Heartland FanFic

Part 13 - Gone

Lyndy's POV:
It's been eleven years since Ty left. Eleven goddamn years. He could have come back, sorted himself out. But no. I was mucking out my horse, Cappuccino's, stall. Cappuccino was a Palomino that GG and Grandpa rescued from a meat truck. Cappuccino was a great jumper, almost as good as Spartan was with Mom. Spartan was a great horse, passed away last year, on Mom's ten year anniversary. I had the idea to cremate him and spread his ashes where Mom was buried. GG said my mom would have loved that idea. I was cleaning Cappuccino's tack when Lisa came in. "Hi Honey, are you coming into town with me?" She asked. Shaking my head, I smiled politely. "No thanks Lisa, I'm going to take Cappuccino out for a quick ride. I might do some jumps too." I say, wiping my hands on my jeans. Lisa nods and smiles. I keep mucking out the stall until Grandpa walks in. "Hey Kiddo, Georgie is coming back from the Olympics on Monday. Don't forget it." He warns before walking out towards the house. "Okay, I know!" I call out before tacking Cappuccino up and leading her out of the barn. "Come on Girl, let's go." I mumbled as I set off in a canter towards The House.

I wasn't at the ranch house, or Lou and Peter's new house, I was standing at Mom and Dad's house. I rarely call Ty my dad, because he doesn't deserve the title. I've always been told that he couldn't handle it when Mom died, left, and never looked back. He never tried to get in contact with me, ever. I dismounted Cappuccino and walked up to the front door of the house. Correction, where the front door would be if Ty had bothered to finish it. I stepped up the steps slowly and walked around the house, touching the damp wooden beams as I went. I sat down and faced the wild horses. There were still plenty of them there, in the field. "Hey Mom." I whispered. "Ty hasn't come back yet, but I'm not surprised at that. He left me a bit after you died. Grandpa said he couldn't handle a child by himself. But selfish I think, but I know you loved him so there must have been some good in him at one point or another. Puc is well, missing Spartan I think. She was small when he died, but they seemed very fond of each other. I tried join up with her yesterday, she did very well. Georgie is coming home from the Olympics on Monday, her second time there. She won silver last year, and even did a news article. She mentioned you, saying you were the best coach she had had and that you gave her the confidence to do the Olympics..." I stalled for a minute, taking a breath. "I love you Mom, but I have to go now. Grandpa will kill me stone dead if I'm not back for dinner. I'll be back up here soon, okay?" I whispered, standing up and walked over to Cappuccino, mounting her, and riding away.

Jack's POV:
"She's late for dinner again." Tim said, drumming his fingers on the table. I sighed. "Dad, give her a break." Lou said softly. Tim rolled his eyes. "We all know where she goes. She goes up to that house, with the wild horses. She goes up to talk to Amy." I say, taking a sip of water. Lisa rubbed my hand and gave me a sympathetic look. "That can't be her excuse every night though Jack. It's getting dark out, and even if she is a good rider, good riders still have falls." Tim says, snarky. I knew why he was being snarky; this time next week would be Amy and Ty's wedding anniversary. We all tend to think about telling Lyndy the truth about where Ty was and why he left, but we never do. "Tim, we have to tell her. We have to tell her why her father really left." I say sternly. Tim shakes his head. "No. No, not this again. We agreed not to tell her-" I interrupted him. "We agreed not to tell her when she was three. She's fourteen years old now Tim. She'll start asking questions sooner or later." I sigh and look at my plate. Tim shakes his head. "She does know what happened; she knows that Ty couldn't handle being a single father, packed his bags and left Heartland." He insists. I scowl and shake my head. "What about the messages we got before we blocked his number? Or the dozen unopened letters that he sent out to her? Tim, she deserves to know." I say, fighting harder then usual to convince him to give us the right answer. "What do you want us to say! 'Oh hey Lyndy, your dad didn't want to leave, we made him leave because he was a drunk who was getting violent and he's tried multiple times to reach out to you and explain what happened but your overprotective grandfather and great grandfather never allowed you to know and we lied to you for the last eleven years!'" Tim shouted. And that's when we heard the door slam shut. I turned to see Lyndy, standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at us. "Ty didn't willingly leave... you made him!" She shouted before running off into her bedroom.

Author's Note:
Sorry for taking so long to update, the surgery was worse then I thought lol. I'm back now though, and I have the next two weeks off from school because of the surgery and then two weeks off for Easter so I'm hoping to write a good bit haha. Anyway, hope you all enjoyed and thank you for sticking with me this long! Thanks for reading!
~ Ashton 🫶