Night Winds Read Online Free Page A

Cure, stamped and snorted, impatient at the delay.
    Phillip frowned . He should go home now. Early the next morning, he had a meeting with his buyers. A half-Irish Jezebel was no concern of his. Or was she? Had she been thrown out of the house because he’d caused her horse to wreck the gig?
    Cursing himself, Phillip dismounted and wrapped Cure’s rein around the wrought iron fence . He opened the gate and walked into the yard. As he moved closer, he could see a birdcage, its frame crumpled, on the walk. Several small forms lay still inside it, their feathers puffed out from their bodies. Two others showed some signs of life, one with twitching feet, the other flopping helplessly around the ruined cage.
    The young woman still wore her party dress, though by now mud and salt water had stained it beyond hope . As she struggled with the cage door, she didn’t seem to notice him.
    “Could I might I help with that?” The offer came without conscious decision. Though he knew he couldn’t be to blame for this, he wasn’t one to ignore the suffering of any creature.
    “He killed the m killed them,” she sobbed outright, paying no attention to his offer. “They’re only little birds. My finches.”
    Phillip had no idea if she recognized him, or even realized anyone was here . Her delicate hands still clawed at the cage door in a futile attempt to force it open.
    Phillip put his large hand over both of hers and stilled them . “Stop. Let me. You’ve cut yourself.”
    She blinked, looking at their hands . Hers were scratched and raw from struggling with half-broken wire bars. Then her gaze brushed his.
    Her stare jolted him, as if he’d suddenly plunged into a cistern filled with ice-cold water . Once his father had taken him hunting in Central Texas, and they’d come upon a young coyote with its leg caught in a steel-jawed trap. It had stared at him that way, its gaze utterly wild and just as forlorn.
    He had never hunted after that.
    She didn’t resist when he moved her hands away from the damaged cage. Didn’t speak as he struggled with its door. After forcing it open, he gently captured the flapping creature and placed it in her palms. Carefully, she made a net of her fingers and watched him reach in for the bird whose feet still twitched. It felt warm and limp as he removed it.
    A strange-looking creature with bright orange circles on its cheeks, it struggled for an instant, then grew still . He was surprised how quickly the tiny body’s heat began to dissipate.
    “Who did this, Miss Rowan?” Despite Shae’s betrayal, Phillip couldn’t imagine Ethan doing such a thing . Though embarrassed by his fiancée’s strange behavior, his old friend seemed more confused than angry. Ethan would be busy puzzling over this inexplicable rejection, not plotting vengeance against a few striped birds. Phillip would stake his life on it.
    “My f a ”
    “  Mary Shae, look here!” A woman’s loud voice interrupted, and she hurried down the steps of the front porch to join them. “I checked upstairs, and look at what I found.”
    The gray-haired woman held out a broken metal curve . “ I I must have hung the cage out on the upstairs veranda while I was sweeping, but I never took it off the stand and put it back. Remember how the wind picked up this evening. It must have blown the cage. Knocked down your easel too.”
    Something in her explanation sounded too shrill, almost desperate . As if she could accept no other possibility.
    “The wind?” Shae asked . There was no mistaking the doubt in those two words.
    “Who is this?” The woman stared at Phillip, her gaze demanding explanation.
    He suddenly wondered if he’d intruded on a family quarrel. No doubt Miss Rowan’s earlier actions had given everyone in this house ammunition for years of heated battle.
    “My name is Phillip Payton.” He wanted to offer his hand, but he realized he still held the dead bird . Gently, he laid it back inside the cage.