"Ty..."

Her voice was soft, gentle, pleading. Ty turned.

"Yeah?"

"Can we talk?"

"Sure."

They wandered down to some rocks by the river, and sat down.

"That kiss… Where did it come from?"

"It doesn't matter."

"We kissed, Ty. We hadn't talked in weeks, and you kissed me."

"Heat of the moment."

"Ty, that kiss meant something more than that. It doesn't do either of us any good to deny it."

"It doesn't matter. I wasn't thinking. What matters is what you want."

"What I want? Why is this all about me? What do YOU want?"

Ty sighed, shock his head, and looked at his feet.

"I need to here what you want, the whole, truth of it. And I still haven't heard it."

"Yes, you have!"

Ty was still looking at the ground, and shook his head as Amy said her last words. When he at last looked up, she had gotten up and was walking away. He thought he could hear her crying.

He felt his heart shatter once again. He hated to see her cry, knowing that he was the reason she was in pain. Walking away from her in the barn office and been the hardest thing he had ever done. Why was she refusing to tell him what she wanted? She wasn't wearing the ring anymore; he had noticed that. If she wanted to end the relationship, then why was she still in Canada, and why did she care what he wanted? And why was she crying? It had been two months since that day in the barn office. She had her chance to move on.

So what was going on? Ty sat on the rocks, staring at the river for a long time.

The sun was beginning to set. He desperately wanted the relationship back that he and Amy used to have. He knew that. But he was not about to push Amy into anything. He wanted to talk to Amy, to try to tell her this, without pushing her, but had no idea what he would say. Ty recalled all the times he had seen Amy in the past couple months. Suddenly, a series of unpleasant thoughts crossed his mind.

Each time he had seen her, Amy had tried. Tried to have a conversation, asked him how he was, show that she cared. He had tried, too, sometimes. But he had, more often than not, also shut the conversation down as soon as it turned to emotions. Pushed her away. Never let her talk long enough to give her an opening to say something more. Maybe gone so far as to give the impression that he didn't want to talk to her. And he had never phoned her after she picked him and Caleb up from the drunk tank. They had deserved her yelling, her heat of the moment reaction, truth be told. He knew, deep down, that their drunken brawl never would have happened, had he and Amy not been on a break. Ty realized that she deserved an explanation and an apology for his behaviour. He still needed something from her, too, but someone had to make the first move, and it was definitely his turn. It was almost dark as he turned to go to the cabin, to find Amy.

He entered the cabin. Tim and Jack were sitting on the couches. They both looked up as he came in.

"Is Amy here?"

Jack nodded toward the door opposite.

"On the porch"

Ty walked toward the door. He took a deep breath, opened it, and closed it gently behind him; then crossed the deck to where Amy was standing, gazing out. He looked at her. He could see the tear lines still trailed across her face. He wondered how long, how hard she had cried after she had walked away.

She returned his gaze.

"Is it okay that I'm here?" Ty asked, uncertain after his recent realization of how his behaviour may have looked.

"Yes."

He looked at her, then dropped his gaze, still uncertain of what he wanted to say and how to say it.

"Ty?"

"Yes?"

"I want you to know…"

Amy swallowed a sob, and continued.

"I want you to know that I regret everything, Ty. I never should have gone to Europe. Our relationship wasn't in the greatest place when I left. That was my fault just as much as it was yours. I should have seen that, seen that we needed some time together, to reconnect, heal the trust that had been broken. I never should have even asked, I should have said no to Ahmed when he asked. It wasn't fair to you, to our relationship. And when I came home... I should have told you exactly what had happened. That night I came home, after supper, in the barn loft… It was all I could think about, especially when you tried to kiss me. I…"

Ty could feel his gut tightening as she spoke. He had thought about that night a million times in the past months.

"I was so scared Ty, so scared that that I was about to loose the man I had always dreamed of, and the only person I could blame was myself. And then it happened. Ty, I can't imagine how that felt for you, at the dining room table, how humiliating that must have been…"

Amy hung her head, her voice growing smaller as she continued.

"What I did was a huge breach of trust. First of all for letting it happen, second of all my doubt of our ability to deal with it as a couple. I doubted the strength of our relationship. I understand that maybe you can't forgive what I did, Ty. But I want you to know that I am sorry, and that I will always love you more than anyone else in the world, no matter what happens."

Ty felt tears running down his face. Everything he felt like he needed to hear had just been said. He looked at Amy, saw the tears running down her face. He looked into her eyes. She met his searching gaze, and he knew that she had meant everything she had just said. He half opened his arms, and took a step towards her.

She let out a strangled sob and wrapped her arms around him. They crushed their bodies together, holding each other tight as to never let go. Ty could feel Amy's tears soaking into his shirt as he burrowed his face in her hair, any attempt to keep his own composure falling by the wayside.

When at last their tears slowed, Ty kissed her hair, and pulled back slightly, knowing he also had things he needed to say.

"Amy, after you left me down by the rocks before, I realized that I need to make my own apology. I'm sorry if you have felt in the past eight weeks that I didn't want to talk to you, that I didn't care about you, or that I didn't want you back. Because as much as I needed to hear what you just said, and didn't want to push you into saying something you didn't mean, I never gave you a chance to build up to saying something. I just shut the conversation down because I didn't want to show any emotion, show you how much I was hurting. As for the kiss yesterday… Watching you, with those wild horses, how you knew what to do, how close you could get, your passion for those horses… It reminded me why I fell in love with you. Why I still love you."

"Yesterday reminded me of why I fell in love with you, too."

Ty felt her arms slip around his neck and pull him down for a kiss. This kiss has just as passionate as yesterday's, but more gentle, not impulsive but purposeful, an affirmation and a thank you for everything they had both just said. When they broke off the kiss they stood there for a long time, staring into each other's eyes, arms around each other, soaking in the moment.

"I love you," Amy murmured.

"I love you, too."

When at last they stopped kissing each other, holding each other, murmuring words that were all the more precious because of how long since they had said such things, Amy glanced toward the cabin.

"Are grandpa and dad in there?"

"They were when I walked through. It's late though now, midnight, so they might have gone to bed."

"Do you want to sleep on the couch together?"

Ty answered with a kiss and a smile.

"What is the plan if they're still up?"

We walk into the bedroom, shut the door, and take the double bed.

"Is Jack going to let us get away with that?"

"I think we both know the real reason dad brought you up here, and I guess his plan worked… I have a feeling everyone is going to cut us a lot of slack in the next couple weeks."

Ty smiled, and wrapped Amy in his arms. The he grabbed her hand, and led her to the door.

They stepped in, and Jack and Tim both turned toward them. Amy led Ty toward the bedroom, and shut the door firmly behind them.

Ty smiled, pulled her close, and whispered in her ear.

"I wonder what they're thinking right now."