"I… I'm going back to Mexico," he said quickly, as if he had only just made the decision. "I spent the past few months there learning how to use a gun with my left hand. Ortega will be glad to get me back, bad arm or not. He's a mean little devil, and he hates Logan almost as much as I do now that Logan put a slug in him. The little Mexican got blood poisoning from that wound and nearly died. Yeah," he mused thoughtfully, "me and Ortega will make a good team." Jeremiah pondered that possibility for a moment and then said, "How long is Logan going to be gone?"

"A long time," Candace hastily improvised. "Maybe the whole summer."

"The whole summer?" Jeremiah repeated skeptically. "I thought you said her grandfather was dying. If he's going to last the whole summer, why'd they rush off to visit him now?"

"I didn't say he was dying," Candace corrected quickly. "Only that he's sick. They plan on staying until he gets better."

"You're a rotten liar, old woman," Jeremiah growled. "But however long it takes, I can wait. I been looking forward to this for a long time, especially since I got a look at Mrs. Logan." He grinned at Candace's horrified gasp. "Yeah, I saw her once through the field glasses. She's a tiny little thing. I bet she wouldn't last any time at all with a real man."

"No! You wouldn't!" Candace cried.

"Why wouldn't I?" he asked with a taunting grin. "Everybody knows how colored men love to get their hands on white women. Can't you just see Logan's face when he finds out what I did to his precious wife?"

"No!" Candace shrieked, throwing herself at him, heedless of his gun. "Not Felicity! She's innocent! She never did a thing to you!"

"I was innocent, too, but I still had to suffer, didn't I?" he demanded, effortlessly shoving her away.

"Josh will kill you!" Candace tried in desperation, but her ploy backfired.

Jeremiah's face twisted in rage. "He'll kill me? Is that what you think? Or are you just afraid that I'll kill him? That's it, isn't it? You know your precious rich boy is no match for Jeremiah Logan, and you're afraid I'll cut him down like so much rotten wood. Well, I'll tell you something, old woman," he said, grabbing her around the neck again and pulling her close until her face was almost touching his, until she could smell the liquored stench of his breath and see the crazed gleam in his eyes. "I'm gonna kill me a Logan if it's the last thing I do, and you can tell him that. When he comes back, I'll be waiting."

This time when he let her go, she slumped to the floor, her quaking knees no longer able to support her. Jeremiah slipped silently away into the shadows, his final threat echoing in the now silent room.

Felicity glanced once more around the luxurious bedroom she had occupied during the long trip from Dallas to Philadelphia, checking to see if she might have forgotten to pack anything. Familiarity had made the room seem almost normal to her now, although she doubted she would ever quite get used to the naked cupids molded into the ornate plaster ceiling.

What she would miss most, she supposed, was the convenience of hot running water in the basin almost at her bedside and the cleverly designed chair that made fumbling in the dark for a chamber pot unnecessary. How she would have loved having such a device for her use during the long months of her pregnancy. But there was always next time, she thought with a smile. And there would be a next time, now that she was in Philadelphia and could find a doctor to help her. There simply had to be.

"Are you all packed?" Josh asked from the open doorway. "We're pulling into the station."

Felicity lifted her gaze to his, taking in the lines of strain around his mouth and eyes, lines that had not been there before the death of their child. "Yes, I'm packed," she said, forcing a smile.

He returned that smile, but his gray eyes remained grave. The closer they had gotten to Philadelphia, the more solemn he had become. She knew he was worried that this meeting with her grandfather might prove a disappointment after all her expectations. As if he could somehow protect her from such a possibility, he had grown even more solicitous of late. She longed to reassure him that, whatever happened, she was strong enough to endure it.

Impulsively, she closed the small space that separated them and slipped her arms around his waist. She could have wept at the desperate way his arms enfolded her, as if he wished to shield her from some evil.

They held each other for a long moment, and then she drew back so she could look up at him. "This is going to be the best thing that ever happened to us, Mr. Logan," she promised fiercely.

Josh looked down into Felicity's lovely face, inhaled the subtle fragrance of her hair, and slowly released her from his embrace, struggling to maintain his tenuous self-control. Ever since he had seen her this morning, dressed in her wedding dress for this first meeting with her grandfather, he had been fighting the almost overwhelming urge to once again taste the sweetness of her mouth, to know all the delights of her beautiful body. To once again claim Felicity for his own.

It was only the dress, he told himself, and the memories it conjured for him of their wedding night. She was only wearing this particular dress because it was the prettiest one she owned, and she wanted to look her best for this all-important meeting. Why then could he not shake the feeling that she was symbolically giving herself to her grandfather the same way she had given herself to Josh in marriage?

"Are you folks about ready? We're almost there," Asa Gordon's voice inquired from the hallway.

As if caught doing something immoral, Josh stepped guiltily away from her, out into the hall of the railroad car.

"Oh, excuse me," Asa said, pausing in mid-stride when he saw that he had interrupted. He was carrying his own carpetbag, retrieved from his seat in the forward part of the train, where his sleeping berth had been.

"Yes, we're ready," Josh said flatly, ignoring Asa's apology. "I'll get Felicity's bags."

"There's no hurry," Asa assured him, puzzled by his friend's grim expression. "Let's go back to the parlor and watch the approach to the city."

Wordlessly, they did so. Felicity was the only one truly interested in seeing the countryside gradually give way to metropolis. In the course of her journey, she had viewed this process many times, but never had it seemed so important. This was Philadelphia, her destination, her mother's home. And she was going to see her grandfather.

At last the train snaked into the cavernous station.

"Will someone be meeting us?" Felicity asked anxiously, scanning the crowd waiting for the train to unload.

"Probably not," Asa said. "I'll tell you what. I'll go find us a cab to take us to your grandfather's house. It isn't far from the station. Meanwhile, you two just wait here and relax until the crowd has thinned out some."

Waiting and relaxing hardly suited Felicity's mood, which was growing more restless by the moment, but she agreed anyway. When the train ground to a stop, Asa left the car and disappeared into the crowd. Felicity watched through the window, examining every face of every person she could see. She knew she was being foolish, that her grandfather was too ill to have come to the station to meet her, but still she looked.

Uneasy over her eager anticipation, Josh rose, too. "I'll go get our luggage," he said.

"Simon and William will take care of it," Felicity protested, not wanting him to leave her at this exciting moment.

"I'll make sure they get it all, then," Josh insisted tensely. Before she could protest again, he had left the room.

Sighing with disappointment that Joshua could not share her joy, Felicity once again looked out the window. But that was far too tame a pastime for her present state of mind. Her restlessness demanded action, so without even taking time to consider, she opened the door to the car and stepped out onto the small rear platform.