"You could have given me a heads up!" Emily snapped, stomping into the stable in a righteous fury.
Derek, who had been the midst of brushing one of the horses, was so startled by her dramatic entrance that he dropped the brush. The horse, as if irritated with his clumsiness, nickered, turned to fix him with a surprisingly human-like look of annoyance. "What exactly am I in trouble for?" Derek asked Emily.
"You let me believe Clara was coming here for you!" she snapped.
He still seemed confused. "The farrier?"
She huffed, fixed him with a pointed stare.
It took him a few moments to catch on to what exactly was going on...but when he did, a look of understanding dawned across his face. "Who told you?" he asked.
"Does it matter?" she snapped. "The point is that you didn't."
"It's not really any of my business," he insisted.
Emily scoffed. "You've never kept your nose out of my business before now," she replied. "In fact, you've gone out of your way to stick your nose in my business whether I want you to or not."
She had a point there, not that he was going to admit that. "So, I take it that you've met Clara?" he asked, sidestepping the accusation.
"Yes," she said bitterly. "And she's fucking gorgeous. I don't know how I'm supposed to compete with that..."
"Relax," Derek said, "They've only been on one date, if Alex wanted to be..."
Emily interrupted, "They've been on a date!?"
"You didn't know that?" he said in a small voice.
She muttered a string of curses under her breath, then turned on her heel and stomped back out of the stable.
Emily found Ethan in Derek's workshop, intensely focused on painting a little wooden box. "What are you working on?" she asked, coming up beside him.
He glanced up from his work, offered her a grin. "I'm making Mom a jewellery box for Christmas," he said. "Derek helped me make the box, now I'm painting it."
"That's a very nice gift," Emily said with a fond smile. "Where is your Mom, by the way?"
"She had to go get groceries," he said with a shrug.
She nodded slowly. "Do you think you could help me out with something?"
A mischievous smirk spread across his face as if he knew exactly what she was about to ask...
"I need your help planning something nice for your Mom," she said in a rush, the words coming out all jumbled together. She took a deep breath, calming her frazzled nerves, then tried to explain, "I want to surprise her with something she'll really enjoy, something that will make her smile. Any suggestions?"
He made a dramatic show of thinking the matter over. "You should take her to the bookstore," he said at length.
"The bookstore?" she repeated, decidedly unimpressed.
He nodded. "When Mom was a kid, Grandma used to take her to the bookstore and let her pick out a book and they'd read it together at night. And when Grandma got sick, Mom would read the books to her."
"Oh..." Emily said quietly.
Ethan continued, "She loves books. Papa Joey let her keep all her books in the library so she wouldn't have to get rid of them when we moved here." A beat. "You like books too, right?"
She nodded. "I love them. When I was growing up, my mother moved us around a lot, so sometimes it felt like books were the only friends I had."
"I'll be your friend," Ethan instantly volunteered. "And you're Mom's friend too, right?"
"I hope so," she said quietly, not entirely certain that Alex was all that fond of her just then...and not entirely certain she was content with the label of friends and nothing more.
That night over dinner, Alex remarked, "Guess who I ran into in town today?"
"Santa?" Hank guessed, little eyes going wide with excitement.
Alex laughed. "No, I think he's very busy at the North Pole right now." She shot Derek a wink. "I ran into Clara Seger. She asked how Frosty is doing with the laminitis, said she might drop by to check on her tomorrow."
Thankfully, she didn't notice the way Emily's face blanched at the mention of the farrier.
Derek, on the other hand, did notice... And, ever the vigilant wingman, he did his best to change the subject, "Hopefully the laminitis clears up quickly. I've actually been thinking of getting another pony – let the kids ride the new one and let Frosty be a part of the petting zoo without putting stress on her hoof."
Hank, blissfully unaware of what adults' subtext, suggested loudly, "You should get a REINDEER!"
Derek laughed heartily. "A reindeer, huh?"
He nodded eagerly. "And a T-Rex!" He threw up his hands in a dramatic reenactment of a dinosaur's claws and roared – more like a lion than anything else, not that anyone was going to critique a four year old's acting skills...
All the adults were reduced to laughter at that.
"Won't the T-Rex eat all the other animals?" Alex asked. "Or you..."
Hank screwed up his face in thought. "Prob'ly," he conceded. "Maybe we should get a dog 'stead."
"Yeah!" Ethan agreed insistently. "A dalmatian!"
Alex groaned. "Not this again..." She'd had the puppy debate with Ethan far too many times for her liking...not that it ever did any good, especially when Derek was firmly on Team Dog and encouraging Ethan's enthusiasm for a puppy.
While the children attempted to convince Alex, Emily mouthed a silent Thank you! to Derek, extremely grateful for the shift in topic.
Derek just shot her a wink to indicate that he had her back. But he followed it up with a deliberately pointed look that clearly told her she should get her shit together and do something about the matter before things got out of hand because he couldn't be there all the time to redirect Alex's attention away from Clara...