Shadow Horse

by Alison Hart

  “Here’s Jas,” Miss Hahn said.

  The guy straightened and turned to look at her. The bill of his baseball cap shaded his face, but Jas could still feel his gaze.

  She flushed, suddenly feeling awkward, as if he were a date. Not that she’d ever had one before. He was probably staring at her because she was the freaky foster kid.

  “Hi,” he finally said.

  Nervous, Jas shoved her fingers in her jean pockets. “Hi.”

  “I’d go with you on the grand tour, but I have to make a few phone calls,” Miss Hahn said. “Chase can explain the chores. I’m not sure who’s on the schedule to help feed.” She directed her statement to Chase, who was ready to head out. “I hope Jas will want to help,” she added. “She has lots of experience with horses.”

  “I think Lucy’s working,” Chase said as he strode across the kitchen. He pushed open the screen door, holding it for a second, then letting it go, as if he didn’t want to appear too polite.

  Jas noticed the gesture, then hurried after him, the dogs following behind. Chase was about a foot taller than she was, and his stride was long. Jas lengthened her own stride, cursing when she tripped over Angel, who zigzagged in front of her.

  When they reached the edge of the yard, Chase didn’t even glance over his shoulder as he silently headed up the drive.

  So much for friendly conversation, Jas thought, glowering at his back. Not that she cared. She was glad to get away from Miss Hahn’s spying eyes. And she’d rather see the horses than talk to some kid.

  Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if Chase rode. If Miss Hahn bred and raised horses, he might help start them under saddle, something she’d just started doing before …

  She pushed the thought out of her mind, concentrating instead on her growing excitement as they approached a heavy metal gate set in stained three-board fencing. Chase wound through a pass-through built in the fence. It was designed to let humans in and keep horses from getting out.

  Jas followed, her underarms sweating from the heat and anticipation. When she got to the other side of the fence, she stopped in her tracks.

  Before her stood barns, sheds, patched-up fences, makeshift paddocks, and wandering animals. There were burros, goats, geese, cows, chickens, llamas, peacocks, and pigs.

  Her mouth fell open in disbelief. This wasn’t a horse farm. It was Noah’s Ark.

  As soon as the burros saw Chase, they ambled over, their long ears flopping. Ignoring the animals, Angel and Reese bounded off into an overgrown field. Lassie trotted toward the geese. A goat appeared and thrust his muzzle into Jas’s palm.

  “Little devil’s looking for treats,” Chase said as he patted the burros, then continued toward a small metal building. Jas hurried after him, trying to keep from stepping on the geese who waddled around her legs while Lassie barked behind them.

  Suddenly, the goat grabbed the hem of her T-shirt with his teeth. “Hey!” Jas pushed him away. Lowering his head, he butted her in the thigh.

  Chase grinned. “He won’t hurt you,” he said as he went up two concrete steps and opened the door of the ramshackle building. “He just gets frisky sometimes.”

  Only the goat’s friskiness did hurt. Jas rubbed her thigh, then leaped up the steps after him.

  “This is the office.” He waved his arm around the small room.

  “The off—whoa!” Suddenly, the two burros climbed up the steps, forcing Jas backward. She collided with Chase, stepping on his toes.

  “Whoops, sorry!” Embarrassed, she jumped sideways and knocked over a desk chair.

  “That’s all right. Heckle, Jeckle, get out of here,” Chase scolded the two burros. Shooing them off the steps, he shut the door halfway.

  Jas grabbed the chair at the same time that Chase reached for it, and they bumped heads. “Oh, gosh, sorry again!” Jas jerked upright, horrified. How could she be such a klutz?

  Chase grinned. “No damage done. See?” He rapped on the top of his cap-covered head. “Actually, I should apologize. Heckle and Jeckle usually have better manners, but it’s dinnertime and they get rowdy when they’re hungry. Plus, this weekend we had a bunch of kids from a day camp, and they spoiled them rotten with treats.”

  “Day camp? I don’t understand.” Confused, Jas looked around. The small office had two desks overflowing with papers, manila folders, half-empty soda cans, and books. Three file cabinets lined one wall, folding chairs were on the other, and photos and posters of animals were tacked everywhere.

  Jas tried to compare this dusty, disorganized room with Phil’s immaculate office in the barn at High Meadows. So far, Second Chance Farm was nothing like any horse farm she’d ever seen.

  She looked questioningly at Chase, who was slouched against one of the file cabinets. He held a clipboard in one hand, but his eyes were watching her.

  “Isn’t this a horse farm?” she asked.

  “We do have horses. Twenty of them.”

  “But what about all the other animals?”

  Chase snorted. “You mean you thought this was a horse horse farm like the fancy Thoroughbred places on Mill Road?”

  High Meadows Farm was on Mill Road.

  “Well … yes.”

  “Ha, that’s pretty funny.” Chase smacked the clipboard against his thigh.

  Jas didn’t think it was funny at all. “So then, what kind of a horse farm is it?” she asked mockingly.

  “Well, it’s not that kind of a horse farm,” he replied, his tone just as mocking. “It’s a farm for rescued animals. You know, like the Humane Society. The animal shelter.” Chase leaned forward, gesturing with one hand as if he were talking to one of the little kids from the day camp. “We take in animals that no one else wants.”

  “Oh.” Jas nodded once, her blood beginning to boil because of his tone. “Rejects. Now I get it.”

  And did she ever. No wonder he’d been studying her so intently.

  Cheeks reddening, Jas stepped toward him. “Now I know why you’re staring at me like I’m a sideshow freak,” she said, her fists clenched by her side. “You’re thinking how I fit in perfectly with the animals at Second Chance Farm. The only difference is, I’m a person no one else wants!”

  Seven

  JAS GLARED UP AT CHASE, HER BODY BRISTLING like a mad cat’s.

  “Wrong,” Chase said as he dropped the clipboard on top of the file cabinet and glared right back. “We don’t think of the animals as rejects. They’re here because people are stupid and greedy and cruel. I was staring at you because—” Suddenly, he flushed bright red. “Never mind.”

  Turning abruptly, he picked up the clipboard, flipped back a page and busily scanned it.

  Jas felt her cheeks grow hot. Was he about to say “because you’re cute”?

  Jas stopped to think for a second. She knew it wasn’t his fault she was here. She shouldn’t have gotten so mad at him. “Oh, well, I’m sorry I got so mad,” she said.

  Chase looked over at her. Jas dropped her gaze to the floor, feeling totally stupid.

  Suddenly, Angel, Lassie, and Reese shoved the door open and charged into the office. Their tails thumped against the desks. As Jas bent to pat them, she blew out a shaky breath.

  “Hee-haw!” An ear-splitting bray made her twist around. The two burros, Heckle and Jeckle, stood in the doorway, front hooves propped on the office floor, hind legs on the bottom step.

  “All right, we’re coming.” Chase checked the clock on the wall. “Lucy should be here any second to help feed. It takes a while with all the different animals.”

  “I’ll help,” Jas said, immediately wondering why she was volunteering to work. She didn’t owe Miss Hahn and her farm anything.

  “Good, we need all the help we can get,” he said. Pushing past Heckle and Jeckle, Chase bounded down the steps.

  Jas followed, but immediately slipped in something gray and squishy. Lifting her foot, she checked the sole of her sneaker.

  Great. Goose poop.

  “We’ll star
t with the horses,” Chase called, striding ahead.

  Jas hurried after him. Okay, so she’d acted like a dork. But she was thirteen and had zero experience with guys. It wasn’t so unusual.

  But what about Chase? Was he really about to say she was cute?

  No way. Not me.

  Jas shook her head. He was probably going to say he was staring because he’d never seen a foster kid before.

  She bit her lip hard. What a fool she was. She’d been around the center punks for so long that she’d forgotten what a “normal” kid might think about someone like her.

  Breaking into a jog, Jas tried to catch up with Chase, who’d disappeared inside a barn. She needed to forget about him and think about the horses.

  Horses. She grinned excitedly. Okay, so they weren’t going to be sleek Thoroughbreds or majestic Trakehners. But they’d have four legs and whinny, and maybe—just maybe—there’d be one to ride. Not that any horse would ever come close to Whirlwind.

  When she reached the barn, Jas slowed and stared at it in dismay. The rectangular building looked like an abandoned warehouse. The paint was peeling, and the aisle door hung on one hinge. Hesitantly, she stepped inside.

  “Down here!” Chase hollered from somewhere at the other end. “I’m in the feed room.”

  “In a minute!” Jas wasn’t about to rush past the stalls, which were arranged on both sides of the dirt aisle. In the summer at High Meadows, they’d brought the horses inside during the day. They’d covered them with fly sheets and fed them the best alfalfa hay there was. Sprayers automatically spritzed repellent from the ceiling, and fans stirred the air. It was a four-star hotel for horses.

  From what Jas could see, the accommodations at Second Chance Farm had no stars. Still, the barn was cool and dark against the heat and bugs of summer.

  The first stall Jas glanced into was empty. It was clean, however, and bedded with thick straw. In the second stall, a horse dozed behind a mesh door, his brown eyes half closed.

  “Hey.” Jas reached one finger through the mesh, eager to feel the velvety soft muzzle. Startled, the horse jerked his head up, and Jas got a better look at him.

  He was so thin, she could count every rib, and when she looked at his back, she gasped.

  A bone was sticking out.

  Jas gagged. Grabbing hold of her stomach, she stumbled backward, slamming into the wall behind her.

  “The Animal Control Officer found him locked in a stall,” Chase said as he walked up the aisle, a bucket in each hand. “The manure was piled so high around his legs he couldn’t move.”

  Jas clapped a hand over her mouth. Turning, she rushed from the barn and threw up her breakfast in a patch of weeds outside the door.

  Chase was quiet, and she didn’t hear him come up beside her. “Here.” He handed her a can of soda. “This might help.”

  She took a quick sip, letting the syrupy drink wash away the terrible taste in her mouth. “Why didn’t you warn me?” she yelled.

  He shrugged. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Usually we prepare visitors by telling them ahead of time the story behind each horse. This horse here, Ruffles, just came off quarantine yesterday, so I didn’t know that Diane, I mean Miss Hahn, moved him into this barn.”

  Jas pressed the cold soda can to her forehead. Her skin felt clammy. “Has the vet seen him?”

  “The animal control officer called the vet immediately. Before he came here, Ruffles was in a barn full of fat, well-cared-for Morgan horses. But about a month ago, he threw his owner’s daughter. Locking him in his stall with no food for four weeks was his punishment.”

  “No—no way.” Jas swung her head. “People don’t do things like that.”

  But you know they do, a voice inside her head said. Hugh killed Whirlwind, remember?

  Jas began to feel sick again. Stumbling to the shady side of the barn, she propped herself against the wall and closed her eyes.

  “Hey, Chase, what’s going on?” a cheerful voice asked.

  Snapping her eyes open, Jas saw a girl waltzing toward them. Reese and Lassie trotted beside her with adoring expressions on their doggy faces. And no wonder. Tall and shapely as a cover girl, with shoulder-length blond hair, she was a very attractive girl.

  “Hey, Luce.” Chase shoved his hands in his jean pockets, his expression as sheepishly adoring as the dogs’. “This is Jas, Miss Hahn’s, uh—” He stopped, as if not sure what to say.

  “Foster kid,” Jas helped him out, looking at Lucy with a very unadoring expression. Lucy was about fifteen or sixteen, Jas figured, just the right age for wrapping a younger guy like Chase around her finger.

  “Hi, Jas.” Lucy eyed her up and down, then jerked her head toward the weeds. “I see you just blew lunch. Must be Miss Hahn’s cooking.”

  “She just met Ruffles,” Chase said.

  “Couldn’t take it, huh?” Hands in her back pockets, Lucy rocked on the heels of her paddock boots and thrust out her amply rounded breasts. “All the greenhorns have trouble. You’ll get used to it.”

  Greenhorn! Jas balled her fingers into a fist, wishing she could punch Lucy in her adorable little face. But she smiled instead. “Yup, that’s me. Never seen a horse close up.”

  Chase gave her a puzzled look.

  “So, Chase, I thought you were going to show me how to feed,” Jas said. “What do the horses eat? Straw?”

  “Straw!” Lucy tilted her head and laughed, showing off even, white teeth. “Good luck training her, Chase,” she said as she headed back to the office, calling, “If you’re feeding the horses, I’ll do the rest.”

  When Lucy left, Jas blew out her breath and strode back into the barn, halting in front of Ruffles’s stall. This time she studied every skinny, moth-eaten inch of him.

  “He’s a lot better than when he first came,” Chase said. “The bone is sticking up because the vet had to cut away—”

  Jas clapped her hands to her ears. “I don’t want to hear about it just yet,” she said. “And how can you be so calm about something like this?”

  “I want to be a vet.”

  “Oh, I should have guessed.” Dropping her hands from her ears, Jas walked down the aisle, glancing into the rest of the stalls. Hollow-eyed horses with rough coats, knock-knees, and ewe-necks stared back at her.

  Jas pressed her lips together, trying not to feel revulsion. The stalls at High Meadows had held such perfect horses, their coats groomed to a satiny patina. Their manes were pulled to just the right length, their tails brushed full and smooth, and each wore color-coordinated fly sheets and leg protectors.

  But this bunch … Jas couldn’t find the right words to describe them.

  Chase had been following silently behind her. When she stopped abruptly, he was so close, he almost fell over her.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “They’re in such terrible shape, why doesn’t the vet just put them down?”

  Chase frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, what good are they?” Jas waved her hand at the row of stalls. “Their medical care must cost a fortune, and I bet it takes forever to get them healthy again. Then you still have a horse that will never show or race or even be good enough to breed.”

  Chase’s frown turned sharper. “Oh, now I get it. You’re a horse snob.”

  “A horse snob?” Jas repeated in disbelief.

  “Yeah. One of those la-de-da types who love the ribbons and trophies and admiring glances when their horse wins something. The kind whose egos depend on reading their names in the Chronicle of the Horse. They don’t really love horses, they only love how much they’re worth.”

  Jas narrowed her eyes. How dare the jerk accuse her of not loving horses!

  “You are so wrong,” she shot back. “Not that I care what you think. I’m here at this stupid farm because I have to be. I’ll do my time and then I’m out of here. So don’t try and give me any grief!” Whirling, Jas plunged from the barn, charging through the geese, scattering them as she strode
past the office. The door was open, and Tilly sat on the top step, panting. Jas bet that Miss Hahn was inside, talking on the phone.

  Breaking into a jog, she swung around the pass-through and into the shady backyard. She plopped under a big maple and buried her face in her arms. When she was certain she was alone, she burst into tears. Not only had the day been one of the worst in her life, but now she was stuck at this Noah’s Ark for rejects.

  A wet nose pushed its way under her arm. “Go away,” Jas sobbed. But when the wet nose nudged more insistently, she peered over her arms. Lassie was staring at her, wagging her tail happily. Flopping on the ground, she rolled over against Jas’s leg and thumped her tail harder.

  “Fine. I’ll scratch you.” Jas wiped her damp cheeks on her shirt sleeve. Then, sniffing noisily, she rubbed the dog’s fat tummy until Lassie’s hind foot flailed the air.

  A sudden movement by the fence caught her eye. Miss Hahn was peering over the gate. When she saw Jas looking back, she turned and walked away.

  She’s spying, Jas thought. Anger began to dry her tears. According to the schedule, Jas wasn’t on lockdown right now.

  She could run free or even walk away. She could run to Springhill Road and hitch a ride to High Meadows Farm to accuse Hugh of killing Whirlwind. Miss Hahn better keep an eye on her.

  Wiping her cheeks, Jas let her head fall back against the tree trunk. She’d love to see the look on Hugh’s face when Miss Hahn called and told him that Jas was coming after him.

  It was too bad it wouldn’t happen. Jas knew she couldn’t risk leaving the farm. If the police caught her, she’d never see her grandfather again.

  Jas sighed in frustration. She knew that she might as well face it. Just like the sad-eyed horses in the barn, she was stuck at Second Chance Farm.

  Eight

  WHIRR-R-R.

  The whining sound of the string trimmer filled Jas’s ears as she cut the tall grass around the maple trees in the front yard. It was Friday morning, and for the last four days she’d spent her LOCK time—the time she had to stay close to the monitor—gardening.