"A wedding portrait," he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest indignantly.

Struggling to regain her breath and her composure, Felicity could not even manage to sit up, so she lay there limply on the blanket, laughing at his pique. "We really should have a wedding portrait made," she ventured after a while, trying to sound perfectly serious. "A traditional one, I mean," she clarified when he cocked an eyebrow at her.

He thought this over. "We could go to San Antonio. There's a studio there. It's not far, and we could stay a few days. It could be our honeymoon," he suggested. He still felt a little guilty for not taking her on a wedding trip, but he simply could not afford to be away from the ranch for any length of time during the spring. Ortega would be acting up again and…

"This is my honeymoon," Felicity corrected, instantly sobered, "and I like it just fine. I don't want to go to San Antonio or anyplace else."

"Not even New Orleans or St. Louis?" he said, trying to tempt her. "We could go in a few months, stay as long as you like____________________"

"I told you before, I don't want to go anywhere," she insisted, unaware that he was only baiting her.

"Why not?" Josh taunted, more than willing to hear her repeat her reasons. They had had this discussion last week, before the wedding. He did not think he would ever tire of it.

"Because," she said, sitting up again, "I've traveled all my life, and now that I have a real home, I want to stay here." Besides, she added silently, for the first time in my life I feel truly safe, and as long as I'm here, in your home, no one can be following me. But she didn't say that aloud. Instead, she said, "Anyway, I've been to San Antonio, and I don't-"

Josh silenced her with a kiss, a joyous, grateful, happy kiss. "I'm glad you like it here," he said when they were both breathless.

Felicity reached up and tenderly brushed a lock of silver hair off his forehead as she wondered why such a simple thing should please him so much. The answer came to her with surprising clarity: because of his mother. Hadn't Blanche warned her that he did not trust women because his mother had deserted him? No wonder he was glad that she liked his home and never wanted to leave it. She only wished she could assure him that she would never do what Amelia Logan had done, but he did not like to talk about her. At one point during their "honeymoon" he had started to tell her about his mother, and he had been quite relieved to learn that Blanche had already done so. He never mentioned the subject again, although he told her many other things about himself.

"I like your ranch very much, Mr. Logan," she said with a smile, coming as close as she dared to reassuring him.

"I own it all, you know," he said, pulling her back into his lap. "A lot of ranchers don't bother to file on their land. They figure the cattle is the only important thing, but my father always said that the land was what mattered. It would be here long after we're dead and gone. They'd only let him file on a few sections at a time, so he staked his claims in a checkerboard pattern so nobody could hedge him out until he could claim the rest."

Felicity nodded, acknowledging her father-in-law's cleverness and marveling at her husband's pride in his heritage. "He left you quite a legacy," she remarked, thinking of how little her own father had accumulated in his life in spite of all his hard work.

"And we'll have it to pass on. It will be here a hundred years from now, and Logans will still own it," Josh said, his eyes shining with this vision of the future.

But Felicity only half heard him. She was still thinking about her father. Gideon Logan had his memorial, but Caleb Storm had left nothing except the knowledge he had passed along to her. If she let that die… "Joshua, will you bring me out here with my wagon someday soon so I can photograph this place?"

Josh's attention snapped quickly from the future back to the present. His smile was slow and lazy. "I'll do anything you want when you call me 'Joshua.'"

Knowing she had made a tactical error, Felicity tried to slip out of his grasp, but she was too late. He was already drawing her close to his chest. "We can't-" she began, but once more he silenced her quite effectively.

His kiss was long and lingering. With his tongue, he explored the sensitive recesses of her mouth, and with his hands he stroked her body to quivering response. Felicity clung to him, savoring anew his strength and power, thankful beyond words that such a man had chosen her as his wife.

When he lifted his mouth from hers, she was literally panting, but her breath caught in outrage when she saw the teasing glint in his silvery eyes.

"Mrs. Logan!" he remonstrated. "What are you doing? We can't possibly make love out here in front of God and everybody. Someone might come along and see us…" His voice trailed off as he pretended to quail under the ineffectual thrashing Felicity was giving him.

"Oh, stop, please! I can't stand it!" he begged in a high-pitched wail apparently intended to be an imitation of her own voice.

"You are a wicked, evil man," Felicity decreed, giving him one last shove which he pretended sent him sprawling across the blanket.

"Yes, I am," he replied, capturing her hand and pulling her down beside him.

And I love you madly, she thought, but she did not say it aloud. She was still uncertain how he would react to such a declaration, and she did not want to do anything to spoil this wonderful moment. "Humph," she muttered instead, pretending to pout.

"Now," he said, settling her comfortably in the crook of his arm and leaning over so he could watch her lovely face. "Tell me the story about the little boy who was so scared of the camera he threw up."

"Not again!" Felicity moaned in protest. She had told him a dozen humorous anecdotes from her previous life, but he seemed to enjoy this particular one out of all proportion to its levity. Perhaps his enjoyment hinged on the way she always blushed when she told it, she suddenly realized, noting the way he grinned as she felt her cheeks growing hot. "Well, there was this little boy…" she began with long-suffering.

When, much later, Josh and Felicity drove their buggy into the ranch yard, the men had just returned from their day of work. Josh lifted his hand in greeting as they passed the group clustered near the corral in conversation, but so engrossed were they that they barely looked up to return the greeting.

Felicity noticed that Joshua was frowning when he reached up to help her down from the buggy. "Do you think something is wrong?" she asked, painfully aware that the idyll they had enjoyed all day had suddenly ended.

He forced a smile. "Probably nothing serious. I just want to go see what Grady and the men are talking about," he said, reaching behind the buggy seat and pulling out their picnic basket. "Here, take this over to the house. I'll be along in a minute."

Reluctantly, Felicity did as he bid, watching apprehensively as he strode over to the group by the corrals. She waited inside the house for a few minutes, until she heard him approaching the front porch. She recognized his voice and Grady's in conversation, but Grady's voice sounded odd, as if he were agitated about something.

Unable to stand the suspense any longer, Felicity hurried to the door and threw it open. Josh stood at the bottom of the porch stairs with his back to her as he faced Grady. From the look on Grady's face, they weren't discussing the weather. She heard the name "Ortega," and her apprehension prickled into fear.

"Ortega's men have never been this organized or this serious," Grady was protesting. "It seems like whoever is taking the cattle is trying to wipe you out."

"But you said the men you chased were Mexicans," Josh insisted.