CHAPTER 1
The lone rider edged past a long fence row at the back side of the ranch, following the meandering bank of the lazy Sheep River until she came upon an old wooden gate on the farthest side of the property. It was not unusual to see any number of wildlife on this trail and today was no exception. The animals came here to drink from the river and she figured it to be the equivalent of "animal paradise". That is the way Amy Fleming imagined it as a small girl when she, her older sister Lou, and her mother, Marion, would spend half-day picnics next to the water and just take it all in, telling stories and sharing secrets that seemed so important at the time. Beyond the gate a brilliant yellow field of canola was framed by tall greenish-gold fescue undulating through the foothills toward the eastern slope of the Canadian Rockies which were especially clear this morning. It was a gloriously sunny-blue day, the kind of day to be treasured this far north because warm weather comes and goes quickly up here.
The honest to goodness, Alberta born, rancher's granddaughter could not contain her smile at the sight of the jagged gray peaks of granite in the distance, still capped in snow against the cotton puffed blue sky, rising out of the colorful, multi layered texture of the hills beyond the gate. If there could be a place and a day to pattern all other days and places from, this would be the one she would choose. Although she had forgone the normal years of university that most of her high school classmates had left town for, she was the one out here enjoying the natural riches that most of them would probably never experience very often in their lives. She imagined their reward for all of the hard work and years of classes would likely be a lifetime of long hours tied to a desk inside a building crowded full of rushing people, and a screaming boss wanting some monotonous chore done, yesterday. She shuddered at the thought. 'Poor people, they don't know what they are missing' she reasoned to herself.
"Let's go, Boy." Amy patted his neck and turned her trusted gelding, feeling his oats today with his shimmering black coat warmed by the sun, toward a high round topped hill that was tall enough to overlook most of the six hundred acres filling out Heartland Ranch. This prime location in the Alberta foothills had been in her Grandpa Jack Bartlett's family for six generations and was her whole world, or wished it to be. She clicked her tongue and gently brushed her heels at Spartan's belly to get him into a gallop. "Git-up Spartan!" she commanded, leaning into the horses charge, her long blonde hair tossed straight back into the wind in unison with Spartan's flowing mane as they thundered toward the top.
Amy eased up on the reigns and brought the horse to a stop in the center of the high pasture with a nice stand of White Birch trees scattered on the hillside far below. Spartan bent down to nibble the tall grass swaying in the gentle mountain breeze, his ears fluttering with the mood of a very satisfied horse. Amy leaned back in the saddle and a smile twitched at the corners of her lips. The ranch house and barns were visible in the distance nestled in a colorful valley setting worthy of an artist's inspiration.
It was a relief to have some time alone to sort out the events of the past couple of days.
She began to reflect upon the relationship she had shared for nearly five years with the young man who had been sent to her Grandpa's ranch as a smart ass troubled sixteen year old boy through a probation agreement. The arrangement was proposed to the juvenile officer in charge of the boy's case by her mother, Marion, just before she was tragically killed in an automobile accident. Ty Borden was to work at the ranch as a stable hand whose living quarters were directly over the stables in the loft of the barn. To most kids, the hardship of living in such a place would have sparked a rebellion, thinking anything would have to be better than getting up before first light and working hard until after dark most days, only to have to retire to the dusty, drafty, noisy, and sometimes, smelly loft in that barn. Ty, however, seemed to get the fact that this was his last chance with the juvy system and soon became the best ranch hand that her grandpa Jack had ever had. He showed the family that he could adapt to difficult jobs and was more than capable of almost any chore they threw his way. The young man had a determined grit about him, and proved to all of them that he had a good heart, and an especially tender one toward Amy.
Amy's eyes narrowed at the thought of the early days of his arrival. They did not get along very well in the beginning, she remembered. The loss of her mother when she needed her so badly and the unsettled boy's abuse at the hand of an ill-inherited stepfather had brought them together with a lot of resentment and mistrust issues.
The stormy early years in their young romance seemed like another lifetime ago. Grandpa Jack would stand them in the barn in front of the horses stalls while they were attempting to do their daily chores and scold the both of them, "Enough of this fighting like cats and dogs. Will you two just get over whatever is going on and get along!" It was not a question.
They always seemed to find a way to sort out any differences, learning the art of 'give and take'. They grew up together, becoming best of friends and eventually, much more, but this time something happened between them, something needless to have been this serious of a problem, that they couldn't overcome, and it had set them apart.
The memories made her shake her head in frustration as she began to feel the weight of regret filling her eyes. Tears were sliding down her cheeks, tapping dark circles onto the tan leather of her saddle, while she thought of how stubborn of a young man Ty was, and she admitted to herself what a head-strong young girl she had been.
Images from a year ago filled her head when she sat astride Spartan in this very spot, crying from the bottom of her soul. It was the day it finally hit home, that she had lost Ty, and this time he wasn't coming back. It was over an incident that they should have been able to get past, if only they could have talked it out. But this time, just plain stubbornness, with neither of them willing to give in, had cost both of them the best friend either of them had ever known. In her mind, that was maybe the saddest part of losing him. Nobody got her, who she really was, like Ty did, and she doubted that she would ever find someone who could make her feel the same way. "How did we let that happen to us?" she asked Spartan, who looked around to her with his mouth full of fresh grass as if to give an "I don't know, how could you?" response, with a hint of a judgmental attitude, his rider thought.
They came here together to this special place as often as possible. Being up here with the horse that her mother died while trying to rescue connected her to her past and cleared her head so she could think her way through whatever was troubling her, or to dream about the things that would make her happy in life. The path for all of her important decisions, the ones she had control over, at least, had been determined at the top of this solitary hill, and sometimes this was the only place where she felt she could just let go and cry the hurt away, with no one else in the world watching.
Amy thought she had moved on to a place in her head that would allow her to start putting her life back together and move forward, but the tears were flowing freely now, and recent news had brought her thoughts back to the one she believed to be the love of her life, and how much she was missing him.
Today, she was thinking about Ty, and how he would be fussing over his little boy, if he were here with them.