CHAPTER 11

Sunlight began to filter through the curtains at the east end of the room. Ty lay awake and tried to readjust his mind to the events of the past few hours. 'What a difference a day can make!' he was thinking in amazement. He needed to unload the thoughts which had been weighing him down. Everything was different now. For the first time in a long time he felt like Amy was really committed to him and their relationship as future husband and wife. There would be a lot of things to sort out over the next few days and months. They still hadn't talked about how long she was staying, but now he was full of hope again, and it felt good!

Amy was curled up against him with her head resting on a pillow over his left arm. Her left hand was on his chest tracing small circles with her fingers while she slept. As soon as he could see her in the pale light, Ty just laid still and watched her sleep. 'My God, you are so beautiful.' He was thinking.

The glow of light soon woke Amy and she looked around for a few seconds trying to remember where she was, thinking it had to have been a dream, being back in Alberta with Ty. Looking at her hand placed on Ty's bare skin made her realize that her dream was real and she quickly raised her eyes toward her fiancée.

"Hello, beautiful." Ty said, smiling. "Good morning."

"Hey, good morning….Have I told you yet today that I love you?" she said, smiling back.

"I was beginning to think that you were never going to tell me."

She pinched him with her fingers and laughed.

"Well, this is the way I want to wake up from now on." She told him.

"Nothing that being a few thousand miles closer to home won't fix." He joked.

Amy raised her head up to look him in the eye.

"We are going to need to decide pretty soon what I am going to do about that."

"Do you mean when you are going back to Europe?"

"Yeah, or IF I am going back at all." She said.

"Let's just forget about that for a little while longer." Ty proposed. "I'm not done welcoming you home just yet."

Georgie, Lou and Peter's adopted 12 year old daughter, was finishing up the morning chores when she saw Ty's old blue truck winding down the driveway toward the house. She watched it as it pulled past her and she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Amy!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

Lou came running through the front door with Jack close behind thinking that Georgie must have been hurt. They both stopped in their tracks at the sight of the unexpected driver opening the door and stepping out to the ground.

"Amy?" Wh-hat are you doing here?" Lou cried.

They all ran together and made a huge family hug.

"I asked Ty if I could drive. I have ridden in the back of cars since I've been gone and I just wanted to see if I'd forgotten how." She told her family.

"When did you get back?" Jack asked his granddaughter.

"Yesterday afternoon." She answered.

Lou immediately raised her eyebrows at her sister and gave her a knowing look and smile.

Amy tried to ignore the implication, blushed, and kept talking.

"We had a short break so I asked if I could take a trip back home for a few days. Ty and I will talk about it to see when, or if I go back."

"Come on into the house." Jack motioned.

Georgie began with questions regarding the horses Amy had been working with and Lou wanted to know about the places she had seen. The talk was moving along at a rapid pace when Tim came through the front door.

"Hey, my own daughter doesn't tell her old man when she gets back from a three month trip?" He complained light heartedly.

Ty cringed at Tim's arrival, but he was in a great mood and figured he could take whatever the antagonist could dish out.

It wasn't any more than five minutes and Tim asked Amy, "What are you doing here, anyway? Don't you have some more time left on that trip?"

"Yes, I have five more weeks until the championship weekend in Lyon, France. There are stops in Spain, Abu Dhabi, Italy, and then finally France.

"Well, it sounds like quite an adventure. Why would you want to come back here and live with the peasants when you have been living like royalty for so long?" Tim took his obligatory jab at Ty.

Amy took hold of Ty's arm and gave it a firm squeeze, reminding him to let it go.

"Com'on Amy, why are you taking a stupid chance like this to put your relationship with the Prince at risk?"

Ty got up and walked directly toward Tim.

"Outside, NOW!" he demanded of his future father in law.

"Just hold on a minute there, Ty. What are you getting so worked up about?" Tim deflected the intent.

"Get up, or I am going to drag you outside, so help me God!"

Now, Tim having been challenged by the younger bull in the herd, was getting riled up. He rocked forward and strode through the front door, banging it around against the side of the house.

"Ty, please, don't do this." Amy begged, unsure how a fight would turn out between her fiancée and her father, but she couldn't see a good outcome, no matter what happened.

"Amy, let him go." Jack motioned to his granddaughter. "Maybe it's best to let them settle this now. I will make sure they don't kill each other." He said with a half-cocked grin.

Tim stepped off the front porch and turned around to find Ty's hands at his shirt collar with a firm grip. He made an attempt to jerk free but the younger man had him and was not going to let go easily.

"This is where it stops!" Ty told him as he placed his face inches in front of surprised cowboy. "You are not going to be talking down to your son in law ever again, are you Tim? "Or else your son in law is going to kick your sorry ass until you remember to give him some respect!"

The five time All Around Rodeo Champion drew his fist to take a swing and in a split second he was flat on his back after Ty landed a solid blow squarely on his jaw.

Lou and Amy flew off the front porch side by side in a flash, Lou kneeling beside her dad and Amy grabbing Ty around the waist in an attempt to calm him down.

It only took one punch for Ty to make the point that he needed to make. Lou helped her dad to his feet and the two middleweights stood and looked at each other for a few seconds when Tim offered his hand toward the man who wanted to marry his youngest daughter.

"Hot damn, I knew you had it in ya!" he bragged.

The sisters turned simultaneously to their Grandfather, still leaning against one of the posts holding the roof over the front porch, and shrugged their shoulders in a 'what the hell?' motion, demanding some sort of justification for not stopping the whole fiasco.

"He simply turned around and opened the front door, looked back at his granddaughters, and smirked, "That's what I'm talkin' about!" and went on inside, letting the door swing shut behind him.