Chapter 3

Chase was sitting on one of the barstools at Maggie's Restaurant, flirting with the waitress and telling stories to any of the other patrons who would listen. It was 11:45 A.M. on Saturday morning and he decided he had time for another cup of coffee before his meeting with his favorite horse trainer, besides himself. The waitress had just warmed up his third cup when the lady wrangler walked through the front door.

"Hey, Miracle G-…what the heck is wrong with you?" Chase asked when he got a good look at her face.

Amy was a few minutes early for their meeting and the expression she was wearing reflected a mood of not wanting to be needlessly badgered.

"Oh, nothing really. I just stayed up a little too late last night waiting for Ty. He was supposed to come by the ranch after he got out of school, but he never showed up…, or picked up any of my calls, or texts." She was failing at trying not to come across as grumpy.

"Well, I would never do that to my lady!" he said, pleased at any opportunity to antagonize her relationship with the struggling veterinarian student who held the target of his affection, for now. "Why are you still putting up with that guy?"

"Stop it, Chase." she warned. "He has been really busy at school, and holding down a full time job at the same time is a lot for anyone to handle. He's been spreading himself pretty thin lately and it makes things rough for us sometimes."

"Ain't no way that I would let anything stand between you and me if I were in his place, I'll guarantee you that!" raising his eyebrows and showing his best smile as he continued to pester her over her relationship with 'that stable boy who lives in your barn', as he usually referred Ty when he was talking to Amy.

"What was it you wanted to talk about, that business proposition you mentioned?" she redirected his focus, leaving no doubt that she was not amused by the implications.

"O.K. then…," realizing he was getting nowhere with the provocative chatter, "here's the deal. I have backers who are setting me up with a new website to market my brand and to sell merchandise which will offer anyone looking for a ready to ride horse a way to buy it as a package deal. The horse will come guaranteed to be gentle, trained, and have all the necessary tack to get them started. The tack, by the way, will be 'Chase Powers Signature' merchandise. Everything from bits to buckles with my name engraved right on them," he chuckled to himself. "The whole thing will be advertised in all the horse and farming magazines and papers. Isn't that great?"

Unimpressed by the fluff, she asked, "Soooo, where do I fit into all of this?"

"Well, you can get in on the ground floor, Amy! I need a good trainer who can gentle a horse, train it, and have it ready to ship out in three weeks, or less. I am thinking we need about two horses per week to get us started. What do you think, can you do it? Huh, Miracle Girl?" challenging her while wiggling his eyebrows.

"Gosh, Chase, I don't know. That sounds like a really tall order to me!"

"But, you can do it, right? You are still the 'Miracle Girl', aren't you?" he continued to challenge her, knowing precisely how to put her self-confidence at risk.

Amy Fleming could not stand to let the overconfident cowboy get a dare in unanswered.

''Yeah, I think I can do it, Chase, if you get good horses."

"Nothing but the best! Gotta be 'Signature' horses, right? Oh, there's one more thing," Chase was wheeler-dealing again, "We would need to do a promotional colt starting clinic in Calgary when we do the media launch. You know, like the good old days when we were such a good team!"

"Chase, I told you I was through doing those clinics….with you, at least," she reminded him.

"Well, you really should reconsider, especially since I had all of those posters made up!" he said.

Amy looked to where he was pointing, and there it was, right there on the window beside the front door, sure to be seen by anyone coming into the store.

"You've got to be kidding me! That is not going to happen!"

"Look, Amy, is it that you don't want to, or is just because you are a little surprised?" He was still selling her on the idea. "Don't let anything, or anyone, especially the 'hired hand' hold you back. You know you want to do it!"

Chase knew exactly how to push her buttons and steer her into not wanting to back down to him. The potential co-star got up from her seat and headed to the door, giving a stern look over her shoulder to the source of her frustration.

"Well, what do you say?" he asked, unfazed by her look.

"I'll think about it!" closing the door behind her and walking with her eyes to the bricks on the sidewalk all the way to the truck.


Amy stayed focused on the proposed partnership as she drove the back roads into the foothills toward home. She considered the possibilities that this new business arrangement could have for Heartland's bottom line, and for her reputation. It could be just what was needed to get the ranches' finances looking a lot healthier and it might be as much fun as the other clinics they had done, if everything went just right.


Ty had gotten wind of the new deal from mutual friends who were hearing rumors of some kind of new 'horse shopping' website. He figured the idea sounded like it had Chase Power's name written all over it. That was enough in itself to get Ty's boiler hot, but after he saw one of the "Chase Powers and Amy 'Miracle Girl' Fleming" posters in a widow on campus in Calgary, he was furious. "Surely she has learned her lesson when it comes to that guy," he said aloud to a lady who was standing to his right, reading the billing along with him.

"I've seen them before, at one of those clinics they did a while back," the woman told him. "They are something else, those two! It is amazing what they can do with a colt in no more than a couple of hours. They're married, you know!" she imagined. "They are such a perfect match, don't you think, working with horses like they do?"

The more he mulled it over in his head, the more upset he became. He was glad to have the hour it took him to drive to Heartland. It gave him some much needed time to cool down, at least he hoped it would, before he confronted Amy about the new partnership she would be telling him about soon.


As she followed the winding driveway into Heartland, Amy could see that Ty had managed to find his way back to the ranch, noticing his old GMC parked in front of the barn in its usual place. 'He is going to hit the ceiling when he finds out about this!'

After spending the afternoon helping Amy with two of her client's horses and catching up with some overdue chores around the barn, Ty walked into Marion's old office and sat in one of the chairs in front of her old desk. He let his eyes drift around to each of the faded family pictures on the shelves along the back wall, his favorite being the one of Amy as a beaming six year old cowgirl sitting astride her first pony, "Sunshine".

Amy found him sitting there alone and moved behind him to put her hands on his shoulders and give them a gentle squeeze. She was worrying because of how uncharacteristically quiet Ty had been. "C'mon, it's time for dinner," she told him.

Following a pleasant meal with the family the young couple walked out to the barn to do the nightly check on the horses and to have some much needed alone time. The entrepreneur horse trainer was trying to avoid any conversation about her latest venture to ensure that they could have at least one pleasant evening this week, without the usual bickering when Chase's name was mentioned.

Amy could read Ty's eyes with uncanny precision and she knew that he was tense and maybe even had a hint of resentment when she studied his gaze. She feared that he must have found out, somehow, but figured it was likely just her guilt of the secret she was holding back from the guy who was more than just a boyfriend, but also was her best friend.

"So, what's the matter?" she nudged an elbow gently at his ribs, testing his temperament and using her blue 'flirty eyes' in an attempt to disarm the bomb that she knew was ticking inside him.

"Why don't you just come right out and say it, Amy? You are in business with Chase Powers, again!"

"Ohhh, crap!" she muttered to herself.

"If that isn't enough, you are going with him to Calgary, maybe other places too, to do those colt starting clinics again?" he continued with his rant, gathering momentum as he went, making the comment sound more like a question than it was.

"I'm sorry you found out like you did, Ty, but will you please stop worrying about Chase! I love you, don't you know that?" she tried to calm her agitated boyfriend.

"Amy, you know very well that I don't trust that guy and I hate the thought of you being anywhere around him. He is a first class jackass and I don't want you to have anything to do with him!

This was another one of her buttons, one you didn't want to push, "Just where do you get off thinking you can tell me what to do, or how to run my business?" she yelled.

He tried to remind his best friend of the lop-sided deals the enterprising cowboy always seemed to propose to her. "You should have figured out by now that he uses you and takes advantage of you every time you try to do something together! This will be like going down the same old road with him, all over again!" Ty declared, the red beginning to show in his face.

"You are the one who should get over himself and stop trying to hold me back!" she blurted out.

Her remark could not have had more of an effect on Ty than if she had taken her fist and punched him in the face. He stepped a full step away, just to buy a few seconds to try and recover from the shocking comment he had just heard straight from her mouth, and after no apparent words of reason came to him, retreated to the back door of the barn, looking for some fresh air.

Amy realized the harshness of her words and immediately regretted how they must have sounded to him. "Ty, no, that is not what I meant to say!" as she followed him to the fence that surrounded the pasture at the rear of the barn. "Of course your opinion matters to me, I just….I feel that I can't stop taking chances now, the kind of chances that could make my business grow into something I can be proud of. I want you to be proud of me too!"

"And, for whatever reason, those chances always seem to revolve around Chase Freakin' Powers! How does that keep happening?" he wondered. "Look, Amy, I think you are the most amazing person I have ever known. Not just with horses, but with me too. I'm sorry I have a problem with him, but I just can't help thinking that as long as he is around, there will be nothing but trouble between us. He knows how to manipulate you into doing things that annoy me….you know he does that, don't you?"

"Ty, please don't worry about him. I love you, and I always will. It is just business with Chase." She was searching for a way to defuse the situation before it became worse. "Com'on, let's go back to the house and sit in front of the fire."

They returned to the house and found their way into the living room with a nice fire already burning in the stone fireplace. The increasingly stressed couple settled on the sofa with each of them stubbornly trying to justify their own point of view inside their minds. The conversation slackened into a deafening silence, and before ten minutes had passed, Ty was fast asleep in Amy's arms.

After pulling loose the quilt that draped over the back of the sofa, she covered Ty and kissed him on the cheek, then softly tiptoed to her bedroom to try and get some sleep of her own.


The morning came soon enough with Lou being the first to stir when she went to the kitchen to start breakfast for the family. One by one the whole crew awoke and made their way to the table to get something to eat. Everyone had noticed Ty lying on the sofa and tried to keep quiet so as not to wake him. They all knew how hard it was for him to carry the load he was subjected to every day. Jack had talked to Lou about it recently, wondering if the full time student, veterinary assistant, and part time horse trainer's-helper was carrying too much of a burden. Each of them admitted they were concerned about his health at the pace he was keeping.

Amy opened her door and saw Ty rubbing his face while trying to wake up. "Hey, sleepy head. You konked out on me again last night!"

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I just can't seem to be able to keep my eyes open when I'm relaxed like that."

"Relaxed? Is that how you would describe it?" the surprised girlfriend whispered into his ear.

All the somewhat rejuvenated student-vet's assistant could do was look his girl in the eye and wonder where and how the conversation would continue because they obviously had more to say to each other.

Thanking Lou for breakfast, the couple each picked an apple from the fruit arrangement at the center of the table for Spartan and Harley and made their way to the barn for the daily round of morning chores. When they worked together like this, the same as hundreds of other mornings like this one, the chores went very quickly and it reminded them of how much they enjoyed doing simple things with each other.

With the stalls finished, horses fed, watered, and turned out to pasture, Amy hung the broom in its place on the wall behind the feed bins and turned toward the guy she had been missing so much lately and asked him, "Soooo, you wanna do some catching up?"

"Humm, I don't know if I remember how," he teased.

"Well…, maybe I can help you with your memory," she said as she reached for his hand, gave him the twinkling spark of blue from within her eyes that always made him say 'yes' to anything she asked of him, and pulled him up the wooden stairs to the old loft that Ty had once called home.