horses?"

She pointed back towards the pastures.

"They're out grazing now," she said, "I turned them out this morning and they couldn't be happier."

He watched them eating and couldn't find fault with that not having had much time in the past year for them either. Matt wondered if they would even recognize him especially gussied up like he was now. Still a question nagged at him and he had to ask it. But she beat him to the punch as she often did, having a mind that worked a tick quicker than his own.

"So why are you here," she asked.

"To find out what you're doing with my ranch," he said.

She just looked at him.

"Houston I bought it," she said, "but it doesn't mean you can't come out here anytime you'd like or keep your animals here. Even Rupert."

His mood brightened at the mention of his beloved bull frog which had retired after winning his one jumping competition and had shacked up with his beloved Hildegard. Both of them lived in splendor in a small pond just off of the lake as happy as amphibians could be.

"How's he doing anyway?"

C.J. chuckled.

"Overseeing his own kingdom of offspring," she said, "the world can't have too many frogs."

Matt had to agree with that. She looked at him and then she dismounted from Chelsea and held onto the mare's reins. Matt looked at the woman in front of him, dressed in faded jeans and an old sweatshirt that looked suspiciously like it had belonged to him.

"Houston, I didn't buy your ranch to hurt your feelings," she said, "I didn't want to see it go to anyone else if you weren't going to hold onto it."

He knew she meant what she said and a part of him had been relieved when he learned she was its new owner but he wished she had just told him. But she really hadn't been telling him much lately and truth be told he had no idea what she thought about in her head these days.

"Would you like to come to the house and get something to drink," she offered.

He looked at his watch.

"I have to head back," he said, "but oh wait, I did have some paperwork for you to sign on that new merger."

She took the folder with the contract enclosed and asked him for a pen which he handed to her.

"You could have gotten Murray to sign it," she said.

He knew that was true but he had wanted to see her. He hadn't seen enough of her lately since she had taken her leave from the agency and had obviously moved out to the ranch. Zack, his new partner had picked up the slack fairly quickly but even though the two men had been life-long buddies stemming from high school, he missed working with C.J. He wondered if she knew that.

"How are things going with you," he asked.

She smiled at him.

"I'm happy Houston," she said, "I love working on the ranch with the guys and there's a nice town nearby with nice people. I'm exactly where I want to be."

She didn't add that some of them had even asked her to do some legal work for them and that she had a stack of client folders already in her office in the ranch house. And how she had enjoyed spending the evenings on her porch watching the moon light up the sky amid a carpet of stars extending all the way to the horizon. She didn't miss the city at all. Okay, she missed her favorite nightclub on the Sunset strip but the rest of it…not as much.

"I'd better head back to the office," he said, "Thanks for signing this for me."

She shrugged and got back on her horse, thinking about how much she missed seeing him in his favorite pair of jeans and on the back of a horse. But he had chosen what he wanted in his life and it clearly was to play the urban jetsetter.

"I'd better get back to work," she said.

She waited until he got back on his helicopter and took off heading back to L.A. and the world she had left behind at least for a little while.


Matt sat at his desk as Zack came in and dropped a stack of papers.

"More cases," Matt asked.

"Picked up a half dozen this week," Zack said, "It's going to be tough to schedule time for them all."

Roy poked his head in.

"There's a long line of employees waiting for signatures on a bunch of paperwork," he said.

Matt sighed, knowing he had lost the element of surprise which would allow him to make a quick getaway from his office assistants. It might be another hour before he could leave the office and head off to a dinner meeting with a new client that Zack had set up.

"C.J. bought the ranch," Matt said.

Zack looked up at him from some papers he was reading.

"Oh, so that's where she's been…"

Matt nodded.

"She's already put a great deal of work into it," he said, "The work I never got around to doing."

"You've been very busy with your business," Zack said, "It's only natural to stick to doing the most important things when your time's limited."

Matt frowned from his desk.

"I missed the ranch," he said, "I was actually sorry that it sold until I found out who bought it."

Zack signed a couple of forms and put them on Matt's desk.

"She needed an outlet," he said, "She was feeling restless here."

Matt hadn't been sure that was it, the reason why she had taken her sabbatical. Not that she had really given him a reason. He had just assumed she needed a break after years spent working hard and wanted to focus her energies elsewhere. He knew the feeling himself, having wanted to take off at a moment's notice himself. But he had his burgeoning caseload to consider before he could take any vacations, not that he wasn't tempted to just take off for a while at least once a day. Then there was his company which was in the capable hands of Murray and his fast talking brother Myron but…

"I guess she needed a change," Matt admitted, "Hopefully she'll finish up with the ranch and return to work soon."

After coming to her senses, he added to himself.

Even as he said that, Matt didn't feel so sure. After all, she hadn't been the same in the past couple of months and she looked so much happier up on her horse looking at the world than she did wearing a three-piece suit inside his office. Still, she loved practicing law and surely that would draw her back soon enough. But then she could still be smarting from her breakup with Randy, an attorney with a firm in the skyscraper across the street. She hadn't talked much about it, just said that it had ended and that it had been for the best. Even when he offered to take her out for dinner as a friend so she could talk about it, she had shook her head and closed the topic off from further discussion just like that. Just like she did on so many subjects these days. He wondered when she had started pushing him out of her life but couldn't remember when it had all started.