Yellow Rose Bride Read online

  “Well, I think you deserve every bit of recognition you get. You saw the announcement of Carolyn Graham’s wedding in the New York newspaper, didn’t you? It made special note that her gown had been ‘designed by Vonnie Taylor of Amarillo.’ Why, I felt almost a celebrity myself, just knowing you.” Grinning, Jane leaned closer. “But, between you and me, I know my dress is going to be much prettier than Carolyn’s.”

  A loud ruckus from the barnyard suddenly interrupted Jane’s lively chatter.

  “What on earth?” she exclaimed, whirling to look out the window.

  “Oh, no!” Vonnie bolted out of the sewing room and down the long stairway, leaving a puzzled Jane calling after her.

  “What? What’s all that noise? Vonnie, where are you going?”

  The birds’ distinct squawk combined with Suki’s barking, was enough racket to be heard in the next county as Vonnie ran out the back door and toward the ostrich pens.

  The big birds were racing frantically back and forth across the pens, throwing themselves against the wire. Dust, mixed with bits of feathers, clogged the air. The sound was deafening.

  Glancing around for help, Vonnie realized Roel and Genaro were in town. Who knew when they would return?

  At the fence, she paused, unsure of what to do.

  The adult birds stood erect at nearly eight to nine feet and weighed close to 350 pounds. When calm, they had a kind of humping walk that reminded one of a camel’s gait. But when disturbed, they could move in a ground-covering sprint that left roadrunners in their dust.

  “Suki! Suki! Quiet,” Vonnie demanded, trying to catch the wildly barking dog to calm her.

  Two of the birds had their heads caught in the wire, too frantic to recognize that by turning to one side they’d easily slip free.

  “Suki! Sit!” she demanded again, running toward one bird who was in danger of decapitating himself.

  “Shh,” she soothed, trying to calm the kicking bird. Lord, help me. I don’t know how to calm them!

  Vonnie jumped back at every thrust. This was turning into some kind of strange dance—bird kicking, Vonnie jumping back, then leaping forward to persuade the bird to turn its head and free itself.

  “You stupid, stupid—ow!” she screeched as an ostrich, having somehow gotten out of the pen, made an attack from the rear. He pecked first, then kicked, missing Vonnie by inches.

  While he missed her, he did manage to kick loose a section of fence. Sensing freedom, birds poured through the break like water over a dam.

  Plastered to the fence so tightly, she knew there must be permanent wire imprints on her back, Vonnie watched as her father’s “babies” leaped over the barrier and, quickly gaining maximum speed, disappeared over the horizon.

  Leaning weakly against the posts, she watched the cloud of disappearing dust, unable to believe what had just happened.

  “Vonnie! Are you all right?”

  Jane burst out of the house. “What is going on?”

  “I—I’m not really sure,” Vonnie managed. “Something disturbed the birds…and then…well, everything was happening at once. Oh dear—they’re gone!”

  “Gone?” Jane lifted her hand to shade her eyes.

  “Gone.” Vonnie dusted off her gown, coughing as feathers tickled her nose.

  “Well, I do declare, I’ve never seen anything like it! Birds, feathers, all that dust…” Jane suddenly burst out laughing. “I thought you were being trampled to death!”

  “And that’s funny?”

  Shaking her head negatively, Jane held her hand over her mouth to stifle her mirth.

  “Well,” Vonnie studied the cloud of dust, sighing. “I sure hope they know their way back.”

  Teague had told her once that the birds were territorial, which meant they would eventually find their way home. She hoped he was right.

  Though she rarely had anything to do with their actual care, their deep-throated roar, much like a lion’s mixed with a strange hissing sound, had become familiar to her. They were odd creatures, their size and peculiarities intimidating.

  She and Teague had an agreement. “You don’t expect me to take care of the birds,” she told him, “and I won’t expect you to pin lace on wedding gowns.”

  “Agreed,” he had quickly replied with a grin.

  She didn’t have the patience to baby the birds the way her father did. He would go out to talk to them at least three times a day, and got up in the middle of the night to check eggs when the birds were laying.

  He watched to make sure the males were on the nests at night, and that not too many eggs were broken. He attended the birds like an expectant father until they hatched chicks that were hen-size from birth and grew into large birds in six months.

  Raising ostriches was tedious work. It required the understanding that there was little one could do to control circumstances, and Vonnie liked to be in control of a situation. But the situation was definitely out of control now.

  With a last anxious glance over her shoulder, she followed Jane back into the house.

  “Keep that wire tight,” Adam called, watching as Joey nudged his horse forward a half step.

  The Baldwins were stringing a new strand of wire along the north property line today. Adam kept a close eye on the dark clouds that had hung low in the west all morning, threatening rain.

  It was the dry season, but Texas had had more rain in the past thirty days than it’d had all year.

  As Joey held a roll across the front of his saddle, making sure the horse kept the wire firm, Adam and Pat stretched and nailed the new strand to posts.

  The air was thick with the building storm. Around nine, they’d shed their shirts and bent to the work under the hazy sun.

  “Think we can beat the rain?” Pat called.

  “It should hold off another couple of hours.” Adam stood back, running his forearm across his face to wipe away the sweat.

  The men glanced up as the sound of rumbling thunder rolled over the knoll. Adam squinted toward the horizon and tried to make out the cloud of thick dust coming in their direction.

  Pat came to stand beside him, his eyes fixed on the bewildering sight. “What do you think it is?”

  The three men stared at the strange stampede as it drew closer. Long-necked birds covered the ground at a phenomenal speed, leaving floating bits of feathers and gouged earth in their wake as they headed straight toward the men.

  Grazing cattle idly lifted their heads, their eyes widening as they spotted the bizarre entities bearing down on them. Bolting, the herd stampeded, trampling anything in their path to get out of the way.

  “Get the horses!” Adam shouted.

  Wild-eyed, the horses whinnied, reared, then broke into a gallop and converged on the stampeding cattle.

  Joey ran after them, then quickly abandoned the pursuit as the birds approached.

  Diving headfirst for cover, the three men crouched low, their eyes focused on the strange scene playing out below them. Awkward birds screeched and bellowed while leaping with their ungainly gait across the ground like crazed ballerinas.

  Beef cattle, apparently unnerved by the sight, turned tail and ran bawling over the horizon, followed in hot pursuit by the birds, who were suddenly outrunning them.

  “What was that!” Pat said.

  Spitting dirt out of his mouth, Joey sat up. “Did you see that? Are those the Taylors’ birds?”

  “Whose else could they be?” Adam snapped.

  “Well, that beats all I’ve ever seen.” Pat sat up, reaching for his hat.

  Rolling to his feet, Adam settled his Stetson low on his forehead. “Come on, we have to get those birds away from the cattle before they run them to death.”

  “The cattle are in Africa by now,” Pat guessed.

  “Then we’ll have to go to Africa and get them.”

  Pat and Joey grumbled as they got up, smacking their hats against their thighs to knock a layer of dust off both.

  “We’re going to have to run do
wn our horses first.”

  “Great.”

  “Beats all I’ve ever seen.”

  “Why would anyone want to raise those crazy things?”

  The three men struck off on foot. It promised to be a long morning.

  Hours later, Adam rode into the Taylor farmyard. Swinging out of the saddle, he strode across the front porch and knocked on the solid door. He waited, about to assault the door again when it opened. Jane Bennett stood in the doorway.

  “Where’s Vonnie?”

  “Hello, Adam. What are you doing here?”

  Dispensing with pleasantries, he repeated. “Where’s Vonnie?”

  Jane’s amazed gaze shifted from his dirt-streaked face to his dusty clothes. “I—I don’t know. She was out at the pens a little while ago. There’s been an incident with the birds. I’m staying with Mrs. Taylor. She—she’s in her room and—”

  Whirling, Adam leaped off the porch and rounded the corner of the house, striding angrily toward the ostrich pens. There was an ominous silence about the place this afternoon.

  At the barn, he saw the empty pens, and the gaping hole in the fence.

  “Vonnie!” he shouted.

  The sound of chickens clucking near the henhouse came to him.

  “Vonnie!”

  “Stop shouting, please.”

  Glancing around, he didn’t see her anywhere. Then he saw a wriggling form trying to extricate itself from a broken piece of fence on which a dress was firmly snagged.

  Anger momentarily drained out of him, then returned. They were her birds. She had insisted on keeping them so she could take care of them.

  “Of all the rotten luck!”

  Adam’s lips curved into an unwilling smile as he heard her muttering.

  Tipping his hat back on his forehead, he grinned. “Something wrong?”

  “Yes, there is something wrong, and you’re going to get an earful if you don’t get me out of here!”

  “Yeah, looks like you might have a little problem there.” He bent to help.

  “My back is about to break, Adam! Get me loose!”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just leave you here to stew.”

  “Adam!”

  Stepping to the fence, he extricated her from the snare. “You wouldn’t have been in that fix if you’d used the gate instead of climbing the fence.”

  “I don’t need your advice, thank you.”

  “I wasn’t giving you my advice—I was stating a fact.”

  She stepped clear, swiping hair out of her eyes. “For your information, I was trying to repair the fence, not climb it.”

  He glanced toward the barn. “Where are Roel and Genaro?”

  “They went into town—I haven’t seen them since early this morning.”

  Straightening, she refused to look at him as she pinned back her falling hair.

  Leaning against the fence, his blue eyes skimmed her lightly. “Having a bad day?”

  She sighed. “A bad life.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’ve lost the entire herd of birds.”

  His anger would have been easier to maintain if she hadn’t looked so charming with her hair falling down, a streak of dirt across her sweaty face, her dress soiled and torn from the experience. To this day, she could reduce him to a mooning, callow boy. The sight of her filled him with memories best forgotten.

  Crossing his arms, he eyed her sternly. “I found them.”

  “You know where the birds are?”

  “I believe I do.”

  “Thank you, dear Lord.” Relief filled her face. “Where are they?”

  “Africa.”

  “Oh, dear.” Her heart sank. She knew they weren’t in Africa but they’d probably run twenty miles.

  “Yes. Oh, dear.”

  “I…I don’t know what happened. They suddenly started running as if they were scared to death, and before I knew it, they were beating themselves against the fence…. Since I didn’t work with them, I…you know, my father—”

  His features hardened. “Those birds are a menace. If you can’t take care of them, then you’d better get rid of them.”

  Her hands fisted at her waist, and blood rushed to her cheeks. “Is that why you’re here? You came all the way over here just to tell me to get rid of my birds?”

  “Your birds stampeded my beef!”

  “Oh…really?”

  “It took me, Joey and Pat all morning, Vonnie, half a day to round them up!”

  “I’m sorry. I have no idea what spooked them.”

  “Could it be the dog?” he mocked. Suki barked.

  “Nonsense! The birds are used to Suki. It wasn’t the dog.”

  He stabbed the air in front of her with his forefinger. “I don’t care what spooked them. Don’t let it happen again!”

  “Well, pardon me!”

  “You keep those birds in their pen!”

  “You don’t tell me what to do, Adam Baldwin!” She kicked dirt on his boots.

  Slamming his hat back on his head, he turned and stalked off, rounding the pen in angry strides.

  “Come back when you can’t stay so long!” she shouted at his fading back.

  “Keep those birds in their pens or I’ll have ostrich and dumplin’s on my dinner table!”

  “Ooh!” Kicking a clump of dirt, she stomped back to the house.

  Chapter Eight

  “Keep those birds together, Joe!”

  Adam’s brother urged his horse forward as another ostrich decided to take a right turn out of the group.

  “There goes another one!” Pat shouted.

  Adam kicked his horse and galloped after a bird who had his eye on the far horizon. Galloping ahead of it, he cut it off, turning it back toward the Taylor ranch.

  “If we had to herd these pests another mile, she’d get them back in tow sacks,” he muttered.

  “I don’t know why Teague wanted the birds anyway,” Pat complained, pulling his mount abreast of Adam’s.

  “Could be because they made him a lot of money.”

  “Maybe so, but boy they’re big.” Pat’s eyes traveled the full height of the African male, whose size was stupefying. “I wouldn’t cross one.”

  “I don’t know how Vonnie’s going to handle them,” Adam said.

  An ostrich suddenly leaned forward to pluck the hat off Adam’s head. For a moment, a game of hat tag ensued among the birds until one fumbled, and the hat hit the dust. Chaos broke out as the three men scrambled to retrieve it.

  The hat was flattened. The ostriches fled.

  Climbing off his horse, Adam picked up the Stetson and dusted it on his pants leg. Settling it back on his head, his eyes studied the birds, which were, at least momentarily, moving in the right direction.

  How did Vonnie think she was going to handle the nuisances with Teague gone?

  From what he had heard, she had her hands full with her mother. Alma had mentioned the gossip in town—Cammy Taylor wasn’t doing well. She had practically taken to her bed since Teague’s death and was hardly responding to anyone.

  Vonnie was capable, but with her dressmaking business doing so well, he didn’t see how she could oversee the birds, too.

  “Joe,” he shouted suddenly, “that one’s making a break for it!”

  Swinging back into the saddle, he spurred his black into a full gallop as a female flapped her short wings and made a dash for freedom.

  The sudden ruckus launched the other birds into a faster gait, and their awkward lope began to carry them across the ground at an alarming rate.

  It took over thirty minutes to cover the final five hundred yards to the pens.

  Leaving Joey and Pat to settle the birds, Adam rode on to the main house.

  Swinging down from the saddle, he stepped upon the porch. Pulling off his hat and running his fingers through his damp hair, he rapped on the door, then wiped his sweaty face on his shirtsleeve.

  Vonnie opened on the first knock, her wide violet eyes mirr
oring surprise when she saw him. Her welcome expression cooled immediately. “Yes?”

  “Your birds are back.”

  Her attention slipped to the pens, where Joey and Pat were herding the birds into the runs.

  “Well, I haven’t gone looking for them because they’re territorial, you know.” Her nose tilted a notch higher. “I knew they’d come back on their own.”

  At his dubious look, she added, “And if they didn’t, then I was going to send someone to look for them.”

  She looked tired. It was obvious she’d been sewing. Wisps of hair had strayed from the loose knot at the nape of her neck. Curling strands framed her face. Bits of lace dotted her dress. Deep circles shadowed her eyes. Adam’s gut twisted with admiration. Life was difficult for her right now.

  “Get someone on that broken fence as soon as possible. Pat and Joey will repair it enough to hold the birds tonight, but it’s only a temporary fix.”

  “I’ll have Roel mend the hole immediately.”

  “They’re in the pens,” Pat said, riding up to join them. Joey followed close behind. “Don’t know if they’re in the right ones, but they’re all there.”

  “I’ll sort them out,” Vonnie smiled. “Thank you for bringing them back.”

  “Finding them wasn’t too hard.” Joey laughed, settling his hat more firmly on his head. He immediately sobered.

  Suki rounded the corner of the house in a trot and decided to investigate Adam’s boot.

  Vonnie seemed anxious to get back to her work.

  “Well, again, thank you.” Glancing at the dog, she frowned. The animal was worrying the hem of Adam’s trousers.

  “Suki, stop that,” she admonished as Adam pushed the dog aside with his boot.

  He tried to distract Suki by throwing a stick.

  The dog wasn’t interested in a stick.

  “Could I get you gentlemen some lemonade?” she asked. The group ignored Suki’s persistent fascination with Adam’s boot.

  “Sounds good to me,” Pat said, starting to dismount.

  “We don’t have time.” Adam nudged Suki aside for the fourth time and gave the dog a hard look.