CHAPTER 16

Three years later

Early morning walks across the meticulously well maintained lawns of the Fairfield Stables complex had always been Lisa Stillman-Bartlett's favorite way to start the day. Activity here at her ranch had increased a great deal recently and there were always new horses coming to the facility now that her step-grandson, Dr. Borden, had the new campus up and running here at the stables. Dr. Hartman and the board of directors of the now immensely popular high tech equestrian clinic outside of Okotoks decided there needed to be a rehab facility used in collaboration with the University of Calgary where the horses receiving treatment could be more closely monitored and data collected to verify the long term success of the newer experimental surgeries and healing strategies. Included in those new strategies was an encouraging new study regarding Amy's preferred natural remedies and practices as a supporting method of post op care.

After successfully fulfilling his obligations to the probation agreement at the clinic and gaining the respect of the staff for his work ethic and ability to innovate the new technologies, Ty was selected to head up the department and oversee the operation for Lisa and his wife, Amy Fleming-Borden, who was now the acting CEO of Fairfield Stables International.

Amy worked closely with her step-grandmother who lived jointly with she and Ty at the beautiful white colonial estate here at the stables and at the rustic Heartland Ranch house with her stubborn old cowboy for a husband, Jack, who refused to leave his heritage for more than a few days a month to stay at the much more accommodating house at Fairfield. She had managed, however, to convince him to come with her on business trips to Europe at least once a year by making the 'authentic' cowboy more involved in the business of buying and selling her horses. As luck would have it, Jack was a hit with his wife's upper crust clients in Europe. They loved to hear the stories of his rodeo days, singing in the western band when he was young, tales of three day cattle drives across the prairies and foothills, and his take on life on the ranch back in Alberta. The arrangement meant she could make her usual rounds to keep up her clients and breeding contacts, splitting the bi-annual duties with Amy and Ty who would go overseas in the winter when things slowed down with the clinic work.

"Good morning!" Lisa cheerfully greeted Amy who walked across the lush green grass to the rail fence where she watched a pair of brand new thoroughbred foals learn the use of their extraordinary legs for the first time, running in short bursts away from their mothers and back again. "Look at 'em! Aren't they something?" the older woman said, still in awe of the beauty she learned to appreciate when she was a young girl visiting here with her parents while they still lived in the city.

"They sure are! It has been a good year for our stock," Amy filled in her mentor as she handed her an insulated cup filled with fresh hot coffee. "The other three are due to foal any day now. Ty checked in on them yesterday and said they looked fine."

They both leaned against the railing of the fence to watch in silence for several minutes with only the comical nickering of the foals darting about, together, and then apart, and then together again until Amy drifted back from her thoughts and said, "You know, this is it! This is…, perfect! This is what I dreamed about when I was little, being in such a beautiful place as this and having all of these magnificent animals to work with, having my family all around me, having so many people to love, and finally having a guy like Ty…. I love to watch him at peace and doing so well here…," she paused in a blissful whirl and breathed in the fresh morning air, looking at her friend with a twinkling her eyes to relish the moment.

Lisa smiled at her protégé and interrupted, "Speaking of Dr. Borden…," Lisa nodded her head toward to the path leading to the new barn on the far side of the main complex and the old blue truck winding its way along the driveway lined with trees and brilliant white railed fences, "You two look the happiest I have ever seen you! Your Grandfather and I are so pleased to see you both this relaxed and confident with each other and doing so well with your careers now."

"Well, that is no small thanks to you and Grandpa! We should thank you both every day for not giving up on either of us. I know we could not have made it to where we are now without you."

Lisa lifted her chin up in thought, readying herself to pose a question to the younger woman, "Does he know?" looking at Amy with raised eyebrows and a curious grin.

"Know? W-What do you mean?" Amy asked, taken off guard with the out of the blue question.

"C'mon, Amy, you don't even have to say anything for me to see it. Have you told him yet?"

Amy was taken aback at the perceptiveness of the older woman and stuttered for an answer, "H-How did you know, so soon?"

"I know you well enough to know when something is going on. I have heard you in the mornings rushing into bathroom lately, again this morning with the upset stomach, and there is just something about the look of an excited new mother plotting ways to tell her husband for the first time that he is going to be a father that is hard to hide!"

"I just took the test yesterday…, to be sure," the amazed mother to be confessed. "I actually planned to tell him today, when things calm down a bit around here this afternoon."

Ty drove his old blue GMC to a stop and opened the door, having to give it a bump with his left shoulder to jar it loose because it hadn't been used in a while, and walk up to two of his favorite people who were obviously enjoying the beautiful morning. "Watching the babies, I see."

"Look at 'em Ty, aren't they amazing?" Amy said as she hooked her free arm around his waist and squeezed him into a hug. "These little guys are lucky to have such a nice place to be born and raised, don't you think?" she tested the waters.

"I couldn't think of any place better!" he supposed.

"What's the occasion?" Amy asked as she nodded toward the old truck.

"I had to put a new battery in her to get her cranked up, it's been a while since I've had her out, and since it is such a pretty day, I thought she would like to go for a drive," he smiled at the idea of spending time behind the wheel of his prized old truck that brought him here, into his new life.

He took a sip from the coffee cup she offered to him and said, "I need to borrow you for a while, can you come with me for a bit?"

Amy turned to look at Lisa who raised her hands to shoo her into going with her husband, "Go on, I think I can still handle whatever might come up while you are off with this good lookin' guy wanting to take you away for a while!" she laughed at them and gave Amy a wink.

On the way to the main road Amy scooted to the center of the seat and leaned into the driver and asked, "You thought 'she' needed to go on a drive, did you?"

Ty didn't say anything back to her, just offering his trademark grin, then asked her, "Do you think you can still shift her, like you used to?"

Amy giggled as the driver pushed in the clutch and she pulled the lever back into first gear when they approached the end of the driveway. "Yeah, I still got it!"

They drove all the way to Heartland on the back roads that Ty used when he gave Amy her first driving lessons. The drivers' helper never missed a shift, unlike the old days when the truck dreaded the earlier sessions of grinding between gear changes.

"I guess I was a pretty good teacher, after all!" he teased his especially giddy wife.

They parked in front of the old red barn where the once troubled sixteen year old kid, on his last chance of probation, had made his home for so many years. The place and people here had taught him that life was something to be treasured and lived with anticipation of things that are good, not the dread and fear of his youth.

Ty playfully grabbed Amy around the waist and pulled his sweetheart out of his side of the truck causing her to giggle and squeal in laughter as he tickled her ribs. Behind them, they both heard someone clearing his throat and they jerked their heads around to see her grandpa and Caleb, his new ranch foreman, walking out the barn's front door to greet them.

"Grandpa!" Amy said, trying to regain some of her lost composure.

"You would think they would be over that by now," Caleb mentioned to his boss, with a shrug of his shoulders and look of admiration in his eyes.

"There was a time that I would have had to do some very unpleasant things to you, if I'd caught you doing something like that back when I first laid out the ground rules to you!" Jack told the blushing vet with a chuckle.

The doting grandpa just nodded to the envious cowboy and grinned to himself, pleased to see his granddaughter and her husband so happy.

"Did Ty tell you why you are here?" Jack asked her.

"Why, is there a particular reason for us to be here? I just thought we were here on a joyride," she told him.

"Well, actually, Amy, we have some news," Ty told his now curious wife. "Jack and Lou are proposing an idea to make Heartland into a working ranch for kids, you know, like me when I came here. Clint Riley is the one who had the idea. He mentioned it to me when I ran into him at Maggie's the other day. We can continue to work with the horses that need help and to be rehomed, just like you used to do, raise some fine cattle, and give some of those kids a sense of purpose and a chance to learn how to belong somewhere, with a family!"

Amy's older sister approached the group, coming from the house, and joined the conversation, "I have looked into the legalities, and so forth. We will be able to get considerable funding for the project, given our track record, and all we need to make the idea into a reality is for you to agree to it, with the rest of the family. What do you think?"

"I think that is an awesome idea, Lou, but who is going to watch over the kids? You have the dude ranch, Maggie's, your family!"

"That's what I am here for," offered Caleb. "My rodeo days are finished after I broke my collarbone again last fall. I still have my business selling rough stock to the rodeo circuit, but I could use something steadier, and I think this is a good way to do something useful with my life, for a change."

Amy pursed her lips and tried to imagine the carefree rodeo cowboy herding delinquents instead of cattle or horses. "Do you think you can handle a bunch of kids like Ty, in his bratty teenager stage, or Mallory, if she had been mistreated and mad at the world and looking for revenge?" she asked, amused by the picture in her head, then cringed at the potential disasters.

"The way I see it, it's kinda like learning not to drown," the philosopher of life on the ranch professed to them, "You are pretty sure you can do it, but don't know for sure until someone throws you in the deep end and it's either sink, or swim! Besides, Lisa says she will hang around and watch over the operation until I get my bearings straight."

"OK, then," chuckling at the reasoning of her longtime friend, "that sounds great to me! Let's do it!" Amy threw her hat into the ring with the others. "Mom would be so proud of all of us, I think!"

Agreeing to meet Clint to get the project rolling was a big turning point in the history of the ranch called 'Heartland'. A new legacy would be built on the 600 acres Jack and the rest of the family called home. The Bartlett-Fleming-Morris-Borden clan was glad to see the ranch put to such good use and the idea of so many potential new 'extended' family members was exciting to them.

"I am going to take the 'Head Cow Punch' here and go into town to pick up our order at the feed store. We'll talk about all of this later," Jack said as he headed toward his old truck, cranking his neck around to see if Caleb took the hint to follow him.

"I have to go to Maggie's myself, and take care of some paperwork," Lou said. "I suppose I can leave the two of you here alone without worrying about your getting into any trouble?" she teased them through her knowing smile.

"I think we will be fine, Sis," wondering if Lisa had already called her sister to fill her in on the big news.

They stood there together waving to Lou as the last of the ranch's other human inhabitants rolled up the hill to the Heartland Ranch main gate. "Com'on," Amy commanded her husband with a glint in her eye.

"Where are you going?" Ty asked, having a pretty good idea as to her intentions.

"Just com'on," she smiled while reaching out to him.

Ty took hold of her hand and let his frolicsome wife lead him into the barn and up the wooden stairs to his old loft apartment.

Amy skipped to the large oak door on the back side of the room and swung it open to take in the view overlooking the pond with a few of the horses roaming in the pasture beyond it, then turned to Ty like a little girl who was bursting to tell a secret.

"What is up with you?" he laughed at the woman who was now the perfect picture of the pretty and spirited fifteen year old cowgirl he fell in love with all those years ago here at the ranch.

Ty carefully assessed his wife who was walking to him, careful and deliberate, beaming to the point of not being able to hold back the excitement any longer. The intensity of the rose color on her cheeks grew with each passing second and her glistening crystal blue eyes threatened to take his breath away, and he asked her, "Amy?"

"Do you remember telling me once that the best things that ever happened to you started right here in this room?"

"That was the day I had you open the letter from University of Calgary and you told me that I had been accepted into vet school, that's when I said that to you," he smiled at the memory.

"Yes…, and well, I think I have some news that will fit in with the good memories you have of this place," she said.

"Amy! You are killing me here!"

She had been thinking of a clever way to tell him the news, but her excitement got the best of her and she simply blurted out, "You are going to be a daddy!"

Amy loved to get the best of her husband and this was one of the best of those times. Ty looked like he had just caught a hard right hook to the chin and was trying unsuccessfully to get his brain reconnected again with the rest of his body. She stood there waiting for a response, any response, and after what seemed like minutes, finally asked, "Ty? Are you OK?"

The plug went back in its socket and his brain came to life telling him what he thought he had heard, was real! "A…, daddy, like with a baby? We're having a baby?"

"Yes! We are!" Amy bounced off the tips of her toes as she waited for him to get all of the new information processed.

Ty grabbed the mother of his baby under her arms, picking her up as easily as if she were Katie's size and held her above his eye level. Amy wrapped her legs around his waist and threw her arms around her husband's neck, squeezing him tightly while he spun her around for the second go round, then he brought her effortlessly back down to the floor.

Amy found the emerald green eyes that made her feel the way no one else ever could and took the hand of Hudson's newest father, led him to the loft door where she leaned him against the opening, and stood on her tiptoes to give him a warm and getting warmer kiss to seal the moment. This would be the one they would always remember, the day they both knew they were going to be parents for the first time.

Amy laid her hand softly on the side of Ty's face and began to smile out loud again as she told him, "We have finally made it, you and me! We have each other, a whole lot of people who love us, we have this fantastic life together, and now, we have our own family, a son, or daughter, on the way! I just can't believe how happy I am!"

"We have certainly taken the long way around to get ourselves here, like this, but now that we are here, I wouldn't trade the journey we have taken…, for anything!"

Amy nodded in agreement and said, "The long way around? I see what you mean….It has been quite the journey, the two of us growing up here and getting to where we are right now. I guess we have some good news to share with our family, so we had better get to it, don't you think?" she suggested, and then pulled the love of her life down to her lips for a long, slow, tender kiss, just because it felt like the right thing to do. "On second thought," she smiled at her husband with the mischievous sparkling blue eyes that never failed to get his attention, "it can wait just a little while longer, don't you think?"