Recap: Zip is working the monitors when he is asked to watch Mary Alice. Discovering she loves horses, he offers to take her to his family farm where they have several.

Stephanie

After a long day in meetings I went back to level 5 to find Mary Alice. She was sitting with Zip, coloring some printouts with what looked like a pack of multi-colored highlighters. Zip was chatting with her as his eyes scanned the monitors. I was surprised that they both seemed to be enjoying themselves. Mary Alice heard me behind her and launched herself at my waist. "Aunt Stephanie! Zip is going to take me to ride horses!"

"Oh he is, is he?" I looked at him, and he glanced down sheepishly.

"Sorry Bomber, I guess I should have talked to you first, but you see my family has a farm in Bucks County, and we have horses, and I figured I have off tomorrow, and her school will be closed for a couple days. So I thought..."

"You thought you could take her to go see them?" He nodded. I thought about it. She loved horses so much, if she had a chance to spend time with them without Val and Albert having to spend a fortune, that would be great. "Let me call my sister."

I pulled out my cell. It was a few minutes past 5, so court should be out by now.

"Stephanie, is Mary Alice OK?"

I walked around the corner into Ranger's office so Mary Alice wouldn't hear the conversation. "She fine. Better than fine, in fact. She made friends with one of the guys who was watching her."

"What do you mean 'one of the guys who was watching her'? She was supposed to be with you and you left her with one of those…"

I could almost hear the word 'thug' forming on her brain.

"One of the employees of Rangeman who very kindly agreed to watch her after you dumped her in my lap without me even agreeing to get her. What if I hadn't been in town? I was in Philly two days ago. My time is valuable as well, and it's lucky Ranger was so understanding to let a child into the office at all.

"In any case, one of the guys is from a horse family and very kindly offered to take her to his farm to meet them."

The line was silent for so long I checked my phone to make sure the call hadn't dropped.

"Val?"

"Are you saying that someone from your work is willing to take my daughter to be with horses, without charging us an arm and a leg?" Her voice was a mixture of relief, wonder, and trepidation.

"Yes. He has tomorrow off, and my understanding is that the school will still be closed. He offered to take her."

"I'm just not sure how safe I feel letting some stranger take her to a remote farm."

"He's not a stranger, he's a coworker of mine."

"Will you go with her?"

"Would that make you feel better?"

"Yes. I'd feel much better knowing you were there. Angie can be with us in court tomorrow, she'll be fine as long as she has a book, but Mary Alice might start galloping around"

I didn't want Mary Alice to miss out on the opportunity, and I was still not in any shape to make any captures, but being outside should be fine as long as I didn't exert myself.

"I'll check with Ranger, but it should be OK."

"Thanks Steph. Can you come get her at 8 tomorrow morning?"

Heaven forbid she drop Mary Alice off so I didn't have to get up and dressed as early while I was doing free babysitting, and giving her kid an experience she really wanted.

"Sure, fine. I'll see you then. Are you going to pick up Mary Alice, or"

"Can you drop her off at my house, maybe in an hour?"

Sigh.

Ranger

It's funny how quickly you get used to something. After years of only seeing Steph when she or I needed something, I'd gotten used to having her around all the time. I wonder how many of the times I asked for her help was it really just an excuse to see her. Certainly not all, but certainly not none. She had spent the day at Zip's family's farm with Mary Alice. There hadn't been a good reason to keep her here, aside from how much I loved having her around. She had left early in the morning, at least, early for her. I had been up for hours already, staring at her, holding her, nuzzling her hair until she woke. Tomorrow we would finally be able to have sex, and I was counting the seconds.

I was in my home office when she got back. Her nose was sunburned, her hair windswept, and she was walking with her legs oddly apart. She had a distinctly horsey smell, fresh hay and sweat and the oddly nice-smelling dung.

"Have fun with the horses, Babe?"

"I did. I even rode a tiny bit. Not enough to get my heart racing, but enough that I'm sore from sitting in the saddle."

"How about Mary Alice?"

"She had the time of her life. She knew a surprising amount of how to take care of them already, so she spent the morning feeding and watering and brushing every horse they had. The stable hand got to spend the morning catching up on paperwork since she was doing all the work."

"How long did Zip make her work before letting her ride?"

"Must have been 3 or 4 hours. She didn't mind though. She just kept brushing the horse and talking to them. Zip even let her keep her curry comb. I wouldn't be surprised if she uses it on her hair from now on. It will drive Val nuts."

Stephanie plopped down in the chair beside me. "After lunch she finally got to ride, and I swear she looked like it was Christmas, her birthday, and Summer Vacation all rolled into one. Bliss, absolute bliss."

"Probably made better by all the work she had to put into it."

"Yup. Everything except stuff you wouldn't want a kid to do. Zip picked the hooves, brushed where Mary Alice couldn't reach, and of course handled putting on the saddle and other equipment. He showed her how to do it, but for safety's sake he did all the actual buckling and pulling."

"How did you like riding?"

She laughed, a bright sound that filled the room with joy. "I had fun too, but I wasn't nuts about being that far off the ground. I went really slow while Zip lead the horse, so I didn't strain myself. I could never use a horse for transportation though, it's one thing when I burn or blow up some old beater car, but I'd hate for my luck to get transferred to a pretty animal like that."

I had a quick mental image of a horse fleeing an overturned garbage truck, and slightly cracked a smile. But then she hit me with the question I had feared might some up.

"So, Zip seems to be a model employee. Smart, sharp, loyal."

I nodded, I had a feeling I knew where this was going.

"So, any particular reason he's in the doghouse? He can't figure out what he did wrong."

Shit. This was going to be embarrassing.

"What? What?" She moved around to follow my eyes. "What did he do to get so much monitor duty?"

"So, it's not so much what he did. It's more what he thinks."

Stephanie looked confused. "He's not a racist or something is he? He seems so nice!"

"No, no, nothing like that. You know how I went to Rutgers?"

"Yeah"

"Well, Zip grew up near here, so he's a fan of Princeton."

"OK"

"And a couple weeks ago, Princeton creamed Rutgers in Men's soccer, and I heard him mention that he'd made a big bet on them, and made a fair amount of money."

"So you made his job miserable to punish him for Rutgers losing to Princeton?"

I don't generally do sheepish, but it was really childish of me. "Do you think less of me now?"

She stood up and gave me a hug. "Not at all, it just makes you seem a little more human. Batman getting petty over college sports." Then she kissed me on the forehead and got up. "I'm exhausted, I'm going to grab a shower then head to bed. I'll see you later." And she was gone, the smell of hay wafting off her as she moved.

It was 20 hours, 22 minutes and 14 seconds until I could make love to her again, and I had plans for exactly what I would do.