I forgot how much happened in this chapter, which is why it took a bit longer to edit. I'm so glad I'm going back, because it's been a while and I made a lot of spelling errors (yikes). But we're back and in business!

When Lyndy arrived back at Heartland after spending the night at Big River Ranch post-cattle roundup, it was all Lily could do to not scream out her newly discovered news; well at least until Lyndy got inside the house.

"Lyndy!" Lily came tearing out of the house, shoeless and in high spirits.

Lyndy didn't know what Lily was so excited about and just thought it was because her older sister had returned home. "Hey Lilybug," Lyndy picked up Lily. Despite the fact that Lily was six and Lyndy was eleven, it wasn't hard for Lyndy to lift the younger sibling.

"Guess what?" Lily wriggled out of her sister's arms and pulled her towards the house. "Katie kissed a boy!"

Lyndy wasn't expecting that to come out of her sister's mouth, and she froze for a split second. "Wait who?" Lyndy gaped at her older cousin, who was standing on the porch. It wasn't that shocking, but Lyndy hadn't been around anyone who was young and in love like Katie. Just her parents, who were in love, but not as young as they used to be anymore.

Lily couldn't contain her secret any longer. "Katie kissed Brick!" It seemed like such gossip for the six year-old, and Lyndy almost laughed.

"Good for you. He's family, you do realize." Lyndy got over her surprise, and softly punched Katie in the arm. She was referring to Wyatt and Georgie's marriage. Technically, since Wyatt and Brick were siblings and Wyatt had married Georgie, Katie's sister, it made Katie and Brick siblings-in-law. But Jenn and her boys had always seemed like close friends of the family and Brick had always had an eye for Katie. So in a way, it wasn't so shocking after all.

"Oh please, it's just one date." Katie rolled her eyes but she was secretly pleased. Brick had texted her and asked if she was available that evening to go out. She had replied trying to sound casual, although she was really bursting with excitement.

"But one can lead to another…" Lyndy trailed off as her mom and dad appeared on the porch.

"Hey honey!" Amy smiled and kissed her daughter's head. Ty ruffled Lyndy's hair and opened the screen door for her.

"Breakfast's on the table. How was Grandpa's?" Ty asked.

"Fun! The cattle's doing good too." Lyndy watched as another car pulled into the driveway. "TJ! I think Esme's here!" she called into the house.

"I saw." TJ hugged his sister too. "Good to see you Lynn," he said, using her shortened name, knowing it bugged her the most.

"You too, Timothy." Lyndy rolled her eyes, as she knew that name got on her brother's nerves as well.

TJ ignored his sister and ran out to meet Ezme. "Hey Ezzy, wanna tack up and go for a ride?"

"Sure!" Ezzy waved over at the rest of TJ's family who was still on the porch. "Hey everyone!"

"Hi Esme!" They all coursed back.

TJ didn't want his family to be a part of his day with Esme, so he quickly pulled her towards the barn. "You wanna tack up Princess? I checked with Lily earlier and you can borrow her today." TJ looked over at Esme and noticed she looked worried. "You okay?"

Esme nodded. "Just a bit nervous to exit the ring. But I'll be fine." She smiled at TJ.

"You'll be great." He patted her awkwardly on the back.

While the nine year-olds were tacking up, Lyndy was hearing all the details of Katie's talk with Brick.

"What are you gonna do?" Lyndy asked, fiddling with her braids.

"I'm not sure, maybe go into town for a movie then dinner with the family?" Katie hadn't been on a date before, and had no ideas whatsoever.

From the horrified look on Lyndy's face, Katie realized her ideas apparently weren't "date material". "For heaven's sake Katie, you can't have dinner with the family while on a date! The movie was a good idea though. Then maybe a picnic off the back of Dad's truck? He and Mom did that many times when they were younger." Lyndy was referring to the old, beat up, dark blue collector's truck sitting in the loft's driveway. It was still driveable, although it wasn't used often; only when their parents went out on date or with just Lyndy, as she was the only one old enough to sit in the front seat.

"But I can't drive. In New York you don't drive a car, so I only have my learning permit from when I visited last summer."

"Then let Brick drive, I know for a fact that he's got his N plate. Jenn was telling my dad the other day when she came to the clinic." Lyndy rolled her eyes. Sometimes her cousin could be so clueless, unless this time she was lovestruck and not acting senseless.

"You know Lyndy, you should seriously start a business in planning dates. I really like your idea." Katie smiled and raced off to grab her phone, which Lyndy assumed was to call Brick with her plans.

"Lyndy, can you please keep an eye on Lily for a couple hours? Your dad's just gone to check on a cattle herd just up the road and I need to head into town to meet with a possible client. You guys can ride in the ring if you want." Amy looked at Lyndy, who smiled at her younger sister.

"Sure Mom, Lily has been dying for me to teach her to ride a bit more. We'll tack up and head out right now." Lyndy grabbed her jacket that she had shed minutes earlier and Lily jumped up to grab her riding boots.

Amy patted Lyndy's head. "Thanks sweetheart." She loved how all her kids got along and liked to help each other. And their close ages helped too. Amy and Lou had been so far apart, so they had less in common growing up. "Don't forget, TJ and Esme are going out on a trail ride soon, so they won't be in contact for a bit. I think TJ has one of my walkie talkies, though. The other is in the office," Amy called, as the two girls left the house, eager to start jumping.

"Okay Mom!" Lily raced with Lyndy over to the barn.

When they reached the barn, TJ and Esme were tacked up and just about to leave on their trail ride. "Hey TJ, Esme," Lyndy rushed over to Farland's stall. "Please grab the saddle off the tack wall Lily."

"We'll be back by two-thirty at the latest," TJ said, giving Esme a leg up on Princess. He kneeled on the ground, one leg up, and Esme used his leg as a stool to reach the stirrup. Princess wasn't that tall, and neither was TJ, so Esme managed to reach the stirrup without trouble.

"Sounds good. You got the lunch Mom packed?" Lyndy questioned her brother.

"In the saddle bag." TJ gestured to Arlo's saddle bag which was bursting with supplies for their ride.

"Sweet. See y'all later!" Lyndy disappeared into the office with Lily, going to grab a bridle.

Outside the barn, TJ used the fence to get on Arlo. Then he and Esme headed into the woods behind the main house. Their chatter was lively and jokes were thrown right and left.

"What do you call a man with no limbs in water?" This was TJ asking.

"I don't know.," Esme replied.

"Bob!" TJ thought this was hilarious and slapped his thigh, which accidentally startled the horses. "Sorry guys," he said, stroking Arlo's neck to calm his horse down.

"Haha, good one." Esme thought for a moment. "What do you call a man with no limbs on a wall?"

TJ thought for a moment. "You got me there," he said, giving up.

"Art!" This time it was Esme who laughed.

The pair continued to walk their horses through the trail, stopping every now and then to examine the scenery or a certain pretty flower. By the time the sun was high in the sky, TJ and Esme were a long way away from Heartland. They decided to take a lunch break before returning home.

"What did Amy pack for us?" Esme asked, sliding off Princess and tying her reins to the nearest tree. Despite only just learning the basics of riding yesterday, she was quite enjoying the nature part of the ride and hardly forgot to be scared of the huge animal she was riding.

TJ dug out the mesh lunch bag and pawed through it. "Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, an apple for each of us, including the horses, and some cookies for dessert. Dig in!" He offered Esme a plastic bag with her half of the lunch.

"Can I give Princess her apple now?" Esme asked, reaching into her bag and pulling out a bright red apple.

"Sure. I'll demonstrate with Arlo." TJ walked over to his horse and held out his hand flat, palm facing up, so that the apple rested upright. Arlo stretched his neck greedily, and in one quick bite, he snatched the apple up and started chewing. "Your turn," TJ handed Esme the other apple.

"Okay." Esme copied TJ's example and Princess had the same reaction as Arlo. But some juice sprayed out of her mouth and hit Esme in the face. "Yuck!" Esme cried, swiping at her face, clearly disgusted.

TJ on the other hand, thought this was hilarious. "Now that's horse life Ezzy," he said.

"So not funny, Timothy." Esme half glared at her best friend.

"Oh c'mon!" TJ returned the stare, but the two couldn't hold their frowns for long. Seconds later, they both burst out with a fit of giggles. They laughed so hard that by the time their giggle subsided, they were both rolling around on the floor

"I have an idea. Let's pack up our lunch and then head to that pretty overlook about a mile back." TJ stood up and offered his hand to Esme.

"Sounds good. I'm not quite hungry yet anyways." Esme accepted TJ's hand and stood up in one motion.

They climbed on their horses, Esme using TJ as a stool again and TJ using a nearby rock, and turned back towards Heartland. But little did they know, their day wouldn't be as perfect as they thought.

...

Lily and Lyndy had spent the morning and early afternoon jumping. Princess wasn't a jumping horse yet due to her age, so it worked out that Esme had taken her out on the trail. Farland on the other hand, had been an experienced show jumper before retiring from it years earlier because he wasn't as good as he used to be. He was still young and feisty, which is why Amy had brought home the buckskin gelding for her eldest daughter.

Lily liked trotting over poles and Lyndy set up a small jump no higher than a ruler length off the ground. She gently coached Lily and Farland over it at a trot. To Lyndy's surprise, Lily was a natural at jumping, with no fear whatsoever. So by the time Lyndy called for a break just before three, Lily was flying over foot high jumps.

Ty came home just as Lily was finishing her last jump. He stopped his truck at the beginning of the driveway and watched his two daughters. He was lucky to have them, and TJ too. He remembered when he was a juvenile delinquent, trying not to be arrested again. Back then, he never would have imagined his life now. But he wouldn't have traded it for the world because all those bumps in the road had shown him what to hold close to him and to not take anything for granted.

"Daddy! Did you see me fly over those jumps?" Lily pulled Farland to a stop at the edge of the fence surrounding the ring.

"I sure did! Great job sweetheart!" Ty headed over to his girls. Lyndy high fived her sister and Lily climbed off Farland and landed on the ground.

"Dad, what time is it?" Lyndy asked, looking up at the sky. The sun was high overhead, a lot higher than Lyndy would have liked. By two-thirty, the time TJ and Esme were supposed to have been home, the sun shouldn't have been so high.

"Uhh, it's three-oh-six. Why?" Ty looked expectantly at his daughter.

A look of surprise crossed Lyndy's face, but only for a brief moment. "No reason."

Lily decided to break the silence. "Can we go in and have a snack?"

"Sure honey. Mom texted and said she wouldn't be home until this evening, so dinner's going to be late. Let's go in and find something." Ty said.

"We'd better go untack Farland before we eat." Lyndy grabbed her horse's reins and started walking towards the ring exit. Then she looked over her shoulder as she was closing the ring gate. "Lily, you can go in with Dad. I need a minute to myself."

Lily shrugged. "Okay," she replied. Ty gave his eldest daughter a concerned glance. What was going on with Lyndy? She certainly wasn't the same person she was seconds ago.

"Hey, Lily, you go into the house, I'm gonna go talk to your sister." Ty patted Lily's shoulder. "Nice jumping honey."

"Thanks Daddy!" Lily raced for the house and Ty aimed to catch up with Lyndy before she disappeared into the barn. But Lyndy was fast and by the time Ty caught up, she was already pulling off Farland's saddle.

"Lyndy? What's the matter honey? A second ago, you were smiling and congratulating your sister. Now you need a moment to yourself and you look worried. What's going on?" Ty asked, genuinely concerned for Lyndy. He had never been around eleven year-old girls, and although he knew lots, he didn't know everything.

But Lyndy was far from emotional problems. She knew something was up and decided to spill. "Dad, I think TJ and Esme are lost."

...

TJ didn't know where he and Esme went wrong. One moment they were on the trail that he remembered, the next they were clearing their own path in the deeper part of the endless forest. TJ was trying to stay calm, mainly to not freak Esme out, but finally he decided she deserved his honest opinion.

"Ezzy, I hate to say this, but I think we're lost." TJ said nervously. He was starting to worry and for once didn't have a plan.

"We are?" Ezzy looked around with wide eyes. "You sure the path isn't up ahead?"

"I'm sure. We're walking in circles. I'm sorry, if I hadn't suggested we pack up our lunch and head to the outlook, we probably wouldn't be lost." TJ sighed. Why oh why did the bad things always happen to him?

"It's not your fault, I was keen to go as well. If it's anything I learned from survival camp last summer, it was to stay calm and not throw around whose fault it was. That can be saved for later, when you're safe at home." Esme replied, trying to make a joke of the last part.

TJ pulled short on Arlo's reins. "Wait, you took a survival camp last summer?"

Esme nodded. "Yeah, when you called and said that you wouldn't be able to do it with me because you were going to France to see your great grandpa, my parents sent me anyway. They thought it would be good knowledge to have and would allow me to make new friends. I guess they are going to be right about the info part!"

"That's a relief!" TJ sighed, knowing that any knowledge Esme consumed, she remembered, no matter how small or how large. That's why she aced tests without a struggle; she somehow managed to remember every little detail.

"So we need to start by tying some flags around, something bright and possibly visible from all directions. Just in case someone sees them from the main path or whatever. They also tell us where we've been so we don't retrace our steps more than we need to." Esme started digging through the saddle bag attached to Princess's saddle.

TJ did the same with Arlo's. All he found was the bag of food, (at least they wouldn't be hungry,) and the walkie talkie. "Hey, look! We can use this to contact my mom and dad!"

"Good idea! Keep trying to find a coloured rag or something. Pass me the walkie talkie; I'll see if it works." Esme stretched out her arm and TJ passed her the device. TJ didn't find anything colourful in his saddlebags, so he nudged Arlo closer to Princess to continue searching Esme's.

"Here's something!" TJ exclaimed, pulling out an old yellow t-shirt of Lily's.. It looked like someone had used it to wipe up horse slobber months earlier, but the yellow colour was still distinct. Plus there was a dirty white shirt that most likely was Ty's. "How about I rip it into strips?"

"Sounds good." Esme was still trying to turn the walkie talkie on. Then she flipped it over and popped a hatch on the back. "Well we have a problem."

TJ gulped; that didn't sound good. Especially since Esme hardly ever said that. "What?" he asked cautiously.

"There are no batteries in the device so we have no way to communicate with Heartland. And I don't have a cell phone and I know for a fact that neither do you." Esme looked up at TJ, who had frozen halfway through ripping Lily's old shirt in pieces.

"We're never going to get out!" TJ wailed. He knew he was acting like a baby, but it was scary to be out in the woods without an adult, the sun threatening to set soon.

"Calm down TJ! I'll get us out, don't worry. I didn't get my level five survival badge for nothing!" Esme rolled her eyes. Sometimes she wondered if she was the braver one in their friendship, although TJ normally disagreed.

"But what if you can't? Then we'll have to stay here overnight and there's bears and cougars in these woods! I know that because Dad had to set a trap for one once! We're gonna die!"

Esme normally had a lot of patience, but TJ's sobs had started to rub off on her slightly. "Shut up Timothy Jackson! If you keep screeching like that, I'm going to get off this horse and leave you here all by yourself! If you don't want that, then listen carefully and do exactly as I say, alright?" Esme glared at her best friend.

TJ swallowed a sob. He wiped at his cheeks and nodded silently at Esme. He wasn't going to mention it to anyone, but Esme was kinda scary when she got mad!

"Good. I want you to continue to shred that shirt. Long strips lengthwise please. And once your done, we'll head left and tie a piece of shirt every few yards. Also, we should talk loudly, in case anyone nearby can hear us. If we have to, when the sun starts to depart, we'll camp under a large tree and find grass for the horse. Okay? Okay." Esme slid off Princess and started to fix her reins to Arlo's saddle. "I'll walk and tie the strips to the trees. You follow close behind and keep up the conversation in a loud voice," she ordered.

"Okay." TJ handed her the strips of shirt and made sure Princess's reins were tied on tight, before starting to walk after Esme. "How was the rodeo circuit?" he asked, voice shaking a little with nerves. No chance he was going to start crying again, as he didn't want Esme yelling at him again.

There was a pause as Esme tied a strip to a nearby branch. "It was good! Dad won the majority of the competitions he entered. I was proud." Esme smiled as she remembered something funny that had happened. "There was this one man who everyone called Bucked-off Bill. No matter what horse he drew for the bronc riding, he always was bucked off within the first five seconds! It got so bad people were betting how fast it would take before he ended up on the ground. I actually hung out with him when Dad talked to his other friends. He had tons of stories to tell me and was surprisingly good at conversation."

"Sounds like fun. The other day, my mom worked with a horse that was on the circuit. Apparently the rider was given my mom's name by your dad." TJ told Esme.

"Yeah, Dad does that a lot whenever someone complains about their horse. He's really thankful to all the help Amy gave him back when he was young." Esme peered up at the sky. "Looks like the sun's getting lower. I say we finish tying these strips, then we find somewhere to make camp."

"Okay." TJ didn't want to think of what might happen if they didn't find a road within the next few minutes. They continued on for another fifteen minutes or so, tying strips and talking about random things.

It was then that Esme heard a whir, which sounded like a car on a paved road! "TJ! I think I found the road!" she exclaimed, dashing between trees towards the noise.

"I don't hear anything," TJ complained, thinking Esme was just being hopeful. But that wasn't the case. As he nudged Arlo forward, he too caught a glimpse of the highway.

"We did it! Now we can follow the road to Heartland!" Esme cheered, and reached up to high five TJ.

"No need to do that," a deep voice said behind them. A buckskin coloured coat entered TJ's vision. He turned his head and saw that Lyndy was there with Farland and his dad on Harley. "We found you guys and know how to get home."

TJ's mouth dropped open in surprise. "Dad!" he shouted, and slid to the ground. He ran over to hug his dad, just as Ty slid to the ground as well. Their embrace lasted at least a minute, but Esme was glad to see someone familiar.

"How did you guys find us?" TJ asked, stepping back from his dad.

"Lyndy realized that you weren't home by the time you were supposed to be, and tried to radio you. Then she thought that you must have gotten lost, so we tacked up and went in the direction of where you left. It was thanks to your brilliant idea of the cloth markers we managed to catch up!" Ty praised.

TJ smiled. "The markers actually wasn't my idea. It was Esme's."

Ty looked over at Cass and Caleb's daughter. "You are a very smart girl Esme, well done. Without your quick thinking, we may not have found you so fast. I'll be sure to tell your dad what a fantastic job you did."

"Thanks," Esme said, slightly embarrassed about how much praise she was getting.

"You know where the trail is?" TJ asked, hauling himself back into the saddle, after giving Esme another leg up on Princess.

"Yep, just a few hundred yards from the direction we came in. You guys weren't too far off track." Ty squeezed his heels into Harley's side. "Let's go home. I know for a fact that Lily and Katie will be wondering where we are." Ty led the way with Esme right behind. TJ fell back to walk closer to his sister.

"Thanks for coming to rescue me. I'm sorry for teasing you earlier. Siblings are meant to be there for each other, which is what you just demonstrated.." TJ said, giving Lyndy a sideways glance.

Lyndy looked at her horse's mane. "It's all good TJ. Brothers and sisters are also meant to be able to have arguments but forgive easily. So that's what I'm doing. I don't know what I'd do without you or Lily."

It was funny, but when TJ had been scared about not making it home before dark, he was also worried about his sisters. Sure, he spent most of his time with them, either at home or with one of his parents as well, but they helped shape who he was. And not that it was Esme's fault, but sometimes he forgot about his sisters when he got a choice between them or Esme. So he decided to make them a priority because like all siblings, they completed him, in more ways than one.

Who remembers what happens in the next chapter? I'll tell you: we get some interesting phone calls. You'll have to wait and see who they're from…

find me on tumblr at thedefinitionofendgame. thanks for reading!