"I don't see any cows." Amy remarked as they pulled up in front of the barn. She thought the place would be swarming with four-legged steaks accompanied by a stench that would make her long for the polluted air of the city. But the farm was surprisingly quiet and the handful of workers that remained were busy mucking stalls or otherwise caring for the horses in the yard.

"You won't unless they've gone astray. We keep them at the far end of the property," Jack was saying while shutting down the engine and picking up the takeout bag from between them.

"Oh."

Jack paused before getting out to look at Amy. "Disappointed you're going to miss the show?" Maybe this place was beginning to win her over afterall.

"No," Amy answered as if the idea were absurd. "I'm relieved. I'm sure they can't smell much better than the horses." She was still trying to get accustomed to that and forced herself not to hold her breath as they got out of the truck. She awaited the day it no longer bothered her, even if that meant she was to be there that long. After the phone call with her father earlier, Amy pretty much swallowed the hope of him coming to rescue her with a guilty conscience. If he felt any regret, he was ignoring it, or at least succeeded in making her believe he had none. She didn't want to believe her father could be that way but she'd been wrong before. She just thought - more like hoped - that when it came to her things would be different.

"Well, you're welcome to tag along if you like." Jack offered, holding out the bag for her to take.

Amy considered that a moment. She wanted to learn more about the place if she was going to be stranded there, but she had the feeling that she wouldn't be a mere spectator if she did show up and wasn't so certain she wanted to get involved with whatever it was they were doing to those cows. Jack also told her that they were at the far side of the property, land he mentioned was best explored on horseback, which they already established was something Amy had no present desire to learn. "Maybe next time. I still have unpacking to do."

"So, decided to stay, have you?" Jack didn't sound all that surprised, which only made Amy want to oppose out of spite, but she bit her tongue and rethought her reply, choosing different words.

"Until Monday at least. After that, I guess we'll see how things go." She offered Jack a small smile. The thought of living at Heartland indefinitely was daunting, even scary, because she had yet to grow accustomed to it and the people there. Everything was still new and unfamiliar. Yet, to think about the alternative and having nowhere else to go was even more so. In the grand scheme of things, the ranch seemed the lesser of evils.

Jack nodded, thinking that was a decent start. He was afraid Amy would give up too easily, that her stubbornness would act as blinders and hinder her ability to see the big picture.

Amy took her lunch of chili up to the house while Jack brought his into the barn to eat on the round up. Lobo sat on the porch as she approached, almost as if he was waiting for her. It made her smile to see the dog and lowered herself down beside him on the steps. She set the bag aside when he sniffed at it as not to entice him and offered a pet instead. He groaned in pleasure then leaned into her as he rolled onto his back to ask for a belly rub. "That feels good, doesn't it?"

Amy sat outside with Lobo until she saw Jack emerge from the barn with his painted horse, climb aboard and ride off into the trees at the edge of the yard, leaving her alone on the ranch. Well, almost. She felt a chill run through her spine and scanned the yard to see a set of eyes watching her from the barn door. Hank stood there unmoving, thoroughly creeping her out to the point of getting up to go inside where she could lock the door between them.

Lobo got up to follow her, both of them hesitating when Amy opened the door. The dog knowing he wasn't allowed inside and Amy debating whether or not she wanted to run the risk of getting scolded again. Glancing over her shoulder as if looking for Jack or Ty to catch her disobeying their rules, she ushered the canine into the house, feeling safer with him there even if he was most likely too old to do much of anything. "Just don't tell anyone. It'll be our secret." She told the dog as she really did lock the door behind them, peeking out of the small window toward the barn where Hank still remained, watching the house for a moment longer before disappearing into the barn again.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Amy looked down at the dog, giving his head a scratch. "I don't know about you, but he is the definition of skeevy." She then brought Lobo back to her bedroom to truly begin unpacking and make her room feel more like her own space.

Jack was surprised, but relieved, to find that Ty and the guys managed to get most of the cattle herded into a large round pen, equipped with chutes to hold the calves for their inoculations and tagging. Ty was just chasing the last few through the gate, Jim swinging it closed when Jack rode up along the perimeter.
"Not bad. Not bad at all," he called to his grandson over the mooing cows.

"I told you I had it covered," Ty called back, skirting his horse, Harley, around a heifer to join his grandfather.

"I never doubted you could do it on your own. Keeping those guys in line, maybe, but those cows are a little more predictable."

Ty shook his head, squinting against the sun toward the herd. "There was some debate over whose horse was bigger, but I think we came to an amicable consensus."

"Yeah, and what was that?"

"That Harley wasn't even in the running." Ty cracked a smile and leaned forward to pat his little cow pony's neck.

Jack chuckled, but did have to agree. Harley wasn't the biggest horse in the herd but he was sturdy, reliable, and taught Ty everything he needed to know about training a mustang.

"Alright, so Jim is our cutter, and I've got John and Brett as our wrestlers. Everyone else is on stand-by to brand, tag, and inoculate." Ty ran off his plan, thinking he'd paired everyone appropriately, but still waited for his grandfather's approval, not that he openly showed that he cared for it.

Jack nodded as a feminine voice called above the commotion in the corral. "Hey!"

Ty jerked around, thinking he misheard, until he was face to face with Kit riding up on her mare, Daisy. "Kit." He shot Jack an incredulous look, knowing this was his doing. He just couldn't keep his nose in his own business and if Kit hadn't been within earshot, Ty would have told him so.

"Looks like I made it just in time for the fun part." Kit rode up beside Jack, her eyes fixated on Ty as she tried to gage his reaction to her appearance. Ty didn't know what his face was giving away or hiding, but from the way Kit's smile faltered, it wasn't anything she hoped to see.

Jack looked between the two young people, piping in when Ty didn't bother to say anything. "Sure did. Why don't you get out there and give Jim a hand with the cutting."

Kit tried to maintain her poker face as she continued to look at Ty, but his expression never changed. "Sure." She rode around the corral toward the gate, making a valiant attempt at not sneaking another glance at Ty.

"What is she doing here?" Ty rounded on his grandfather as soon as Kit was no longer near them, his expression visibly hardened.

"Nothing wrong with another pair of hands," Jack explained calmly.

"We don't need any more hands." Ty sounded like a five-year-old on the playground, excluding a girl who wanted to join in a game with him and his friends because girls were gross. Even though this situation was different, the same level of maturity was there.

"Kit has lifetime of experience with cattle. Until recently those guys have never seen a hamburger before it's on the way to their mouths, so I'd say the more the merrier. And, actually, without Caleb, we're short a man, so Kit is just the set of hands we do need." Jack reasoned, knowing Ty knew he was right. But, of course, would never give in and admit to it. There was some respectability in that stubbornness, but also stupidity.

"Let me remind you again whose fault it is that we don't have Caleb here because you couldn't leave well enough alone." Ty wasn't upset because Jack invited Kit over and the older man knew that. What he was was embarrassed and ashamed, two emotions not easily worn by anyone whose deadly sin was their pride. He wasn't prepared to face his former girlfriend. In fact, he did all he could to avoid that very strange and uncomfortable situation. Now, because Jack was sick of the lying and watching the poor girl suffer, he took it upon himself to force them together despite knowing the wrath it would incur. It hadn't necessarily been his own plan, but when Kit approached him in town earlier, he saw no reason not to give them a little push.

"That girl has been trying to contact you for months and all you've been doing is lying and avoiding her. I can only assume she's trying to make sense of your behavior and figure out where you stand. Stop being a coward and talk to her. She deserves at least that after how you treated her when you were away." Kit tried to be supportive during Ty's stint in prison. She would visit him as much as she could, even send care packages, but more often than not he refused to see her and would disperse the goodies she sent to the other inmates. Ty had not been kind to Kit during that time, no matter how hard she tried, and continued to try even now that he was again a free man.

"Just keep out of my business, Jack. You want to rag on me about how to handle these cows or run the establishment, then fine; but Kit is off limits." Jack really had no business in the area and even he knew that, but Kit asking if she could help seemed like a plea for help of her own and that bleeding heart of his just couldn't deny her the chance to get face to face with Ty she sought.

Jack relented. He kept his nose out of it this long and had no intention of being directly involved again unless it was asked of him. He did his part in whatever plan Kit had and he was willing to back off. "Alright. But if you want her to leave then you can ask her yourself." They both knew he wouldn't, because that would mean he would have to actually get close enough to speak with her, but having her stay meant she'd be hanging around all afternoon and the chance of them bumping into each other was just as high. At this point it was only a matter of how long before they broke the ice.

Jack rode off, leaving Ty to stare at his back in a huff. His eyes slid over to Kit as she took charge and directed Jim through the herd as they picked a calf to break away. He was aware that he was being difficult and kind of a jerk. Kit did deserve better. The thing was, Ty had no idea what to say to her, or what she wanted to hear. It felt as if too much time had passed; that it was too late to fix what he broke. He wasn't even sure if he wanted it to be fixed. He and Kit used to be good together before he got himself into trouble but things changed since then – he changed. He hadn't meant to hurt Kit, but knew he did. He just didn't know how badly and was really afraid to find out.

So, he did what he knew he was good at and continued to avoid her all afternoon. He traded men any time he had to do something with or near her and could see the disapproval in his grandfather's stare. She remained pretty well contained with the herd, focusing on one calf after another, driving them out for the wrestlers to drag into the chute where they could be branded, tagged, and inoculated all in one fell swoop. There was so much going on it really was difficult to think about much else than the task at hand. Even so, they still had not finished by dusk when Jack called it a day before it was too dark to see their way back to the ranch where the van would be waiting to take the inmates back to the prison.

"Good work today, fellas. How's that bum of yours Brett?" Jack asked with a chuckle as the man waved a tentative thumb up. Everyone was sore and dirty, having been working in a cloud of dust all day or, in Brett's case, dragged across the ground. There was little chatter as they began to head back toward the yard, Ty hanging back to double check that the fences and gates were properly secured. The last thing he wanted was to wake up to half their herd gone. He'd never hear the end of it.

He was coming around the far side when he saw Kit lingering in the falling darkness watching him. They were barely ten feet apart, giving Ty no chance of pretending he hadn't seen her and ducking out. He pulled Harley up short before he could get any closer and stared at her.

"Can we talk?" She asked carefully, almost as if expecting him to bolt on her if she said moved too suddenly.

"I'm really exhausted, Kit." Ty hedged. It was true. He really did just want to get back to the house, fill his belly, then face plant into his pillow until morning. He also didn't want to have to deal with any emotional stress that was bound to come from a talk with Kit.

"I won't take long." She urged Daisy closer, Ty letting her come. When she understood that he was going to, reluctantly, let her talk, she jumped into it before he changed his mind. "Why are you avoiding me?"

Ty didn't even insult her by denying it; they both knew it was true. Instead, he sighed quietly. "It's… complicated."

"So uncomplicated it." She frowned. "Because I don't understand what is going on with you – with us. I tried to be patient and wait for you to want to talk. I thought 'Hey, he's been through a lot this year and needs some space and some time to regroup. He'll come around when he's ready.' But you never did. And now I have no idea where we stand. And I need to know if there is even still a 'we' or if I've been wasting my time trying to be supportive and waiting for you." She paused, expecting some sort of answer, but what Ty gave her was not what she was looking for.

"I don't know."

"…You don't know? That's not an answer." Kit became more animated, obviously flustered and fed-up. "You need to give me something, Ty! I feel like I'm trying to hold onto a fist full of water and it's all just leaking through my fingers no matter how tightly I squeeze. I miss you. I miss us. But I can't keep doing this because it's tearing me apart. I need to know I'm not alone in this."

Ty couldn't see her face well in the quickly falling darkness and he was glad for it. Her voice was enough to kick him down. He could hear the struggle in her words to keep them from shaking and he really wished he could think of something to say to her that would make this whole situation better. But he couldn't. He had nothing.

Kit was gaping at his silence, waiting for him to say something – anything. "You really have nothing to say to me?"

"You're right: a lot has happened this year and on top of all of that, my grandfather brought this girl to live with us for God knows how long. I'm still trying to deal with that and I just really don't know right now, Kit. I don't know what you want me to say." Ty hated to be pressured and especially couldn't stand relationship drama. It was the whole reason he was hesitant to even date Kit to start with, but she was persistent and he had to admit that it had been cute and amusing at first. Now he just found her persistence to be overwhelming and frustrating.

Kit was quiet, no longer sure if she preferred Ty's response to his silence. "I think you just said enough," she answered tightly, pulling Daisy back and heading away from Heartland ranch toward her own, with no intentions of coming back to help finish the branding tomorrow.

Ty watched her go, still just as confused about them as before. Only now he actually felt the guilt he'd been ignoring settle in. He wished he could have an answer for her, something to set them in one direction or another. He did enjoy spending time with Kit. They had a lot of fun together and some very good memories. But spending that time in jail, his grandfather's heart attack, and the aftermath of them both just left him rethinking his priorities. He was still trying to figure that out before factoring in his relationship with Kit. Then, the Fleming girl shows up and further complicates matters considering no one had any idea how long she was going to be staying and how she was going to fit into their life. That really should have nothing to do with him and Kit, but somehow he had the feeling it would end up being an issue at some point. Especially considering what happened that morning with the phone call and whatever Jack may have said to her in town. Which reminded him that he needed to get back to the ranch, but even then Ty knew his appearance would be fleeting.

A/N: I deeply apologize for the extensive wait between chapters. I hit a creative wall and turned away for some time before climbing it. As a gift for your patience, here is an extra long chapter. Originally, it was half the length minus the scene between Ty and Kit. I decided to add it for some meat. It felt uneventful and lacking otherwise. Also, in reply to any impending comments about the continuation and completion of this story based on reader assumption that I have "lost interest" or what have you due to the long wait for any new chapter: unless I state otherwise, all unfinished stories will be completed - in their own time. My muse and free time need to coincide to establish the "flow" a writer needs to write. When they do it's progressive and magical. When they don't, well, it's frustrating as shit. Also, I have other duties and responsibilities to attend to that rank above writing fanfiction. Again, if I discover a loss of interest or inability to finish any of my stories, current and future, I will be sure to let you know. Don't waste a review bugging me about it, mkay? And for those who think "well you should be flattered we bug you, it means we're interested and want more" you're right, I am flattered and grateful for your continued support. But I also see such things as whiny and like you have nothing better to do than sit at home and read second-rate fanfiction (no comments on my self-deprecation either, I am proud of what I write but I know there are stories and writers out there better than mine and myself) when you could be reading a first rate novel or watching the real thing or getting outside to breathe fresh air. Anyway, just trying to be proactive here to save myself from some *facepalm* and *headdesk* moments. I do that enough times a day at work.