by Ann Hunter
Carol shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t want to go by myself, and I can’t ask you to leave Pro.”
Alex chewed her lip. “I know how excited you’ve been about it though. I don’t want you to miss it.”
“Yeah, but who’d want to date all of this?” Carol motioned to her pudge.
Alex frowned. She would bet any guy with decency and nerve would hit that, with Carol’s glowing personality. There had to be a way to get her a date to the dance. She chewed her pencil. “I’m sorry I can’t go.”
Carol leaned her head against Alex’s. “Don’t worry about it. I understand.”
The silence that hung in the air at night was only broken by crickets in the distance. There was a lonely heaviness surrounding Promenade and Alex, filled with the colt’s congested breathing, and the occasional rustle of straw.
Alex looked up from stroking Promenade’s weary head as he slept across her knees, when Dejado slid open the stall door, carrying a plate of food, and a large, heavy blanket over his shoulder.
“Sorry to bother,” he mumbled.
“I’m actually kinda glad you’re here,” Alex confessed, since Carol had left hours ago. “My leg’s asleep.”
“Perhaps it’s my turn to be the pillow.” He shut the door partway behind him.
Alex raised an eyebrow. As she took the plate of food from Dejado, he gently tilted Promenade’s head onto his lap.
“Come here, old man.”
Promenade’s lip twitched in a faint shadow of what might be a playful nip. Dejado stroked the colt’s broad cheek, smiling.
He looked at Alex. “Your mum makes the best haslet.”
Alex squinted at her plate of peas piled into a mashed potato volcano, and a generous helping of meatloaf. “Haslet?”
Dejado pointed to the meat.
Alex grinned at him. “Meatloaf.” She speared a chunk with the fork he’d brought, and was grateful Hillary hadn’t forgotten ketchup. She bit into it. The wonderful juices assailed her taste buds, and she leaned her head back against the stall wall with her eyes closed, savoring the herbs and beef.
“Yeah, she does,” she said with a smile. How could her sister Laura ever be a vegetarian when her mom cooked like this?
“Hey, could I ask you a huge favor?”
Dejado smiled warmly. “Of course.”
“Carol’s really excited about the spring dance, and I…” Alex sighed. “I promised I’d go with her, but I just can’t leave Promenade here.” She mustered courage to look into Dejado’s eyes. They were as earthy and chocolate as Promenade. Alex swallowed back a stir of emotion. “Could you take her?”
Dejado’s brow arched in surprise.
“She deserves to be treated nice. Make it a real date. Dinner, flowers, that sort of thing.”
“Alright…”
But don’t fall in love with her. The words almost came tumbling out. She brushed her jeans off and leaned against the stall wall, crossing her arms.
Dejado’s expression was one of both concern and, well, something else. He offered a smile. “It would be an honor.”
He spread the blanket out over their backs, then extended his arm. Alex looked at him warily.
“I won’t bite,” he chuckled. “Unless you want me to.”
Alex rolled her eyes.
“We’ll be warmer together,” Dejado said. “And, frankly, I think you could use the company.”
Alex sighed and scooted closer. He arranged the blanket over her shoulders.
“No funny business,” she said.
Dejado nodded, folding his arms. “Just friends.”
The following morning, Alex blinked awake. Promenade was on his feet, dozing with his head in the corner. Realizing she’d fallen asleep on Dejado’s shoulder, Alex startled away. “What are you still doing here?”
“What was I supposed to do? Let you fall over?”
“Yes!”
Dejado wrinkled his nose. “That’s not very gentlemanly.”
Alex folded her arms. The blanket had followed her half-way across the stall, and drug on the hay. “I don’t care.”
Dejado got to his feet, brushing debris off his jeans. “You’re the one that fell asleep on me.”
She knew. She hoped the shade she was throwing with her glare gave him a hint of where to go.
They were having a stare-off when Hillary showed up. “Is there something going on here I should know about?”
Dejado’s head hung. “I was just leaving.”
They both watched him go.
Alex stared up, with blurry eyes, as Hillary examined Promenade. She wasn’t sure if either of them had slept much lately, judging from the dark circles under Hillary’s eyes.
“You’re starting to look half as sick as he is,” Hillary said, running a hand over Promenade’s shoulder. “When was the last time you slept in your own bed, went to school, or ate with Laura, Cade, and I?”
“I’ve been staying up on my homework.”
“If you keep missing classes, they’ll put you down as a delinquent.”
“Let them.”
“That’s not going to fly. Delinquency would land Cade and I in court. Is that really where you want to be?”
After enduring the murder trial for the woman who had looked after her, Alex wanted to stay as far away from the legal system as possible. Couldn’t the school understand what was at stake? Hadn’t anyone there ever spent sleepless nights with something they loved more than anything?
“You’ve got to rest, Alex.”
“You really think I’m going to get any more sleep in my bed than I am out here? How does that change anything? If I’m not with him, I’ll just worry more.”
“What about exercise riding? With Joe and part of the crew stuck at Oaklawn, we’re understaffed. We need all the help we can get.”
“What about spreading the virus?”
“Take a shower!” Hillary quipped. “When was the last time you had one anyway?”
“Thursday,” Alex lied, even though she really wanted to say nev-aarrr. She took them, of course, but she still hated showers, even after escaping Haven.
Hillary crouched by her. “You and I both have responsibilities to this farm. You can’t blow them off for one horse.”
Alex turned her head away, so she didn’t have to face the truth, but Hillary tugged Alex’s chin back to make eye contact. It was hard to look into Hillary’s eyes. There was a soul behind them who cared, and she didn’t know why, but it hurt Alex inside.
“Listen to me,” Hillary said softly. “You’re coming in for dinner tonight, and a hot bath. That’s not a request.”
“But— ”
“Someone else will spend the night with Promenade.” Hillary straightened. “I’ll do it myself if I have to. You have to return to the land of the living.”
CHAUNCEY
Alex barely registered her alarm going off. It was still dark out. She smacked the box of digital numbers and rolled over, balling herself up in her blankets. The hot bath last night made her realize how sore she really was after spending night after night sleeping sitting up in Promenade’s stall. If she managed to stay asleep now, she wouldn’t feel her stiff muscles complaining. The dull throb of a headache was settling in too.
She didn’t think she would sleep as soundly as she did last night, except that the tea Hillary brought her before bed tasted funny. Alex wouldn’t put it past her to slip her an antihistamine and knock her out for the night. Moms, using their super powers for evil since the dawn of time.
The alarm clock sounded again, and this time Alex couldn’t ignore it. Not that the extra five minutes of dozing did her any good. She threw back the covers and pushed herself to a sitting position, wincing all the while.
The only thing she liked about this moment was how quiet the house was, and the way twilight stars still twinkled against the purpling sky. Some days it was hard to imagine her life had been any different two years before. It was starting to feel like it had been a
bad dream. Except now, with Promenade sick, she was waking to a new one.
She rubbed the sleep from her face, then got out of bed to dress, head downstairs, grab fruit from the bowl on the kitchen table, and step outside. Her beat up chucks looked so lonely on the stoop. Hillary had made her keep them outside so as not to bring in anything unwanted from the quarantine barn. Today, Alex wore her paddock boots instead. They weren’t as comfy and broken in has her worn-out chucks, but they weren’t virus infested either.
One glance in the direction of the quarantine barn on the outskirts of the farm, and Alex wanted nothing more than to ditch her morning rides and be with Promenade. Hillary’s words came back to Alex though, that the farm needed her right now. Her colt would have to wait.
Alex kicked gravel as she headed toward the training barn, hands stuffed into her jacket pockets. She grabbed her gear from the tack room, then inspected the clipboard on the wall to see who she was riding today. Her eyes wandered, distracted by the goings-on of the training barn. With Joe at Oaklawn, and Brooke stranded at Churchill Downs with Morning Glory, the mood here was a whole other ball game. None of it felt the same, even though the routine hadn’t changed.
To top it off, Alex didn’t see Dejado anywhere. Usually he was the first to annoy her. The fact that she was actually looking for him, forced Alex to put herself in check. What did she care if he wasn’t around? She’d actually be able to concentrate for once.
Her first mount of the day was Chauncey, the chestnut colt stabled next to Promenade’s empty stall. He stood in the crossties half asleep. A groom gave Alex a leg up into the saddle, and set her loose. She had to tap the heels of her boots to the colt’s sides to get him to move. He went forward slowly, sneezing when they got outside.
Alex didn’t think much of it as she adjusted her stirrups. She met the assistant trainer, whose name escaped her at the moment, at the gap in the training track rail.
“Take him around twice at a jog,” he said. “Then cool him out.”
Alex nodded, clipping the chin strap on her helmet, and urged Chauncey forward. He seemed about as lazy as Donut, another of North Oak’s horses that wasn’t really cut out for racing. It was a real job to get Chauncey to do much. Alex was pretty sure she was getting more of a workout than he was just to keep him going at a trot.
“This is, like, the most basic move you can do, dude,” she said to him.
He let out a weird snort-sneeze. Alex pressed her palm against his neck, and her brow furrowed. Chauncey felt as warm as a horse who had breezed out, rather than an easy tour of the track. He shouldn’t be this hot already.
She asked him to shift gears down into a lope, and he perked up a little, almost as if he appreciated it. It was a chore to get him around the course a second time, but she was quick to take him off the track. Alex hand walked him, occasionally feeling his neck and chest, and becoming more and more concerned about how warm he was. When she passed Chauncey to his groom, she let the guy know that the colt was having some trouble, and vowed to check on him after her next two rides.
The following workouts went quickly, and were way more enjoyable than Alex anticipated. For a few minutes, she even forgot Promenade was sick. But when she checked on Chauncey again, the colt had his rump to the stall door, and his head hung in the corner.
Alex looked around, and snuck into the stall. Chauncey hadn’t touched his breakfast, was warmer than when she passed him to his groom, and his nose was running. This wasn’t right. A healthy Thoroughbred would’ve put his breakfast away by now, and looking forward to being turned out for the day. A sulky, lethargic horse was not a good sign.
She let herself out of the stall, and raced back home. She opened the front door just a crack, hoping she wouldn’t have to go all the way inside.
Cade was taking in a cup of coffee at the kitchen table, already dressed and prepared to go out.
“Morning, Sport.” He smiled.
“Have you seen Hills?”
“I think she’s in the foaling barn. Why?”
Alex shut the door quickly and sprinted to the foaling barn. She was moving so fast, she had to grab the corner of the barn door, just to keep from flying past it. She swung herself inside, stumbling, but catching herself on one of the stalls.
“I’m in here,” Hillary called from a few stalls down. She sounded tired.
Alex followed her voice, and gripped the bars of Venus Galaxies’s stall. Her dark bay foal lay in the straw, hooked up to a couple of IV’s. Alex swallowed hard.
“I’ve spent half the night with him,” Hillary said. “The mare next door lost hers.”
Alex bit her lip, her heart tearing. “How did this happen? Promenade’s in quarantine.”
“It must have been before we knew about the virus. We handled both Promenade, and the mares and foal.”
Guilt dumped on Alex like mucking duty, heavy and pungent. She and Carol had both been around the foal right after Promenade. They were all over the colts. “This is probably a bad time to tell you that I think another horse is sick.”
Hillary frowned.
“I worked him this morning. The one that was stabled next to Promenade. He’s not cooling down like he should. In fact,” Alex swallowed, “he’s getting hotter.”
Hillary nodded grimly. “We’re beginning to lose horses, and I feel like it’s my fault,” she said. “I should’ve been more careful. If North called me today to fire me, I wouldn’t blame him.”
What was Alex supposed to say? Don’t be so hard on yourself, because you’re in charge of hundreds of horses. Or you’re a great vet even though your horses are dying. Alex kicked herself inside. If their places were switched, Hillary would say something fantastic and spiritual, like that one time she promised Alex would find someone to make all her broken pieces go back together.
Alex folded her arms and leaned her forehead against the cool iron bars of the stall, trying to muster something consoling. “Don’t say that,” was about all that came out. She wasn’t even sure if she was saying it to herself, or to Hillary. After all, Alex felt partially responsible for the horses getting sick too.
She noted how exhausted Hillary looked. “Do you want me to stay with these guys?” she offered.
Hillary shook her head. “No.” She looked dead at her. “I want you to go to school. Worrying about what’s going on here won’t do you any good. Go be a kid, kid.”
“What about Promenade?”
Hillary rose, removing her latex gloves as she exited the stall. “I’ve got it covered, okay?”
She squeezed Alex’s shoulder, nodding in the direction of their house. “Don’t be late.”
***
Alex highly doubted she’d be able to do anything productive at school with Promenade and Venus Galaxies’s foal on her mind. And poor Chauncey.
But the second she opened her locker, she was mauled by a body barreling into her.
“You’re back!”
Out of instinct, Alex scrambled to get away, but the arms squished her tighter like some claw machine at a cheap arcade. Once she was able to slip away, she got a good look at her attacker.
Katie Chapman grinned brightly at her. Alex rubbed her throat, unable to resist smiling back sheepishly. Katie’s personality was about as infectious as the virus back home. Alex swallowed, giving a slight wave. Maybe that wasn’t the best analogy.
“Carol told me about your horse,” Katie said. “I’m really sorry.”
Alex turned back to her locker to get her stuff for class. “He’ll be okay.”
“I hope so.” Katie leaned back against the locker beside Alex’s. She rolled her hazel eyes toward her. “I really missed you.”
Alex glanced at her, wondering if that was a blush she caught on Katie’s cheeks. Should she say it back? Alex tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She hadn’t really thought of anyone outside North Oak while she was with Promenade. Was this how some people felt when someone else complimented you, and all you could babble was some
thing awkward like toast?
“Thanks,” Alex said, then blurted, “Let’s get to class.”
When math was over, Brad Hopkins waited for them by Alex’s locker, leaning against it with his charismatic sneer. Oh, goodie. Her favorite person. Not.
He blocked their access, refusing to budge. “Well if it isn’t Chunk’s guard dog and Chapstick Chapman.”
Alex simply rolled her eyes. “Move it, butthead.”
Katie took several steps back behind Alex, as if trying to hide from him. Alex glanced over her shoulder to see a stark expression on Katie’s face; eyes wide, jaw clenched tight. In some ways, she reminded Alex of Carol when Alex first started standing up for her.
“I mean,” Brad said, placing his hand over his heart as if to apologize. “Big Al and Gold Star Katie.”
Alex squinted at him. What was he getting at? He was full of more air than a gas cramp. She refused to give him the satisfaction of thinking any of his words got through to her, and shoved him back to get into her locker. “Is there something you came here to actually say, or are you once again the star of your own otherwise silent movie?”
He stepped around them, approaching Katie with that twisted grin he got; like a python stalking dinner.
“Oh it doesn’t have to be silent,” he said. “Katie and I have been talking about her big part.” He leaned in on her. “Weren’t we, my sporty little track queen.”
“Please don’t do this,” Katie uttered.
Brad’s nose wrinkled. “But it’s so fun.”
Alex rounded on him, throwing her shoulder into his back to push him away. “Leave her alone,” she growled.
Brad turned, baring his teeth, no better than a colt that needed gelding. “You have no idea, do you?”
Alex raised her hand, and began curling her fingers into a fist. “You’ve forgotten I’ve got five friends right here that know all they need to.”
Brad sneered between the two girls, then spit. “Boi.”
When he skulked away, Alex faced Katie. “Are you alright?”
