When Mitch came back to Heartland after serving the Dude Ranch guests their breakfast, he saw Tim, Jade and Lyndy leaning against the fence, watching Amy as she lunged a horse in the pen. It looked like Jade had come to babysit the little girl so Amy could get some work done. As per usual, Lyndy was captivated by the sight of her mother around horses, and Jade kept close by, making sure the girl wouldn't get any ideas and climb through the fence to her mommy to mimic what she was doing.

Mitch smiled at the sight as it felt like things weren't as bad for Amy as she had probably thought last night. She had people around her, willing to help, and she still had her horses and the passion for working that took her mind out of the dark clouds over her head.

While it looked like Amy was probably preoccupied for the next few hours and that left them no time to talk about things, Mitch figured maybe they needed to take some time for themselves to think things through. The whole thing was still a bit of a surprise for both of them - Mitch assumed - so there were no easy answers to any of the questions they were probably mulling over their heads right now.

Mitch knew himself not to be the most patient guy in the world in the past, especially when it came to relationships, but he was trying to become better at it. This was going to be one of those things he wasn't going to rush, no matter the direction things were going to take.

As he parked his truck in front of the Quonset hut and stepped out to take the Styrofoam box back inside the ranch house, Tim tried to catch up with him, taking long strides to reach Mitch.

"Wait. We need to talk", the older cowboy said. He soon reached Mitch. The young cowboy glanced over his shoulder, feeling his heart beat faster all of a sudden. Surely Amy had not told anything to Tim...? Surely?

"What is it?" Mitch asked as they got on the porch.

"I just wanted you to know that it's been done", Tim said. Mitch tried to read the expression from his face. It looked like he was secretive and yet somehow excited.

"What's been done...?" Mitch asked, puzzled.

"I called Garland, told him we'd accept his offer", Tim explained.

Mitch sighed. "Why would you do that?" His tone was suddenly full of frustration.

Tim looked confused and had clearly not expected this type of reaction. He spread his arms, as if Mitch was somehow attacking him verbally and he was an innocent man.

"What do you mean why? I thought we agreed." He then slapped Mitch's chest playfully, as if asking him to play along.

"Not really. We talked about it", Mitch pointed out. "But there was no agreement before Jack- Before Jack had his heart attack." He felt like the whole business arrangement really wasn't the most important thing right now anyway. They had to make sure Jack was okay first before they could move along.

"Well, Jack basically agreed, if we'd get the herd checked. And you know Garland needed the answer right now, so I couldn't wait", Tim tried to justify his action to go forward. "So, I gave him the answer. He was happy."

Tim seemed delighted as well.

"I'm not. I doubt Jack is either", Mitch said. "The herd has not been checked yet, so this is not at all what Jack wanted. We can't just accept the offer and trust the herd to be suitable for our needs. What happens when they're not what we are looking for? We'd be putting everything at risk and not be able to meet Garland's demands. I have to side with Jack on this; I'm open to expanding, but we need to be reasonable about it."

"Then we'll just find another herd until we find one Jack's happy with", Tim suggested, thinking he had it all figured out.

"Even if we did, we..." Mitch shook his head, sighing. "This is not how this should work. We have a partnership together. We can't just make decisions on our own and expect the others to be okay with them. - I'm calling Garland. I'm gonna tell him what the situation is and that we need to talk about this with Jack first - before we come to the final agreement."

He put the box down and pulled out his cellphone from his pocket.

"You know Garland's not gonna wait till Jack's feeling better", Tim said, hoping that would twist Mitch's arm back to his favor. "Who even knows when that's going to be! He, just like us, has a business to run. It can't wait for some old man to get better."

"Well then, maybe he shouldn't go with us. If he's in such hurry, then we're not the ones he should go forward with", Mitch said, looking up Garland's phone number.

"Wow, I really thought you would be able to understand this more than Jack. I really thought you were a forward-thinking guy", Tim tried to guilt-trip him, but it wasn't working, no matter how much it annoyed Mitch. "What happened to you taking risks?"

"I'm surprised you're not being more reasonable with this", Mitch pointed out, looking at Tim with almost some level of disgust. "Jack's not just "some old man", he's your family. He should be your priority, not this business. It's like you've waited for an opening to take over the decision making... Well, you're not calling the shots alone; even if Jack's taken a step back, I'm still here. - Not to mention, what if Jack had made a reckless decisions like this while you were recovering from your surgery? How would you have felt about that?"

"I am doing this for my family, for my girls and their girls", Tim tried to justify again, staring Mitch down, but the younger man wasn't flinching. "Fine... Call Garland! Ruin our chance to really take this to the next level", he said, martyrdom all over his face and gestures.

"I will", Mitch said, not giving into Tim's mind games. "I'm not going to be in a partnership that doesn't work anything like one. Just because Jack's not here to defend his side, doesn't mean we can just roll right over him."

Tim began walking away as Mitch placed his phone on his ear. He didn't like this kind of atmosphere, but there was no choice. Mitch knew that if he gave in once, the harder he made it for himself to come back to an equal level.


"Poor Jack..." Jade talked to Amy through the pen's fence as she and Lyndy watched Amy go around in the circle. Amy had filled her in on what had happened at the dinner last night and where Jack and Lisa were right now. "But he's going to be okay, right?"

"I hope so... We haven't heard much from them yet", Amy said. "They should come home later today."

"That's a good sign, right?" Jade figured.

"I think so", Amy agreed. "Lou's coming home too."

"Really?" Jade asked, then realizing it probably made sense, given the circumstances, even though her mind had not gone there yet. "Do you know how long she'll be? I kind of miss her... Don't get me wrong, I do like Jen, but she's... kind of strict manager. I guess it comes from having two sons. She doesn't really have that much trust in our abilities."

"I don't know yet. To be honest, we haven't really talked lately, I guess we've both been kind of busy with our lives", Amy said. She had conflicting feelings toward her sister now overall. Sometimes the support she got from Lou meant everything to her and the next minute the advice Lou was giving made her annoyed. Maybe that was just sisterhood in a nutshell.

"Do you know if Georgie's coming along? I mean, she has to, right?" Jade wondered. She hadn't seen her friend in months either, even if they kept in touch through phone and internet.

"Probably. I only know what my dad told me - which is not much", Amy said. "I haven't really had time to do anything else than eat breakfast and get my work day started."

"Suppose I could just text Georgie", Jade said, taking out her phone and texting to her bestie. When she was done, she put her phone back to her pocket, since it was still early in New York and Georgie wouldn't probably get back to her for the next few hours. Her eyes went to the little girl beside her. "So... Miss Lyndy - what would you like to do today?" She picked her up. "Do you want to go for a ride?"

"Yeah!" Lyndy said with excitement.

Amy smiled, hearing that.

"Actually, that's a good idea; Monty could really use some exercise", she said. It had been a while since they had done that and the little miniature horse was beginning to have a little bit of a hay belly even though they were taking good care of his diet.

"Okay, let's go get your pony ready", Jade said, walking inside the barn.

Amy kept exercising Bruni in the pen, making the horse change the direction every once in a while. She became aware of Mitch when he climbed few bars up so he could lean on the fence and watch her work.

"I'm going to run some errands in town, do you need any help here?" he asked after he was done loading empty gas canisters behind the back of his truck. "I know the farrier's coming today."

"I think I'll be okay. Dad said he'll be at Maggie's for few hours till he comes back here to help exercise the other horses", Amy said, glancing at Mitch for few seconds, while simultaneously trying to keep an eye on Bruni. "What did he want from you...?" she asked curiously.

"Just business stuff", Mitch said, sighing. "He's a piece of work..."

Amy hummed. "Oh, I know..."

Bruni went over a full circle until Amy continued. "So... nothing else?"

Mitch knew right away what she meant. "No. I think he didn't hear or notice anything out of the ordinary. I think everything's okay."

"Till Lou comes back", Amy said. "She's like a bloodhound. And I'm not a good at keeping secrets."

Amy felt nervous as she wasn't a very good liar, but she also didn't like keeping things from people in the first place. If this was any other guy, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, maybe she would have even talked about it with Lou, but this was Mitch.

No matter how much Lou had claimed to be over Mitch the last time she had been here, Amy still felt guilty. It wasn't like she had really even thought about Lou and Mitch as a couple for the longest time, especially now that she had seen Mitch as a friend first and foremost, but the fact still remained; her sister and Mitch had been dating. She had kissed her sister's ex-boyfriend last night.

How on earth had Lou been able to keep her kiss with Caleb from her for years, Amy wondered, even though at that point it had been years since she had even been involved with Caleb.

Still, it didn't seem like it had ever haunted Lou - or if it had, at least she herself had not been able to tell. She recalled now things being weird between Lou and Caleb once upon a time, but she had never imagined there had been a kiss involved. Why would she? It would have been the last thing she would have expected to have happened.

But maybe that was the thing.

Maybe she herself was blind to people's cues until they couldn't be more obvious.

It felt like Lou had somehow been able to call that something would happen with her and Mitch months ago even when she had not felt anything but friendship toward the man at that point. But it didn't seem like Mitch had really been "courting" her either; he had seemed just as surprised by these turn of events as she had been. Right...?

Was that how other people lived their lives? Amy thought about Lou's approach. They saw two people who were close and assumed that if they weren't already involved, they would be at some point? Would Lou had assumed the same thing if Mitch had been a woman?

The thought seemed so strange to Amy. Why was anyone so interested in other people's relationships in the first place? Surely everything wasn't always romantic or sexual, was it? It was not her experience at least, but then again Lou had always been different when it came to dating or things like this. It somehow came easier for her and it was like she somehow had a better sense how things worked and what she wanted. Lou saw possibilities everywhere, maybe even where there was none.

Amy herself felt more closed off and she wouldn't let just anyone in, even though some people had been able to slither into her head in the most unexpected ways. Her heart, that one she had always kept hidden away until she was ready to share it with someone. So far, in the romantic sense, she had only opened it up to only Ty. At some point she had thought she would be able to do that with Caleb until it had turned out that he and Ashley had become more closer than she had expected. Then it had been back to being closed off.

Or maybe Lou was just as lost as she was, seeing the current situation she was in, so she was trying to read all the cues she was getting, hoping to crack the code, Amy thought.

It did seem like none of Lou's relationships - and she had had more of them than Amy - had lasted that long, no matter how "street smart" she was - or claimed to be - about things. Maybe even when she had said that she was over Mitch, it had been her jealousy speaking when they had had the argument about Mitch bringing her home during New Years. But the thing was, she and Mitch had gotten into talking because of his panic attacks. Surely no one would consider panic attacks "romantic"... Right?

Maybe if she was Lou now, she wouldn't even feel so guilty about kissing Mitch. Had Lou felt weird kissing her ex-boyfriend back when her marriage with Peter had been falling apart?

Lou had never come clean about the whole thing, not even when she had thrown it on her sister's face during an argument - maybe Lou had never even planned on telling her about it. Maybe it had just been a thing that happened and that had been that. No need to tell her.

Amy understood the concept, as it was what had happened with her and Chase too. The high of the colt starting challenge had taken over her and Chase and suddenly they had kissed. But as soon as their lips had met, Amy had known that to be the wrong way to express her feelings of excitement as it obviously would give Chase the wrong idea. She had not had any romantic feelings toward the guy, but at the same she realized it would be easy for anyone to assume she had since they had just kissed. After what had happened, Amy had taken full responsibility of her actions and admitted she had made a mistake.

After the kiss, she had told Chase right away that shouldn't have happened and had hoped it would have been the end of it all, but it was only now, years later that she could see just how naive she had been about the whole thing; for guys like Chase, women wouldn't simply say no, unfortunately. Chase had been after all a playboy and much like his name, he had really enjoyed chasing women he found interesting, no matter whether they were interested in him or not. With his quick wit and charming looks, it had been easy for him to keep on going. If he had been someone who women wouldn't have found so "conveniently attractive", he would have been called a creepy harasser way faster because that was what he was. It was pretty incredible what kind of privilege people like him had with their behavior just because they looked handsome and seemed "harmless".

The longer Chase had stuck around, the more intimidated Amy had felt in his presence. She had not had the knowledge on how to deal with someone like him at that point of her life and it had taken a slap from her years later to snap him out of whatever he had thought their "relationship" to be. Even with a woman on his other arm, Chase had still thought she and him could be "something". Amy didn't think herself to be a person who would turn to violence when cornered, but it had become pretty clear to her by that point that it was the only way she could make him listen to her. Thankfully, that had worked and she had not heard from him since then. Still, Amy felt weird about it all and wished she had never met the guy, but maybe he was some type of lesson in the string of challenges the life had thrown on her way.

At the time, Amy had thought it had been easy to dismiss Chase, as there had been no feelings involved on her part, but telling Ty had been the worst. She had been in love with him and knew that he deserved to hear the truth of what had happened. When she had asked Lou's advice, her sister had told her not to tell him, but in the end Amy had ended up following her heart despite it being one of the hardest things she had ever done. But how do you tell someone you love something like that?

Amy had not known how, so she had just blurted it out that night at the barn office. She could almost still hear the silence ringing in her ears as soon as she had said Chase had kissed her. And it didn't take much for her to see with her mind's eye the tenseness in Ty's body as he had threatened to kill Chase before she had added she had been involved with the kiss too.

It had been horrible, she had felt sick and hopeless, but at the same time she had convinced herself that whatever feelings she would come to face after that, she would deserve them because she had done a wrong thing. Telling the truth was one of the foundations you built your relationship on top of after all - without it, there was not much hope for a trust or the future.

Looking back now, it almost made her laugh just how naive she had been about that too. Not only had Ty been keeping a secret about his kiss with Blair that had happened even before the Chase thing, but eventually he had ended up keeping a lot of other secrets too, all while trying to escape from the hurt and possible losses that would follow from being honest.

Stick to the truth, Amy told herself, watching Bruni's movements. It's always better than the alternative, no matter how much it hurts. Naivety is still better than being calculative with someone else's feelings.

"Maybe we should talk about it before she comes here", Mitch admitted.

Amy agreed. "Yeah, we should. Could you come over tonight after you're done with today's chores?" she suggested.

"Yeah, okay. You'll be at the loft?" he checked.

"Uh-huh."

"Okay. I'll see you then."

"Yeah. See you", Amy said, as Mitch climbed back down on the ground and returned to his truck.