Felicity fought down the surge of excitement his words had caused. "I… I can't take a present from you, Mr. Logan. You've already done enough for me." She clutched the bedclothes more tightly in an effort to avoid the temptation of reaching for the package.

Josh set the package in her lap. "Well, there's nothing in here that'll be of any use to me, so if you don't take it, it'll go to waste."

"Please, Mr. Logan, don't you know that a lady cannot accept gifts from-"

"It's not a gift," he said, annoyed.

"What is it, then?"

"Open it and see."

Carefully tucking the blanket under each of her arms so she would still be modestly covered, Felicity reached for the parcel and began to untie the string. Going slowly so as to savor every second of this delicious experience, she peeled away the paper to reveal the contents of Mr. Logan's surprise.

"Oh!" Felicity blinked back the tears that sprang to her eyes. She was silly to cry, but she couldn't seem to help it. She'd never had anything so pretty in her whole life. Reverently, she touched the blue gingham dress, marveling at its softness.

"There's two of them," Josh told her gruffly.

Wide-eyed and openmouthed, Felicity lifted her gaze to him for one disbelieving moment, but then lowered it quickly when she saw the look on his face. Mr. Logan was very displeased with her, and he probably had every right to be. She must be behaving very rudely. How many times had her father warned her that a lady should always be courteous, meek, and gentle-spoken, the way her mother had been? She should have refused the gift-and it was a gift, no matter what he said-in a more gracious manner. She would do so in just a moment, too, but first she had to see the other dress.

Very carefully, she lifted the neatly folded blue gingham to discover a blue calico underneath. This one was a slightly different shade, light blue with darker blue flowers sprinkled on it. "They're both beautiful," she whispered, afraid almost to say it aloud for fear they would evaporate before her eyes. Felicity could not remember the last time she had owned anything brand-new, if she ever had. Itinerant photographers were not well paid.

"Mrs. Hankins-the lady at the store-said she thought they'd fit all right, but just in case, she put in some needles and thread," Josh explained. The girl didn't look up but just kept staring at the dresses. "She also said she thought the color would be good, because of your eyes and all," he ventured.

Finally, those blue eyes lifted to his again. Not quite willing to explore the implications of his hint that he had matched the dresses to her eyes, she chose a safer topic. "How did she know what size?" Felicity asked curiously.

Josh was uncomfortable having to explain this particular detail of his shopping trip. "I took her your old dress to go by, and your shoes, too. There's a new pair in there somewhere," he added in an attempt to distract her so she would not realize that he would have had to come in her room earlier, while she slept, in order to have gotten those items. "And I told Mrs. Hankins to put in everything-else you'd need, two of everything."

Warily, Felicity lifted the calico dress a bit and caught a glimpse of something white and lacy folded underneath. She quickly covered it again, acutely conscious of Mr. Logan looming over her. The motion jarred loose a shoe from the bottom of the stack and it rolled free into Felicity's lap. With another startled "Oh," she picked it up, marveling at the shininess of the supple black leather. She wanted it so badly. She wanted it all so badly, but she knew she couldn't take any of it. These things had cost a fortune, and Felicity knew she would have to do a lot more than take a few photographs to repay Mr. Logan's generosity. If she worked a year, she would not be able to pay for all this.

"It's all so lovely and I thank you very much for thinking of me, but I can't take any of this," she told him sadly.

Josh stared at her in shocked disbelief. "Why not?"

Felicity sighed. "Because I can never pay you back for them, that's why. I don't have a cent to my name and-"

"Did I ask you to pay me back?" he demanded in exasperation. "This is a gift."

"You said it wasn't a gift," she reminded him, her own exasperation growing.

"Well, I lied."

"Then I certainly can't accept such a generous gift from a stranger," she said stubbornly.

"Generosity has nothing to do with it. I'm being selfish. I can't stand the thought of seeing you in that rag you had on before, so do me a personal favor and take these things instead. Don't you want to look nice?" Josh glared down at her, arms akimbo.

Felicity glared back. Of course she wanted to look nice! Did he think she wasn't like normal girls just because she was poor and lived in a wagon? Clamping her lips together over the ugly retort she really wanted to make, she said instead, "'Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.'"

Now, wasn't that just like a woman? When you had her backed into a corner, she started quoting Scripture at you, Josh fumed. "I don't reckon the Lord'll mind if you have a decent dress to wear," Josh said, and when she started to reply, he added, "And besides, I burned your old one, so you'll have to wear these unless you want to go around buck-naked."

Gasping in shock and outrage, Felicity was very glad that she was much too angry to speak, because heaven only knew what blasphemy she might have uttered.

Satisfied that he had silenced all her objections, Josh turned on his heel and started for the door, muttering imprecations about ingratitude.

"Mr. Logan?" she called after him.

Slowly, warily, he turned to face her from across the room.

"I… you did a very nice thing for me," she stammered, uncertain exactly what to say. "You did a lot of nice things for me, when it comes to that, and you must think I'm horribly ungrateful." He looked very much as if he did, and Felicity swallowed before continuing. "I haven't got any excuse, except maybe that nobody ever gave me anything this nice before, and I don't know exactly how to act."

Looking into those huge blue eyes, Josh felt the anger drain out of him. "You don't have to 'act' any way. Just take it and say, 'thank you,'" he advised.

"Thank you," she repeated solemnly.

Josh frowned. What he really wanted to see was her smile. "Don't you like the dresses?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!" she hastened to assure him. "They're beautiful. I've never had anything so beautiful in my whole life!"

She was serious, Josh realized with amazement. Ordinary gingham and calico were the nicest things she had ever owned. Josh knew a sudden and unreasonable anger against all the forces that had conspired to deprive this poor girl thus far in her lifetime. He smiled, a slow, conciliatory smile. "Then if you like them, wear them, and no more silly talk about paying me back."

Felicity felt the impact of his smile all the way across the room. She smiled back. "I'll wear them, and thank you again."

Felicity twisted and turned, but try as she might, she could not see her whole self in the small mirror that hung above her washstand. How frustrating. Here she was, wearing the most beautiful dress in the whole world, and she couldn't see herself! Sighing in defeat, she made a last adjustment to the blue satin ribbon that held her hair back from her face.

She wasn't being vain, she reasoned. She just wanted to know that she would look presentable when she had to face the men of the Rocking L at supper. She would need all the confidence she could muster, because the mere thought of the coming meal terrified her. To make matters worse, her imagination seemed determined to increase that terror. Her father had warned her that men wanted a girl like her for only one thing. What that one thing was, Felicity was not certain, but she knew it was evil and wicked and that she must avoid it at all costs. And what if one of these men was the one who had been following her? What if he recognized her? What if he…?