Josh stared at her. This was going to be even harder than he thought. "Ah, well then," he said, searching around for another solution, and then one occurred to him. "You could take photographs! You could open up a shop in town," he continued, visualizing the storefront operation in San Antonio where he had had his own photograph made. "There must be lots of folks around here who'd like to have a picture of themselves…"

But Felicity was shaking her head again. "That wouldn't work, Mr. Logan," she explained. "A photographer needs a steady stream of new customers, and there just aren't enough people around here for that. Once everyone got their pictures made, my business would dry up. That's why Papa and I had to travel so much."

Josh frowned. "But shops like that do exist. I've seen them."

"Only in big cities," Felicity said apologetically.

Josh brightened momentarily, but then he tried to picture a young orphaned girl setting herself up in business in a large city. Such a thing was unthinkable, just as unthinkable as her continuing to travel alone in that wagon. "There must be something you can do," he muttered, as much to himself as to her.

"About the only things I can do are cook and keep house," she said. "And I can probably take care of children, although I've never been around them much," she mused, wondering what her chances might be of getting a teaching job. But she quickly dismissed that idea. She had only a few years of formal schooling, and although her father had tutored her well, she doubted anyone would take her word for how much she knew.

Josh considered her meager qualifications. Cooking, cleaning house, taking care of children. She wasn't suited to being anything except… Josh's body stiffened. She was giving him her qualifications for being a wife!

Josh had heard enough eager mamas and avid matchmakers expound the charms of every eligible girl within a hundred miles of here to recognize a sales pitch when he heard one. She wanted to be someone's wife, and whose wife could she plan on being? The answer was obvious, he realized, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. That explained the pies. He knew the old saw about the way to a man's heart being through his stomach. But, he admitted, studying Felicity's guileless blue eyes, the girl didn't look cunning enough to have thought of it herself, not already.

That left only one possibility. Could Candace have put the idea into her head? How many times had Candace hinted that it was time and past time for Josh to think about getting married and settling down? As if he weren't already perfectly settled. And marriage was for fools, as Candace well knew.

The girl looked up at him with those cornflower eyes, the picture of innocence, and Josh began to doubt again. No, she wasn't hinting, not yet at any rate. Even Candace had not had enough time to set such a plan in motion. And what if she had? Josh wondered, surprising even himself. Would that be such a bad thing? The girl was pretty and sweet-tempered, and she could bake a mean apple pie. But Josh still hadn't decided whether he wanted to get married or not. He stood abruptly. "You can't stay here," he announced.

Felicity stared at him in surprise. "I know that," she said. How well she knew it, too. She should not even be here now.

"There's a widow lives on the next ranch," he began reasonably. "She's gone now, to Dallas, but as soon as she gets back…" His voice trailed off as he experienced a strange reluctance to complete the sentence.

Nodding her understanding, Felicity rose, too. "Meanwhile, I'll try to make myself useful around here," she promised in an attempt to mollify him.

Unfortunately, her offer had the opposite effect. "No," he said a little too sharply. "I mean, no, you don't have to do anything. Just consider yourself a guest."

"But I-"

"How did you like those pies, Mr. Josh?" Candace inquired slyly from the kitchen doorway.

Josh and Felicity glanced up at her in surprise, and she studied their faces carefully. Having taken her meal in the kitchen, she had heard everything, including the private conversation between Josh and Felicity. That was why she had chosen this particular moment to interrupt. Josh was already running, and no one had even started chasing him yet. The man was certainly suspicious. She would have to be very careful.

"The pies were delicious," Josh admitted grudgingly, imagining the gleam of satisfaction that would be in Candace's eye.

"Maybe we'll plan a treat for breakfast, too," Candace remarked with apparent casualness. "Do you know how to make Bear Sign, miss?"

Felicity's forehead wrinkled a moment until she remembered that Bear Sign was the cowboy's slang for doughnuts. "Oh yes, I know a special recipe…"

Josh swore silently. Of course she did. "Well, if you ladies will excuse me," he said, the sarcasm thick in his voice.

"Why, certainly…" Felicity began, but stopped when she realized she was speaking to his back.

"Don't pay him no nevermind," Candace advised, moving over to place a comforting arm around the girl's slender shoulders. "We haven't had a lady around here in so long that he's forgotten how to act. He liked the pie. I could tell. Apple pie is his favorite in all the world," confided the woman who had taken him from his mother's body. "And he's got a lot on his mind just now, what with the spring roundup starting. There's this Mexican bandito name of Ortega who shows up about this time every year, too, to bedevil us. Mr. Josh just can't help being grouchy."

Felicity gave Candace a grateful smile. The woman seemed determined that Felicity not grow discouraged. If only Candace could provide her with some answers about what her future held.

As they left the room, Candace hummed softly as she envisioned exactly what that future was going to be.

Asa Gordon read the telegram again and muttered a very satisfying curse before crumpling it and tossing it into the wastebasket. He leaned backward in his desk chair and closed his eyes wearily, but the words of the message still teased against his eyelids. "Found Storm." "Lost them." Someone was going to be very angry about this piece of information. Someone had already spent several years and several thousands of dollars on the search, and now to come so close without making contact.

Gordon's chair squeaked as he swiveled to view the framed picture that hung behind his desk. The large, staring eye. The Eye That Never Sleeps. He himself had lost more than a little sleep over this particular case, and now he would lose even more. But he would not give up. His client would continue to pay, he knew, and Asa Gordon had never yet failed to satisfy a customer. Even if he had to travel all the way from Philadelphia to Texas himself, he would find Felicity Storm.

Crullers, Josh thought sourly as he strolled aimlessly around the ranch yard. Of all the crazy things. She'd made a bushel basket full of them, and before dawn, too. He'd never seen the men so excited about anything as they had been that morning at breakfast when Cookie had displayed the delicately twisted and fried strips of dough that melted in a man's mouth.

Josh took one last drag on his cigarette before throwing it down and grinding it out with the heel of his boot. He had hoped that his customary evening walk would clear away the disturbing images of his men gazing raptly at the lovely Miss Felicity, both at breakfast this morning and again at supper, when she had treated them to a batch of Spotted Pup. The dish of rice and raisins sweetened with brown sugar had turned the already-smitten ranch hands into sniveling idiots. Josh was beginning to think he was the only sane man left on the place. Even Grady had gone all goggle-eyed.

Not that Josh could blame them, of course. The girl seemed to get prettier every time he saw her. Her eyes no longer held that startled, wary look that made him think she was ready to bolt at the slightest provocation, either. In fact, she appeared to be almost at ease eating with the men now, as if she somehow belonged there at the ranch. Josh had to admit he was rapidly getting used to seeing her golden loveliness every time he glanced down the long table.