Yellow Rose Bride (7 page)

For a moment she swayed lightly against him, overcome by emotion. Her forehead rested against his chest, her eyes closed. She felt his need to put his arms around her, to hold her, but he didn't. What had been between them was over. The love they'd once shared was nothing but a nice memory.

When Adam had begun courting Beth, Vonnie knew
P.K. was pleased. Beth was the kind of woman P.K. appreciated, one who was agreeable. Nothing ever upset her. She was flexible; she adjusted. Whatever Adam wanted, Beth was willing to accommodate. She would be the ideal wife, and her father owned land P.K. had wanted for years.

When it was apparent she'd lingered too long, Vonnie straightened, color flooding her cheeks. How could she have weakened like that, leaning on Adam and making a spectacle of herself? Beth would think her shamelessly forward.

Always thoughtful and good-hearted, Beth was the first to the bedside of a sick person, the first to lend a hand at church with any event. True, sometimes Beth's giving nature could get on her nerves, but Vonnie was honest enough to realize the differences in their personalities. If she was serious about serving God maybe she should try to be more like Beth.

Quickly regaining her composure, she dropped her hand to her side. “Thank you, Adam. I appreciate your coming. I must admit I was surprised to see your father here.”

Adam's eyes followed P.K. as he walked away from the grave site. “I wonder if he didn't care more about Teague than he's willing to admit.”

“If he did, then it's too bad he never told him,” she said. “For all concerned.” Their eyes met briefly before he looked away.

“I'm so sorry about your father,” Beth said, slipping
her hand into Vonnie's. “If there's anything I can do, you must let me know.”

“Thank you, Beth. Tell your mother I appreciate the chicken she sent over.”

“I'll come by tomorrow and—well, we'll all have a nice, long visit.” She tilted her head, smiling encouragingly. “Would you like that?”

“That's kind of you. Mother is so upset. I'm not sure that she'll be up to visiting. Mrs. Lincoln is going to stay with us a few days to help out, but I'd like your company. The house seems so empty without Daddy—”

She faltered, a lump forming in her throat. The realization that her father would never again come in the back door and call for Cammy hurt. Never again would he hug her and call her “Puddin'.” Never again would the aroma of his pipe float through the big house he'd helped build with his own hands.

It seemed so senseless, a man struck down before he could enjoy his declining years. A man who'd worked hard deserved to put his feet up by the fire for a few years at least, didn't he?

As the crowd began to disperse, Beth moved Adam toward the Baylor buggy. Cammy was surrounded by several well-meaning matrons who went on about how sad it was that Cammy was “left alone” in her prime. In clucking, sympathetic voices, they invited her to join their quilting club on Thursday afternoons. It was little more than a gossip group, Vonnie knew, but it would be good for Cammy to be with friends.

Vonnie's gaze moved over the mourners, most of whom were heading back to the house to eat lunch from the food brought in; all except the Baldwins. The five men had ridden away immediately after the ceremony.

It was evening by the time the farm quieted down. The house was so still that Vonnie couldn't stand it. She decided to go check on the ostriches. Suki followed her outside and scampered around her feet, demanding attention, as she walked toward the pens that were built two hundred yards back from the house.

“Settle yourself,” Vonnie scolded the dog. “You'll upset the birds acting like that.”

The ostriches were accustomed to Suki's interruptions, but they were easily disturbed by anything out of the ordinary.

Ten pens stood in a row, with a pair of adult ostriches in each. The little “waddlebabies” were kept separate, each hatch together in a pen until they were big enough to begin pairing.

The most recent hatch was only a week old, but they were a handsome group. Vonnie liked watching them. They ran back and forth in the pen as if on a very important mission, their brown-gray feathers just covering bodies balanced on legs that looked far too thin to support egg-shaped abdomens and long, thin necks. Large eyes were as bright and curious as buttons; they split their time pecking at various bits on the ground and watching her approach.

“Hello, babies,” Vonnie crooned, counting the chicks to make sure they were all accounted for.

Some of the young ones came to the fence and peered up at her, a couple of them pecking at the woven wire fence in curiosity. She slowly walked around each pen, checking that no wires were loose or had slipped and that the edges were all anchored into the ground. The pen material had to be specially made with squares of wire, small enough to keep the adult ostriches from poking their heads through and choking, yet large enough so the little ones could get their heads out if they poked them through.

They weren't the dumbest birds in the world. They just seemed like that sometimes. Curious, they'd try for anything that captured their attention, sometimes getting their heads hung in the fence. More than once, Teague had lost his hat to the lively birds.

If frightened, they'd run pell-mell into the end of the fence, breaking wings, necks or legs in their hasty flight. And they were temperamental. Like humans, some were gentle and some had a temper. Some could be handled and petted; others didn't want to be touched at all.

They could be persuaded to move to another area, not herded there. An adult ostrich could run like the wind, reaching unbelievable speeds. A man on a fast horse would have difficulty catching one, once it got going.

Tears brightened her eyes. But, oh, how her father had loved these funny-looking creatures. Did they miss the sound of his voice, the gentle touch of his hand?

Suddenly Vonnie detected a shadow from the corner of her eye.

“Who's there?”

She peered into the twilight, a frown creasing her forehead. Goose flesh raised on her arms.

“Who's there?”

A figure stepped from behind a tall cactus at the edge of the pens.

“Andrew?” she said, relieved when she recognized him. “You frightened me.” A person could get himself shot creeping around the ostrich pens. The hands knew to shoot first and ask questions later.

“Sorry,” he said.

Andrew Baldwin was nearly as tall as Adam, with the same wavy brown hair. He was the most serious of the four boys. He'd walked with a limp ever since she could remember, the result of a fall from the loft of the Baldwin barn. He had broken his leg, and the injury had never healed properly. Andrew was rumored to have read all the books in his father's library, a feat P.K. himself had never accomplished.

“Just stopped by to see how you're doing,” Andrew said, “and decided to take a look at the birds.”

“You gave me a bit of a start,” Vonnie admitted. “I'm surprised to see you out this late.”

“I wanted to talk to you at the cemetery today. But there were a lot of people around, and you were talking with Adam.”

“I'm glad you came.”

“Wanted you to know if there's anything I can do to help—”

“Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate that.”

Andrew was the odd duck in the Baldwin group. Where Adam was most like his father, Andrew was broody and quiet. No one really knew what was going on in his mind.

The sound of a horse coming at a fast clip drew their attention. Vonnie identified the tall figure astride the big bay immediately.

“Looks like we have company,” she murmured, watching Adam dismount.

“Andrew.” Adam acknowledged his brother as he approached. “I didn't expect to see you here.” His eyes swept Vonnie curiously.

“I wasn't aware I needed your permission to be here,” Andrew returned.

Vonnie glanced from one brother to the other. A thread of tension ran between them, and she wondered why.

“Dad's looking for you,” Adam said curtly.

“Is he now? He sent you to find me?”

“I don't believe he thinks you're over here.” Accusation colored Adam's tone.

The two brothers stared at each other.

“Then I suppose I'll go report in,” Andrew stated coldly.

“Thank you for coming by—” Vonnie's words faltered as she watched him limp to where his tethered horse waited.

Swinging into the saddle, he looked back at her, then
touched the brim of his hat briefly and a moment later disappeared into the thickening darkness.

Turning around, she gave Adam a perturbed look.

R
emoving his hat, Adam ran his fingers through his thick hair. The air hummed with awareness between them. It had been years since they'd been alone.

“What was that all about?”

“Who knows?” he said. “He's hard to figure out.”

Vonnie drew a deep breath. Adam still had the power to render her breathless. “What brings you here this time of night?”

“I was checking on a stray. Since I was in the area, I thought I'd stop by, see if you needed anything.”

“Need anything?” She wanted to laugh. “Since when have the Baldwins ever been interested in a Taylor's welfare? I thought coming to the funeral would have stretched the ‘doing what's right' quotient for the day.”

He let her bitterness spill out without interrupting. She was glad; right now she didn't know what she was capable of saying.

“I guess now that Daddy's gone, P.K. wants to put on a good front for the community, show he's a real human being after all?” She hated the sting in her tone, the harpy inflection. She was more mad at herself than at him. She was the one who hadn't been willing to fight for their marriage.

“I know this has been a rough time for you,” he said.

“You're right.” She turned away, staring at the birds. “My father dropped dead in the kitchen in front of me, and your father's taking advantage of our misery to show he has no hard feelings for a man who's dead? How magnanimous of him.”

“Whatever was between your father and mine is dead and buried. Let it lie.”

“I wish I could.” Turning away, Vonnie headed back to the house.

His voice stopped her. “I didn't come over to start an argument. Can't we have a conversation without all this animosity?”

Sighing, she lowered her guard. What purpose would it serve to argue? She was being unreasonable and petty at a time she needed his strength more than she needed retribution. She closed her eyes.

“Of course, you're right. I am upset. Thank you for stopping by. Mother and I are coping. We both…appreciate your concern.”

When she looked up, she saw compassion reflected in his eyes. A subdued understanding. “I'm sorry about
your father, Vonnie. I didn't know him, but I'm sorry for you and your mother's loss.”

Pulling her wrap closer against the night air, she studied him. It was the child in her that needed his acceptance, or perhaps it was the woman in her that needed his love.

“I don't know what Momma will do.”

“It won't be easy for her.”

Maybe if he was less kind it would be easier. Resentment flared anew.

“I think you're here because your father is concerned about propriety, not because you have any real concern for me.”

“No,” he corrected her. “P.K. doesn't know I'm here, and he doesn't care about propriety.”

She bit her lower lip, wanting to believe that he was there for no other reason than he cared for her. Cared deeply.

His voice dropped to a low timbre. “I'm here because I want to be here, and I thought you might need me. That's the only reason.”

Her eyes welled with unshed tears when she finally looked up again. “Well, go home. I don't need you, Adam.”

Shaking his head slowly, his eyes met hers in the moonlight. For a moment, time faded, and they were young and in love. “I'd hoped you wouldn't make it necessary for me to remind you.”

“Of what,” she whispered. But she knew. Oh, she knew.

“I wanted to fight for us, Vonnie. You didn't.”

Closing her eyes against the truth, she looked away. “I was young, Adam.”

“You've had seven years to reconsider.” Grasping the reins of his horse, he prepared to mount. “We'd appreciate if you'd let us know when you sell the birds. P.K. knows someone who might be interested in buying a pair.”

“Sell the birds? What do you mean, when I sell them?”

He looked down on her from his perch in the saddle. “When you sell out. You can't raise those birds by yourself.”

Her chin lifted a notch. “I don't intend to sell my birds. I still have Roel and Genaro and the other hands, in case you haven't noticed.”

She saw the muscles tighten in his jaw.

“With Teague gone, I didn't think you'd be keeping the place.”

“Mother and I are staying right here. My seamstress work is good. Daddy had some money put away, and with the bridal-gown orders coming in, we'll do fine.”

His look was cold and dismissing.

“The birds were Daddy's pride and joy,” she added, compelled to defend her decision and stand her ground.

In the past, maybe she hadn't taken a personal interest in them, but now they had taken on new significance. The birds had been special to her father, and he'd seen a future in raising them. She would feel guilty if she sold out after all the hard work he'd put into building the herd. Besides, Adam Baldwin would be the last person on earth she'd let buy the birds.

“I'm keeping the birds.”

Stubborn,
Adam's expression said.
As stubborn as your father, if not more.

You are as bullheaded as P.K.,
hers implied right back.

“Well, the offer holds. When you want to sell out, we'll buy.”

“In a pig's eye,” she murmured.

Ignoring the less-than-charitable refusal, he wheeled his horse and rode into the darkness.

Vonnie watched him go, listening to the fading hoofbeats. She felt very alone and hated the fact that he could still make her feel that way.

 

Vonnie rapped lightly on her mother's door before pushing it partially open.

“Momma, dinner's on the table.”

“I'm not hungry, dear. You go ahead and eat. I want to rest a little longer.”

“You can't stay up here in this room forever.” Vonnie moved to the window to lift the shade.

Two weeks had passed since Teague's death, and Cammy was getting worse every day. She was withdrawing, wrapping herself in a shroud of grief. She rarely left the room she'd shared with her husband. Her face was lined with anguish, and she wept inconsolably at times. The house was like a tomb.

“Vonnie—don't—the light hurts my eyes,” Cammy protested, turning her face away from the glare.

“Momma, you have to try.”

Mrs. Lincoln came each morning to coax her downstairs, thinking up reasons for them to take a short drive or go into town, but Cammy resisted all her efforts. She spent her days in a chair beside the bed, usually remaining in her dressing gown, sometimes listlessly allowing Vonnie to help her dress.

Each morning Vonnie brushed her mother's hair and wound it atop her head, but Cammy never showed an interest in how she looked these days. Already frail, she had lost more weight. Her clothes hung on her alarmingly sparse frame. She spent her days staring into space as if nothing mattered, and Vonnie knew that to her it didn't.

“I've got a surprise for you today. We're going to visit Audrey.” Vonnie hoped a visit with Audrey Schuyler would make Cammy realize how fortunate she was to have her health.

Health was precious, and only when one lost it, or saw it being slowly drained away, did they realize their own good fortune. It had probably been her mother who had told her that.

“What dress would you like to wear?”

“I'm not up to visiting today,” Cammy said.

“I think the pink flowered one with the pretty torchon-lace collar,” Vonnie ignored her mother's protest. “It'll put the color back in your cheeks.”

“No, Vonnie. I don't want to go.”

“Franz says Audrey has been feeling better the last couple of days. Here, let's slip off your gown….”

Ignoring her mother's feeble objections, Vonnie maneuvered her arms into the dress sleeves like a rag doll.

“Dear, really, I don't feel up to going anywhere—”

“There, don't you look pretty! Here, let's put your shawl about your shoulders in case it's a bit cooler when we return. I've had Roel hitch the team to the buggy—”

“I don't think so, dear, really—”

Vonnie sighed. She would have liked a good cry herself. She smoothed the shawl across her mother's shoulders. “Now, we're almost ready to go. It's a lovely day out there—the temperature's nearly perfect. Hard to believe Thanksgiving's just around the corner.”

Vonnie bustled around the room, gathering up the things needed for the afternoon outing. Audrey would be the one to set Cammy's priorities in place. Teague was gone. No amount of crying could bring him back. They both missed him unbearably, but somehow she had to make her mother want to live again.

She had to virtually pull Cammy out the door and down the stairway. Oblivious to her mother's weak protestations, Vonnie propelled her outside and into the waiting buggy.

“Thank you, Roel,” she said, accepting the reins to the team. “We'll be home before dark.”

“Sí, señorita, hasta luego.”

Giving the reins a slap against the horses' rumps, Vonnie set the team on its way.

“My, my, my,” Franz said, greeting them warmly as they hitched the horses to the railing of the Schuylers'
front porch. “What a nice surprise. Audrey will be delighted to see you. Come in. Come in!”

He ushered them into a small but neat living room where Audrey was resting on a sofa, a yellow crocheted throw over her thin legs.

“Oh, how wonderful it is to see you!” Audrey said, holding out both hands to Cammy.

Vonnie relaxed as her mother reached out for Audrey and the two old friends clasped hands. Cammy seemed to momentarily shed the melancholy that had plagued her for weeks. In fact, as she and Audrey talked, Cammy seemed to almost be her old self.

The two women conversed in low tones, and Vonnie settled herself in a chair nearby. Franz escaped to the kitchen, returning shortly with a tray holding a teapot and four china cups.

“Would you pour?” he asked Vonnie.

“Of course.”

She performed the small ritual, automatically adding two teaspoons of sugar to her mother's cup.

“Just look at our little Vonnie,” Audrey said, accepting Franz's help to sit up straighter so she could sip her tea. He fussed over her, fluffing her pillow, making sure she was comfortable. “Thank you, dear. I remember so well the day they brought you home.”

Cammy and Audrey were like sisters. They had spent part of nearly every day together when they were first married.

Though Teague and Franz had served in the war to
gether, it was the women who were close and shared every part of their lives.

“You were the sweetest young' un. A thatch of black hair that never changed. A little button of a nose.” Audrey smiled gently. “And a little rosebud of a mouth. And you never cried. Not really. Just a beautiful child in all ways.” Her eyes brimmed with emotion for the child that she loved like her own.

Sipping her tea, she then lay back against her pillows closing her eyes.

“Franz and I wanted children. A whole houseful. But, it wasn't to be.”

Vonnie made an appropriate remark. It seemed Audrey always talked about her disappointment of not having children. It appeared to weigh on her mind heavily these days.

“Well, I guess one should be careful what they promise.” She smiled. “When Franz was off to war, so many months passed without knowing whether he was alive or injured. I got down on my hands and knees and prayed every night that he'd be spared. I promised, ‘God, if You'll just bring Franz home safe, then I'll never ask another thing of You.'”

“And you never did,” Franz said, his tone tender. “You've never asked for anything.”

Vonnie could hear the sadness in his voice and knew that if he could give Audrey anything it would be her health, so they could have many more happy years together.

“But,” Franz added, a twinkle returning to his eyes, “you did want your piano back.”

“Franz,” Audrey scolded. “I did not—it was such a frivolous thing.”

Although Vonnie had heard the story numerous times, she played along. “A piano?” she asked.

“A Steinway,” Franz said. “Her father bought it for her. Oh, how she loved to play. But we lost everything after the war, and we had to sell the instrument in order to make ends meet.” He smiled warmly at his wife, adoration glowing in his eyes. “She did love that piano.”

“It was nothing, really. Other people sacrificed more,” Audrey insisted. “So many lost families, husbands, sons. What's a piano compared to someone's life? I never missed it. Ever.”

“Audrey Schuyler! You're such a fibber!” Franz teased. “I've seen that look in your eye when that piano's mentioned. It meant a great deal to you.”