A/N: New story! I've been writing this one off and on for the past few weeks, mainly because I can't wait for season 6! I wasn't going to publish it, but then I had a good idea, and I decided to... Hope you don't mind :)

Short chapter, but it was a good place to cut off and I wanted to just get an introduction. I know season 6 starts a few months later, but... I wrote this before I knew that. Everything follows what I knew about the season at the time I wrote it, meaning that in my story, Mallory is back. There is no Georgie, mainly because I don't want to write her, and I'm not sure how I feel about her entering.

Disclaimer for whole story: I don't own anything... only my own ideas.

"Hey, Lou? Can we talk? In private?"

Lou looks up from her papers. "Yeah, sure. What's up?"

"Well, when you and Peter were out at the Dude Ranch last night, Ty and I put Katie to bed and we were on the couch, and then he went outside to get some wood," I take a deep breath, not knowing how to continue. "While he was gone his cell phone rang."

"And?" Lou looks puzzled.

"And I took it out of his pocket."

"Amy," she looks frustrated. "I'm sorry if I'm missing it, but what's the point in this story?"

"And I sort of accidentally found a ring too," I say quickly, looking up at Lou at the end.

She drops her papers that she had been half looking at onto the table. Trying to compose
herself, she asks, "What kind of ring?"

"An," I cringe at the word, "engagement ring."

She sighs. "Amy, please tell me you didn't find that."

"Wait, you knew?" I ask in shock.

"I may have heard Ty asking Grandpa," she admits.

I put my head in my hands. "What should I do? I mean, I can't go tell him I found it."

"Here's what you do. You pretend you never found it, forget the whole thing, and when he asks you, just act surprised," she takes a sip of her coffee and shrugs.

"Lou, I don't know if I'm ready for this."

She looks surprised, "Are you saying you're going to say no?"

"I don't know what I'm going to say," I sigh, frustrated. "When someone asks you to marry them, it's supposed to be a surprise, spontaneous. Now I know, and it's not the same."

"Amy," Lou puts her hand on my arm, "it'll be great, no matter what. Trust me."

"But what if it isn't? I mean, we agreed that we'd be open and honest to each other, but now with this I can't tell him."

"Amy, Ty will ask you either way. Whether you tell him or not. You're the only one who can make that decision," she looks around. "Where is he, anyways?"

"Getting a haircut," I reply.

"Look, just make sure that you don't regret it," she tells me. "I would wait to tell him until after he asks you. Which could take a while, because he's had that thing for months."

"Wait, what?" Lou shrugs and stands up. "Lou, tell me!"

"Ugh!" she groans. Lou is the worst secret keeper. "Fine. He bought it after the motorcycle crash."

"The one with grandpa? That was ages ago."

"And he said it's been burning a hole in his pocket ever since."

I think back. "Gosh, I really screwed this up."

Lou sits back down. "What do you mean? You weren't snooping through is coat, trying to find a ring, were you?"

"No," I say, "but looking back, that's why he's been so weird. 'Thanks for saving Lobo.' 'Oh, I couldn't have done it without you,' or, 'I see us doing a lot together.' Things like that. But I screwed it all up. I told him that I didn't want things to change between us last night, in a side conversation when we were talking about Dark Horse."

"Amy," she whines, "when he says that stuff, he's looking for you to agree with him, so that he feels okay asking you."

"I'm kind of excited now," I admit, all my previous apprehensions gone.

"You should be," she picks up her papers. "Now, I have to get back to work."