Authors Note

I'm baaaa-aaaaackkk!!

Sorry guy, really. I've been having real bad migraines this year and keeping up with school has been like my LIFE. But I have a couple of weeks before I leave for my summer trip (going to the Navajo reservation) so I'll aim for an update a day or something of the like.

And I hate when people do this but I HAVE to. Please read (and review) my newest story, Elysium. I promise you it will ROCK!! I wouldn't be shamelessly promoting one of my own stories if I wasn't absolutely in love with it. So after you read (and review, of COURSE) this, go check it out! If you liked the movie Gladiator (which I sincerely hope you did), you will love it!

So just keep reading and thanks for not losing faith in me! Extra thanks to all the PM's and reviews I've gotten!! Keep reviewing!!

Steph

Disclaimer: If I owned Heartland, Amy wouldn't be having an affair with some guy named Alfonso (or what. ever) in the latest book.

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RODEO STONER

Chapter 9: Hog Tied

AMYPOV

Friday

Morning—the real morning—rolled around with a bang. Literally.

I felt like I had just fallen asleep—and I suppose I really just had—when Lou was shaking me to wake up. "G'way" I mumbled, pulling the covers over my head and tried to go back to sleep. It seemed to work for a minute. Then my head was suspended in the air, the pillow pulled right out from under it. My head hit the mattress with a bounce and my eyes flew open just in time to see my pillow coming increasingly closer to my face.

"Lou!" I screeched. "Oof." She gave me a few good whacks with the pillow before I was able to wrestle it away from her. The struggle ended with Lou on her back and me sprawled on top of her, precariously close to the edge of my bed. But the pillow was securely in my possession. "What the hell was that for?" I asked breathlessly, blowing the hair from my eyes.

"Maybe you should go to bed earlier," she said. My eyes widened and Lou nudged me off the side of the bed. I landed with a thud on my back, the pillow still clutched to my chest. I closed my eyes and groaned. "Careful, Amy, someone might start thinking you weren't in your bed last night."

"Lou—"

"Hurry up, Amy," she said, dropping her previous comments. "Mom and dad said to meet them up at that house for breakfast. I'll wait for you on the porch." The door slammed shut behind her as she left the little cabin.

I stayed on the floor for another minute. I groaned. How had Lou known I hadn't been here last night? I'd have to be more careful tonight… tonight. Tonight was the night I went from girl to cattle. As I trudged to my feet to get dressed for the day, Lou was the least of my problems.



I quickly pulled on a pair of white, gray and light blue plaid short and a black tank top. I zipped up a black hoodie over top so I was prepared for the cool morning air, and I laced up my black Converse. I quickly pulled a brush through my long, straight hair and brushed my teeth before sulking out to join Lou on the porch. She jumped down from her perch on the railing and slipped her cell phone back into her pocket. We started the walk up to the farmhouse in silence.

"So where did you go?" she asked the impending question.

I frowned and kidded up a cloud of dust in the road. "Nowhere."

Lou laughed. "Oh come off it, Amy. It may surprise you, but I'm not exactly used to going to sleep at 10 o'clock like we have been. I was awake at midnight." I could feel the blood drain from my face. So she had caught me again. "So I saw you get up and get dressed, and then go into the bathroom. You didn't come out so I went in. The window was closed but it was unlocked." We were silent as I digested the knowledge that I had been caught. I hadn't thought I would be caught quite so fast… or again. "I didn't tell mom and dad if that's what you're worried about," she said next, taking the next thought right from my head. "But I just want to know where you were."

"It was really nowhere, Lou," I said, looking over at the horses as we passed the corals. Ty wasn't there, I noticed.

"Do you really expect me to believe that?"

I looked back at the dusty ground. "I just couldn't sleep and wanted to walk around," I said.

"So you weren't meeting any rouge cowboys?" Lou asked suggestively.

I rolled my eyes. "Really, Lou. Does that sound like me at all?" I attempted to joke but my throat was so dry.

She looked at me skeptically. "I suppose not." We were silent again as we started up the steps to the farmhouse. "You know I don't believe you were alone," she finally said.

"I know," I said softly.

"But I won't tell mom and dad what you did last night," she added.

"Thanks, Lou."

After another moment she continued, "And if I were to guess it wasn't only a onetime thing…?"

"You'd probably be right," I answered her honestly, deciding there was no use in lying to her now.

"And if I asked to come walking with you when you left tonight?"

She'd cornered me and she knew it. My sister was much too clever. "I'd have to say no." I looked up at her and grinned. "But you could go and find Adam."

"Oh, I am so sure you are going 'walking'," she laughed. Then we were inside the farmhouse before I could say anything else. I saw mom, dad and Abbey sitting at the same table from yesterday, already eating breakfast. They waved us over. I glanced up at Lou once more and she smiled brightly at me. I decided that I could trust her not to tell my secret. Of course Lou was imagining it to be something more than it actually was, but a promise for secrecy was the same no matter what it was for.

"Oh good, you girls are up," mom said brightly as Lou and I sat down across from them. She looked at me. "You slept through Abbey's reenactment of the bucking broncos from the rodeo like a log this morning, Amy." I froze but mom said it casually and with a light smile as she took a sip of her coffee.

I shrugged. "I guess I was just tired."

Mom nodded and I hurried away to get a doughnut for myself before anyone else could say something about my sleeping tendencies from the previous night. Lou followed behind me at a more relaxed pace and she snickered when she was next to me.

"Smooth, Amy, real smooth. Keep that up and you won't need me to tell them anything. Just remember I've already caught you sneaking out twice."

I left Lou behind at the cereal station and slowly wandered through down the rest of the two buffet tables. I stared unseeingly at the food and held my doughnut limply by my side. I got to the trays holding the sausages, hams and other breakfast meats and stopped. I stared at them morosely for who knows how long. My mind was in the process of elaborate visions of little farm animals frolicking through fields being lassoed by devil men on giant fire breathing horses when a flood of sausages filled one of the trays. I jumped back in surprise and looked up, my daydream fading before my eyes.

It was really no surprise—or shouldn't have been one—when I saw Ty standing there, standing on the other side of the table with a now empty bowl. But the sight of him still made my heart beat faster in its caging. He grinned at me, laughing at me.

I narrowed my eyes. "That wasn't very nice."

He grinned rakishly. I realized I'd never really seen him grin like that before. He ran a hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes. "I was just refilling the sausages," he said, holding up his bowl. "It's not any of my business if you were fantasizing about the meats."

"I didn't know you were the kitchen boy, too." I wanted to slap myself as I heard the next thing that came out of my mouth. And I had almost been doing so well at conversation with him! I mean, if you disregard the fact that it had started with me staring at the sausages…

Ty, for his part, only shrugged. I wondered if this was really Ty that I was talking to and not some bizarre evil twin… or good twin. "It's just one of my duties."

"You won't poison me, will you?" Since when are you on joking terms, Amy?

"Depends on the type of day I'm having," he said completely seriously. Oh yes, this was definitely Ty. But I guessed that he was in a good mood so far today. I found myself quite liking this Ty, and I think I may have actually smiled at him. He didn't exactly smile back but I figured we were making progress all the same.

"Amy!" I looked over my shoulder to see dad standing halfway out of the screen door and gesturing for me to hurry up.

I looked back up at Ty. "Ah, well. I guess I have to be going. I'll be seeing you later though, I guess."

"Yeah," Ty smirked. "Later. I've been looking forwards to it, Horse Whisperer." And then he was gone. Just like that he was walking away.

I scowled at his back as he walked away. Of course he was. Stupid, sadistic, good looking—

"So was that a romance I saw budding over the sausage patties?" Lou had sidled up beside me without my noticing it.

I started towards the door. "Shut up, Lou."

"Sorry," she tittered, obviously particularly enjoying herself. "They were sausage links. My fault."

I laughed darkly as I marched down the hill back towards the cabins. "You're wrong, Lou."

"I don't think so!" she sang brightly.

I ignored the rest of her taunting. Yes, Ty was fairly—or ridiculously—good looking. But he wasn't exactly the guy for me. And I wasn't looking for a relationship. Besides, he was clearly only interested in me as a substitute for cattle. Clearly there were no romantic intentions there. I don't even think you could safely call it friendship.

I trudged the rest of the way to the Jeep, the fight gone from my step. Lou managed to beat me there. As we pulled away from the ranch—the sign rustically proclaiming New Hopes Ranch above us—I wondered for the gazillionth time just what I had managed to get myself into. I turned in my seat and watch New Hopes Ranch fade in the distance behind us. Once I couldn't see it anymore, I turned back around in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest. I don't know what the ranch was giving me, but I would keep waiting for that new hope its sign promised visitors.

--

--

"This is ridiculous," I muttered, scuffing the toes of my sneakers in the dirt of the arena.

With the bright spotlights shining down into my eyes, and being forced to watch Ty sitting on the fence and fiddle—cool as a cucumber—with his lasso, I could imagine all too well how real cattle felt in similar arenas all around the west.

"What are you waiting for?" I eventually called out. He didn't answer, just kept turning that cursed rope around and around in his hands, probably attaching little pieces of barbed wire or electrodes. I had long since forgotten the relative normality that Ty had shown that morning. It was all a part of his game, I soon understood. So was this ignore-Amy-to-make-her-squirm thing he was doing now. He was playing it up and basking in at all. I, however, was ready to charge him, just like my cattle counterpart would surely have done by now.

Eventually he jumped from the fence rail with disturbing grace and made his way over to me in the center of the arena. He stopped directly in front of me, but continued to twirl the end of the lasso around. I folded my arms over my chest and waited. He didn't say anything though, just stared at me and kept spinning that lasso around.

"So…" I said.

"So."

I frowned. "Well can we just get this over with or what?"

"Usually the calf runs from the roper so… you could run, or something," he said easily.

No one was as good as confusing me as this man was. "Wait, what? Don't you need Blue?" He just stared at me and blinked. I sighed. "You know, a horse?"

"I was thinking we could start on the ground and work up to the horse," he surprised me by saying.

"Oh." I was sure my eyes must have been as wide as saucers.

Then that devilish look I knew so well came across his face as he lifted his head and looked up at me through his eyelashes. "Or we could just start with the horse…"

"N-no…" I stuttered, making myself concentrate on the situation at hand—which just happened to include my fate—and not how the light and the way his head was tilted threw his face into shadows that made him look even better… in a dark way that suited him almost too well. "No horse," I was almost too desperate. But somehow I did not delight in the experience of being lassoed and thrown to the grown by a man atop a horse.



"Very well then," he said. He lifted his head all the way and flicked his head to side to toss the hair from his eyes. His dark emerald eyes met with mine and I was powerless to look away. In that moment I could see so much in his eyes that I wouldn't have been able to break the gaze even if I had wanted to.

With our eyes still locked together, he lifted his arm and started swinging the lasso around over his head. I didn't even notice it leave his hand until I felt it fall over my head and past my shoulders. I jerked my eyes away from Ty's to find my body entrapped in his rope. I lifted my arms and took a step back just as Ty jerked the rope towards him. I gasped as the lasso tightened around my waist and I stumbled back forwards a step. I would have been met with a face full of sand but Ty's arm caught me around the waist. I stared at him as he righted me on my feet, too shocked by the quick line of events to do or say anything at all. He loosened the rope from around my waist and lifted it over my head.

"Next time," he said, appraising me calmly as if nothing at all had just happened, "I suggest you run."

--

--

An hour later I was wishing I had been a little more dedicated in the weight room at school. Or that I had joined the track team. Just anything that could have saved me from this last bout of utter mind wrenching humiliation.

I was on my back in the sand—as if that wasn't already bad enough—with the lasso around my waist, digging into the skin of my waist. Ty was kneeling by my side and had both my wrists gripped in one hand. I tried to twist them free but he was too strong.

"God," I moaned as he reached down to my legs and pulled one leg up by my ankle. I tilted my face into my shoulder to hide its raging blush. "This is ridiculous. Do you really have to do this?"

He jerked my other leg through the sand until it was also even with my stomach. "Yes," his voice was muffled as he pressed my wrists down into my ankles.

"This is probably illegal in some places," I said desperately as the end of the rope that was still tightly latched to my waist slithered under my ankles and started to wrap around my ankles and wrists.

"Not here it isn't," he just said. He kept winding the rope around. I whimpered as he tied it off with a tight knot. He sat back in the sand and balanced his elbows on his knees once he was done and just watched me lay there in the sand, completely tied up and unable to move.

I writhed around and tried to free myself but quickly gave up. He'd tied me up too tight. I settled on just glaring at him.

"Well that was fun," he finally said, running a hand through his hair.

"Fun," I snorted. "Untie me now please."

In typical Ty fashion though, all he did was stare at me. I don't know what I expected from him though, but I had just spent an hour running back and forth and being jerked about by that piece of rope he liked to swing about. Aside from the rub marks I was sure I had on my waist from where my sweatshirt had ridden up, it hadn't been as bad as I had feared. At least not until this last time when Ty apparently forgot that I was still a person and not an actual calf. He had pulled me to the ground and roped my legs and arms together.

"Hog tied," his soft voice broke the silence.

Now all I could do was blink. It was as though he was reading my thoughts. "Excuse me?"



"Never thought you'd end up hog tied, did you?" he asked me wickedly. His eyes glittered under the spotlights and he dropped his legs to sit with them crossed Indian style.

"Not everyone has a mind as twisted as yours."

"Not everyone is as gifted either," he countered with.

I groaned and dropped my head back onto the sand. My body was twisted at an awkward angle with my head and my shoulders mostly straight but my back and legs twisted to the right. It was beginning to become uncomfortable and my neck and shoulders were feeling the brunt of the pain from it.

"Really though, untie me? Please?"

"I quite like you in this position though," he mused and my heart raced.

"The calves are only kept tied up for like two seconds in actual rodeos," I said logically, staring up at the cloudless, starry sky and not at him staring at me. "And if you don't let me out I won't be able to help you tomorrow night," I blurted out before I could think.

"You'd do this again?" he clearly didn't believe me. Maybe he'd tied me up just for this reason…

"Yes." No… yes… oh, I don't know anymore! "Just untie me."

He watched me contemplatively for another moment before kneeling next to me again. His hands made quick work of the knots around my hands and feet and as soon as I kicked the loose end away from me I shimmied out of rest of the lasso. I grabbed it in my hand and threw it in Ty's direction, he caught it easily.

I pulled myself into a sitting position and mirrored his crossed legs. I let my hair out from its ponytail and the shook it and ran my hands threw it, getting as much sand out as I could. Once I was done I leaned back and braced my weight on my arms. I sighed and looked back up at the sky.

We were silent for a long time but the endless night sky had me mesmerized. "What are you thinking about?" his voice was so quiet that I almost didn't catch it. And even though I did hear it, I wasn't sure it was actually him that I heard speak.

I jerked my head forward to look at him, to see if I should expect a biting comment. He seemed sincere enough though, and was just watching me with a sort of expression on his face that I couldn't name. I had never seen it there before. I tilted my head back again. "Just the sky," I decided to answer him honestly. "It's so pretty out here. So endless. I feel like I could look at it for ever and—wait!" I looked back at him just in time to see him get to his feet and walk away. "Where are you going?"

He didn't answer, not that I was surprised. I was too shocked to move. And I was also curious about what he was going to do. If he was leaving me here… well, I'd come up with something. I watched him walk across the arena towards one end and then all the lights went out and I was sitting in complete and total darkness.

Sitting there on the ground in the dead of the night, in the middle of the Colorado mountains, I felt very small. I could see the looming outlines of the mountains and the shadowy shapes of the spotlights and fence but nothing else. My hearing was heightened and I was absorbed in listening to the new sounds of the night: the rustle of the wind, the animals in the bushes, the bugs, the rocks falling against each other.

What I didn't notice however was Ty coming back over to me and when his shadow crossed over me and I looked up slowly to see a large figure looking down on me it gave me such a fright that I let out a little startled shriek and tumbled backwards. Ty laughed, as he would I suppose, and sat down across from me again.



Lying on my back, I noticed the sky again, and this time I couldn't help but gasp. In the dark it was so much better! It really was endless. There was the moon over there and all the stars twinkling. It gave the land some light in the dark.

"Sometimes I wish I had paid more attention to the constellations in school," I said wistfully as I stared up at the stars. I would have loved to be able to pick out the Big Dipper and Pegasus…

"Yes," Ty agreed with me. "That would be one useful thing, wouldn't it?" his voice was still soft.

"The sky here is so big. I'm not used to seeing so much sky," I laughed a little. "I live in Virginia and there are just so many trees, you can never see this much of the sky or this many stars."

"It's something you can't leave behind once you have it," Ty said. "It was my favorite part of Colorado when I first came here."

"Where did you move from?" I chanced my luck by asking.

He was silent for a moment before answering. "Philadelphia."

"Oh. Not much sky there," I joked.

"No," he said, but his voice was bitter. "Not much sky at all."

"Do you think you would ever go back there?" I asked tentatively after a minute.

"No," he said. "There's nothing for me there. And once you have the freedom of the west you can't give it back. Don't know why anyone would want to either."

We lapsed into silence again but it was comfortable, not strained or awkward. I smiled, pleased at our first substantial conversation with no arguing or critical words in sight. I threaded my fingers together behind my head and lay back in the sand to look up at the stars a little easier. After a moment I decided to stretch my legs out too. I sighed as my muscles relaxed themselves but froze as my foot bumped against something.

It was Ty, I just knew it was. Well of course it is, Amy!! What else would it be? I stayed absolutely still for several breath taking moments. My heart was pounding in my ears. I don't know what I was expecting him to do. Stomp on my foot, tease me, worse? But he didn't do any of the things my imagination conjured up. In fact, what he did do made me wonder if I was hallucinating. Maybe he'd pulled the lasso a little too tight one too many times…

He moved his leg so that my foot wasn't just touching the toe of his shoe, it was leaning against his ankle. My thoughts and my heart were in a complete frenzy at this completely unexpected action on his part.

I didn't want to say anything to break the spell, so our silence remained. I smiled up at the stars. This western vacation wasn't turning out be half bad. If this all resulted in some sort of bizarre friendship—or an understanding at the very least—with Ty, and I managed to avoid ending up hog tied again, I might even end up liking it.

a/n: a chapter finished!! :jumps for joy: I thought it was pretty good too. REVIEW!! (and remember to check out that new story I recommended…) –Steph