It was late afternoon by the time Amy finally left the ranch house to head home. Ty would still be at work for another hour or so, which would leave her enough time to get back and see about starting something for dinner ,though options were pretty limited with their minimal kitchen appliances. But she didn't want Ty to think she'd been at Heartland all day after promising she wouldn't go. After running into Caleb, whom Amy knew better than to think wouldn't rat her out, she figured the most she'd be able to do was assure him that she'd taken it easy and his "spy" had done his job well.

Caleb was since back from Maggie's and didn't look very pleased as Amy came upon him tightening the cinch of Shorty's saddle. "I take it Grandpa found you," she guessed. Jack was notorious for punishing the help by giving them more work and responsibilities around the ranch. Technically, Caleb was under Lou's command now that he was her trail boss for the dude ranch, but he would never be able to get out from under Jack's scrutiny while living on the property.

"No good deed can go unpunished, I guess. You can tell your husband he can do his own dirty work from now on, unless he wants to pay me what I just lost in working overtime for free." Caleb swung into the saddle and gathered his reins.

"So it was Ty who made you hang around to see if I showed up." Amy wasn't naive to think otherwise. It irritated her to an extent that she wasn't trusted, but she could appreciate Ty's concern and the way he knew her so well.

Caleb shrugged. "Don't be mad at him, Amy, he just wanted to make sure you were safe."

Smiling softly, Amy nodded. "He knows me too well to let me get away with anything."

"That he does," Caleb agreed, throwing a glance toward the pens where a few horses were wandering about, including Chloe. "You're uh… not going to do anything stupid and try working with that horse again, are you?" Caleb wasn't as good at Ty with reading Amy's little tells, but she wasn't a very good liar in general and he'd once again go against Jack's orders to keep an eye on Amy if she was thinking about having another go with that client horse.

"No. Ty's going to be home soon so I'm just going to grab a few things from the office and go home."

"All right. Take care." Touching the brim of his hat in a respectful cowboy farewell, Caleb urged Shorty on and headed up the driveway, leaving Amy to continue on her way to the barn office to pick up a few of her mom's journals to take home and peruse.

On her way back to her truck she paused beside the corral adjacent to the round pen where she'd released Chloe earlier. The mare was looking in her direction, which made Amy move closer to the fence. "Hey, girl. Are you still afraid of me?" Striking the horse as she had earlier definitely already brought them a few steps back from moving forward with Chloe's treatment. The mare was supposed to want to trust Amy and instead she was just given a reason to keep away even before Amy even had a chance to establish a positive relationship. Maybe it was a good thing it happened before then as not to destroy any work Amy would have put into the horse, but it still wasn't a good way to start things off.

Folding the journals she held against her chest with one arm, Amy extended the other toward the horse through the fence in attempt to scratch her neck. With a snort, the mare shied away from Amy, retreating to the other side of the pen. "I guess so." Sighing, Amy took her hand back to rest on the metal rail, looking in after the horse for a long moment. It was too soon to try to work with her again today, but Amy's desire to try and fix what she'd already broken was edging her toward hanging around and giving it another shot.

"Tomorrow," she told the mare then forced herself to leave Chloe be and walk back to her truck to head back down the road.

Halfway up the driveway she was stopped when a familiar palomino came cantering along the drive, Tim waving her down. "Amy!"

Out of respect for her father, Amy pulled the truck over, though she did seriously consider driving right on by. Things still weren't totally back on solid ground between them and right now Amy wasn't so sure she was in the right state of mind to deal with him. Her hands gripped the steering wheel as she watched him pull up Champ and wait for her to stop before coming along the side of the vehicle to the window, gesturing for her to roll it down.

"What are you doing here? You should be home."

Amy didn't mean to come off as rude as she rolled her eyes away from her father and shook her head, but that was about the fourth time she was asked that question today and was a little tired of hearing it. "I'm going home now. Just came to grab some things." He didn't need to know the whole story.

"Oh." There was an awkward pause where Amy turned to look at him again, waiting for him to continue asking her questions or to make some comment about where Ty was and why he wasn't with her. But Tim didn't say anything and Amy was getting impatient.

"Okay, well, I'm gonna head out." She reached to put the truck back into gear.

"Wait, hold on… How are you? How are things?" Tim asked hesitantly, his expression soft with concern.

Amy's hand fell away from the gear shift, her head bowing toward her lap for a moment. "I'm okay. Just… taking it a day at a time." Except the days just seemed to drag on forever.

Tim nodded slowly. "And Ty. How's he doing?"

Amy looked at Tim carefully, trying to figure out if he was trying to lead this conversation somewhere less pleasant, but it seemed he was treading lightly and didn't look about to rip into her husband. "Um… he's good, too. He started back at the clinic today so I'm trying to get home to meet him," she said, hinting for their conversation to wrap up to she could leave.

"Right. Okay. Sorry, I'll let you get going." Tim started to move Champ out of the way of the truck when he suddenly changed his mind. "Wait, Amy…" he reached out to gesture for her to hold on, Amy removing her hand once again from the gear shift and letting it rest around the steering wheel.

"Look, I know I've been a complete…"

"Jerk? Hardass?" Amy filled in the blank for him.

"Not exactly the words I was going for, but yeah. I know I've complicated things for you with the whole pregnancy and starting a family but… you have to know that I never wanted…" He stopped himself, not sure if Amy would be able to handle hearing the words and just hoping she understood without them.

That all too familiar ache started to creep into Amy's chest again. "It's fine, Dad. I understand." She forced out through the strain in her throat, but refused to look at him. She couldn't.

"No, Amy, it's not. I understand that what happened would have no matter how I felt about it, but it kills me to think that you thought that maybe I was glad it happened - that I got my way. I'm not. I'm heartbroken." His voice was quiet, evening sounding genuine, but Amy couldn't help the frown that creased her forehead as she finally shot a look at him, her blue gaze glossed over with tears.

"Are you? Because last I recall you were blaming that child for screwing up my life." Her voice cracked and she swallowed hard, tearing her eyes away from him again.

"Yes," he insisted, throwing his leg over Champ to dismount to better see his daughter's broken expression through the window. "I know I didn't give you any reason to believe me now, but please don't think I could ever want something like that to happen to you, or Ty - that I wouldn't care. You're my little girl, Amy. No matter how old you get. If anything it hurts you, then it hurts me, too." Tim studied his daughter closely despite her averted gaze. Her jaw was clenched as tight as her white knuckled grasp on the steering wheel as she breathed slowly to hold herself together.

"When the doctor told us… all I could think about was you and how devastated and heartbroken you were going to be and how much of a… jerk," he used her word, "I was about the whole thing."

"It's a little late now, Dad." Amy said carefully once she knew she'd be able to keep her voice level. "Besides, like you said, it would have happened anyway. So it doesn't even matter anymore."

"It does. It does matter, Amy. I don't want there to be this rift between us anymore. We need to get passed it - move on. Just like you and Ty." Tim realized he was a little late with his apology, but he was also beginning to realize that it might be too soon to ask Amy to move on.

"It's not that easy, Dad." Amy's head shook slowly as her hands fell away from the steering wheel and she slumped back against the seat with her head bowed toward her lap. "Ty and I… we were so excited to start a family. We couldn't wait to tell everyone and then you… you step up and completely ruin it. How could you do that, Dad? Why couldn't you have been happy for us like you were for Lou and Peter?" Granted, Tim didn't take well to Peter either and the two men still had their moments, but Lou's announcement had been met with hugs and congratulations not only from her and Jack, but Tim as well. Why didn't she get that same reaction?

Tim shook his head, having no answer. At least not one that would ever be good enough. "I was just afraid you'd regret it down the road. Lou was on her way to the top in New York. She would have gotten there, too, I'm sure of it. But she traded it all in for motherhood. You don't think there aren't days where she wonders what could have been?"

"I'm not Lou. I've done so much with my life since Mom died, so much to make you happy, to make you proud of me. It's about time I start doing things for me. Ty, and just the thought of having a family with him, is what makes me happy. I'll never stop working with the horses that need me, but I have to think about us and our future, too. We want a family. We want kids and a house and our own business together. So what if things got a little out of order, we would have made it work."

"Not sure how in that shed of a trailer…" Tim mumbled almost as if he couldn't help himself. It made Amy scowl at him.

She didn't know why she bothered trying to defend her life to her father anymore when there would always be some part of it he didn't approve of, and with him being her father, there would always be some part of her that cared about what he thought. "My home is with Ty, no matter where that may be and you certainly don't have any right to judge us. You're the one that created this rift, Dad. You fix it on your own." She was done talking to him and didn't bother to wait a third time when he asked her to, throwing the truck in gear and moving it back onto the gravel drive.

"I'm trying- Amy, wait!" Tim urged Champ into a canter, following Amy's tailgate for a few yards before he pulled the gelding up and just let her go, flustered and hurt.

Author's Notes:

LK: Excellent chapter and finally, please do not wait so long for update on next chapter. Amy needs to talk to Ty so that they can get through this together. Nice touch about the man wanting to pay medical bills and wonderful response by Ty. Please another update soon and continue with your excellent writing.

I'm sorry for the wait but I hit some writer's block until a few days ago. I was a little late updating the chapters on here but they were on my tumblr page for about a week. They will always be posted there first. Sometimes I won't update on here right away so if you ever want to read a new chapter as soon as it's posted you can find them at: fuckyeahjavakiss-.-tumblr-.-com/tagged/fanfiction (remove dashes). There are also more stories there than I have posted on this website.