"FORTY!" Josh shouted, making her jump. "I'm TWENTY-EIGHT," he informed her, taking what she interpreted as a threatening step toward her.

Felicity sprang to her feet in instinctive self-defense and said, "Oh." She couldn't think of anything else.

"What made you think I was forty?" he demanded, feeling more affronted than he knew he should.

She made a vague gesture toward his head. "Your hair…" she said feebly, trembling in an agony of embarrassment. She should have known better than to respond to such a question in the first place. Now she had made him angry.

"All the men in my family go gray at an early age," he explained, forcing himself to sound calm again. If he wasn't careful, she would soon be cowering, and who could blame her? He had no excuse for hollering at her. She had made an honest mistake, and from the look on her face, she honestly regretted it.

"I… I'm sorry," she murmured, "I didn't know…"

Of course she didn't, Josh reminded himself. She was awfully young. Anyone with white hair must seem quite old to her. Although he was still a little disgruntled, Josh managed to conceal it. In a perfectly reasonable voice, he asked, "Do you have any other objections to me, now that you know I'm not too old?"

This time Felicity couldn't prevent her mouth from falling open. He actually looked as if her answer mattered to him, and mattered a great deal. She was having a time of it, what with having to completely readjust her opinion of him in light of the fact that he was no longer old enough to be her father. On top of that, he wanted her to all of a sudden come up with any objections she might have to him as a possible husband. The whole situation was more than a little overwhelming. "Mr. Logan, you can't be serious!" she protested, certain that he wasn't.

"Why not?" he asked, taking another step toward her. At least she didn't flinch this time.

Felicity wanted to stamp her foot in frustration. This conversation couldn't really be happening. She must be having a nightmare. "Mr. Logan, you can't possibly want to marry me," she said, sure that in doing so, she would bring him to his senses and make him stop asking her such outlandish questions.

Josh watched her azure eyes cloud over and knew that she really believed that. "What makes you so sure I can't possibly want to marry you?" he asked, almost as concerned as he was curious. That lovely face hid nothing of her emotions. He knew she wasn't just being coy with him.

Felicity shook her head in wonder. Didn't he have any idea of the gulf that separated them? "I'm a penniless orphan, a nobody," she explained patiently, "and you, you're Josh Logan." She made a gesture with her hand to indicate the scope of her statement, that not only was he Josh Logan, the man, but he was Josh Logan, the rancher. If that didn't convince him of the differences between them, nothing would.

Josh frowned in disapproval. "I'm not exactly a prince, you know. I can still marry anyone I want to. She doesn't have to be royalty, for God's sake."

"You shouldn't use the Lord's name in vain, Mr. Logan," she murmured in an attempt to distract him while she busily considered something else entirely. At some point, the focus of this conversation had shifted. In the beginning, he had been suggesting that she marry someone else. Now he was insulted because she didn't want to marry him. In fact, he seemed determined to convince her that she should marry him. Why would he do that, unless… An incredible thought occurred to her. "Mr. Logan, are you… did you… I mean, you couldn't have…"

"What?" he urged impatiently.

Felicity swallowed hard and forced the question past her reluctant throat. "You aren't trying to say that you've fallen in love with me, are you?" Saying it aloud made her feel even more a fool than thinking it had, but it was the only explanation that might justify his strange behavior. That would certainly explain why he had kissed her. What she didn't want to admit, even to herself, was how very appealing the idea was.

Josh frowned. That was a woman for you. All they could think about was love. It would be easy to tell her that yes, he had fallen madly in love with her and couldn't live without her. Then she would get all mushy and touched and would probably agree to marry him just to put him out of his misery. Josh would never tell a lie like that, though. He had no intention of falling in love with her, now or at any time in the future. Neither did he want her to think she had that sort of hold on him. "Well, no," he admitted, "but I don't think that's so very important…"

"Well, I do!" Felicity cut in, unaccountably stung and unreasonably disappointed. "Do you want to spend the rest of your life with someone you don't love? I certainly don't!"

The fact that she didn't love him either should not have surprised him, but somehow it did anyway. It was a remarkably unpleasant surprise, too. Josh found himself fighting a bitter disappointment and struggled to regain control of the situation. How could his plans have gone so far awry? He had thought that her desperate need for a home was more than strong enough to compel her to accept his proposal, but apparently he had been mistaken.

Her words echoed back to him in challenge, however, especially the words "the rest of your life." She considered marriage a lifetime commitment. He liked that, and he already knew she was everything he wanted in a wife. He'd be a fool to let her go. If reason could not convince her, if she demanded emotions, he could stir her emotions. Recalling the way she had surrendered, however briefly, to his kiss, he knew that with a few more kisses, he could make her think that she was in love with him. That love would be just one more link in the chain that bound her to him.

Felicity was regretting her hasty words. She had been so careful not to rile Mr. Logan up until now, and a good thing, too, judging from the strange look on his face. When he reached for her, she knew a moment of sheer panic. "Don't!" she protested in the instant before she realized his true intent. By the time she did realize it, she was unable to say anything.

His mouth came down on hers with determined force, not roughly but with a power she could not have denied, even if she had wanted to. For a moment she felt awkward, staring up at him with her eyes so close to his face. The feel of his mouth on hers was more alarming than exciting, but then he pulled her to him and her eyes closed of their own volition. Left in darkness, her body remembered their first kiss. She tuned in to other sensations, the hardness of his chest beneath the hands she had raised instinctively to ward him off, the strength of the arms embracing her, the gentleness of the hands caressing her back.

His lips shifted against hers, demanding a response. Without meaning to, she was suddenly kissing him back. Her hands slipped up and over his shoulders until she was clinging to him. Her breath came quickly, filling her senses with his musky, masculine scent and making her weak with some nameless longing. When he ended the kiss, she knew a deep regret.

Josh lifted his face a fraction of an inch from hers to draw a rasping breath. "Oh, Lissy," he whispered in wonder, instinctively reverting to the nickname she had revealed to him the first time he had ever held her. She was like warm honey in his arms, all liquid sweetness. When her eyes flickered open, he knew she was slightly dazed and hadn't a clue as to what he was doing to her.

She started to say something, but when her pink lips parted, he swooped down on them again. Taking advantage, he slipped his tongue inside, teasing first the sensitive skin inside her lips before plunging past her teeth to taste of her essence. Her startled gasp told him that he was the first to ever do so. He vowed he would also be the last.