"Do you even know this girl?" Twenty-one-year-old Ty Borden tossed a hay bale down from the wagon to his grandfather, Jack Bartlett.

Jack grabbed the bale to drag into the barn and set inside the door, calling his reply over his shoulder. "I knew her parents well enough. Helped them out a while back with some legal affair." He gave the bale a kick with his boot before going back for another.

Ty tossed the last one down before sitting down to take a break and catch his breath. He hung his legs over the back of the trailer, pulling off his work gloves and dropping them into his lap. "Alright, so what does that have to do with this? Is she in some kind of trouble?" It wasn't exactly their role at Heartland to cater to troubled youth, nor were they a boarding house. They were a working ranch dedicated to gentling mustangs for adoption and re-homing neglected and abused horses with the help of the local penitentiary that provided the man power to do it all in exchange for giving the prisoners a sense of worth and time away from constant confinement. It certainly wasn't a place for a teenage girl.

"I guess you could say that. But her father called me in quite a panic, looking for a way to get her out of the city. Said it wasn't a healthy environment for her or… something," Jack mumbled, not really caring about the reason. "Truth of the matter was I felt sorry for the girl so I offered her a place here."

"To do what, exactly? I don't much think she'd be into fraternizing with our hired help," Ty raised his brow, and a valid point. A young girl surrounded by convicted criminals didn't mix well. At least not on any cop drama he ever saw.

"I suppose that's something we'll figure out when she gets here. If nothing else, she can earn her keep by keeping house. Not too sure she'll be in any condition to do much more than that." Removing his hat from his head, Jack wiped the sweat from his brow.

"You think mucking a few stalls is beneath her?" If there was going to be someone living on this ranch, they could be damn sure they were going to earn their keep. Even the dog worked for his supper. "The last thing we need is some hoity-toity city girl sitting on her ass expecting a free ride."

"Not saying I don't agree with you. She'll be earning her keep; but that kind of labor isn't something a pregnant girl should be doing." When Ty didn't respond, Jack turned to look at his blank expression. "Did I forget to mention that part?"

That little detail changed everything and Ty was on the verge of exploding as his mind short-circuited trying to get a handle on what exactly was going to be happening. "What do you mean she's pregnant? What the hell were you thinking agreeing to bring her here of all places? We're not equipped for that! Is she expecting to have the baby here? Are we supposed to take care of this kid?" Ty was flabbergasted, unable to comprehend what on earth made his grandfather think it was okay to bring a pregnant girl out to a horse ranch in the middle of nowhere.

Jack frowned at his grandson, holding a hand out defensively to get him to calm down. "Now just hold on there, Ty. I was thinking what could happen to this girl and her child if things were left to the alternative – whatever that might have been. She needs a place to go and I figure here is as good a place as any. Besides, it'll be nice to have some female company around here again with Lisa away in France."

"What about her family? The child's father?" There had to be someone else willing to take this girl in. Ty didn't believe they were the only people she could turn to.

"Well, her mother passed some years ago and as far as I know they haven't heard from her sister since. As for the child's father, I don't know about that either. Might be one of those situations where he got scared and took off." It was a shame how those things happened but that was all the more reason Jack really did think bringing her there to Heartland would be the best for them all, even if no one else seemed to agree.

"You said her father called. She can't stay with him?" Ty was grasping for anything he could think of. Looking past the fact that they weren't some kind of teenage maternity house, why on earth would they deem it a good idea to send some random girl out to a place she didn't know to stay with people she never met? Surely she didn't agree of her own volition.

"That's the thing. It didn't seem like her father wanted to have to deal with the situation. He sounded desperate. Give the girl a break, Ty. You have no idea how she must be feeling right now being made into some kind of problem that needs dealt with."

Ty shook his head, but just sighed in defeat, raising his hands to gesture as much. There was no way he was winning this one and might as well just find a way to live with it. "Alright, fine. But she still better not expect to lounge around the whole time. Pregnant or not, I'm not becoming her serving boy." He slid down from the tailgate, still finding it difficult to wrap his head around this whole bizarre situation. The only woman they ever had around the ranch was his step-grandmother, Lisa, and she was there as much as she was away during these summer months. It was definitely going to be interesting to have another roaming the property, especially with all the guys working the ranch that hadn't had any female company since their arrest and probably wouldn't for some time. That worried Ty, how they would react. If they would entertain themselves by tormenting her with inappropriate jokes, or if they'd respect her as they did Lisa and leave her be. It was hard to say.

"Maybe not her serving boy, but you're gonna have to be her chauffeur for today." Jack turned his eyes up toward the sky, reading the time by where the sun was positioned. "Matter of fact, you should probably shove off and head to town. Her bus should be arriving any time now."

Ty looked incredulous. "You're kidding, right? You arranged this whole thing, you go fetch her." He really didn't want any part of this. This was Jack's doing and could be his responsibility.

"Look, if we're all going to live here harmoniously, there's going to need to be some give from all parties. I can't imagine she's any more thrilled with the situation than you, and she's the one being shipped a thousand miles from her home. Now go give that girl some ounce of hope that she could actually survive here and just maybe you'll change your tune after spending the long trip back getting to know each other." Ty gave his grandfather a long, hard look, tempted to argue but knowing it would be useless. He was going, and that was final.