"Are you sure you want to?" she asked, teasing her body against the very obvious evidence of his arousal.
"No, I don't," he admitted hoarsely, "but I'm not the one who might be making a mistake."
"I'm not making a mistake," she assured him, pulling out of his embrace and taking his hand to draw him into the house. "And as for getting to know you, by the time this day is over, I think I'll know everything I need to."
Asa and Blanche's wedding was even more lavish than Josh and Felicity's had been, and certainly better attended. Everyone who had so much as heard of the Widow Delano wanted to see the mysterious Yankee who had finally won her heart. Even the scorching July heat did not keep anyone away.
As the resident photographer, Felicity had captured the event in a series of memorable pictures and a few that were best forgotten. Within the confines of the wagon/darkroom, she and Cody had decided that drunken cowboys should never be allowed to pose for photographs. But in spite of the trials, Felicity had thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to practice her craft once again. She was even more disappointed than her subjects when the sun slipped too low in the sky to allow any more photographs.
"Just look at the two of them, Joshua," Felicity demanded that evening as they and all the other guests watched a beaming Asa guiding a radiant Blanche around the makeshift dance floor for the first dance. "See, I told you everything would work out if we could manage to get Asa here."
Josh gave her a resigned look. "You mean, if you could manage to get him here," he corrected.
She grinned up at him, unrepentant. "I did sign your name to the letter, too."
Then it was time for the best man and the matron of honor to join the bride and groom on the dance floor, so Josh took his wife in his arms and whirled her around to the music. After a few minutes, they were both damp from the exertion.
"I feel sorry for Asa," Josh remarked, looking up at the dark canopy of July sky. "It's awful hot for a wedding night."
"Mr. Logan!" Felicity cried, pretending to be shocked, but then she added wickedly, "I didn't think it ever got too hot for you."
"Mrs. Logan!" he cried right back, mocking her. But his expression quickly softened into a wondering smile. "You've certainly changed since you've been back from Philadelphia. The little girl I married would never have said a thing like that."
The training of a lifetime nudged at Felicity's conscience, and she found herself wanting to apologize for shocking him. Except that she hadn't shocked him, not really, nor had she displeased him. In fact, he was enjoying her, just the way he had been enjoying her-her, the new Felicity, and not the "little girl" he had married-ever since her return. But still, she had a few doubts.
"Joshua, do you ever… do you ever wish you had that little girl back?" she asked, feeling a slight apprehension over what his answer might be. After all, he had chosen that girl to be his wife, and he had grown to love her. Perhaps he preferred her meekness.
Josh frowned, sensing her genuine concern. "I still have her," he said. "You aren't so very different than you were before. I didn't mean to make it sound that way."
Without realizing it, they had stopped dancing and stood still in the middle of the floor while the other couples swirled around them.
"Come on," Josh said, suddenly noticing that they were presenting an obstacle to the gaiety. He took her hand and led her away from the crowd to a more secluded spot on the other side of Blanche's house. When they were alone, with the sound of the party only a dull roar, Josh turned her to face him and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. "Is something wrong?" he asked, not liking the worried frown that marred her perfect features.
Felicity hesitated a moment, not even certain if she could put her concerns into words that he could understand. "I found out something in Philadelphia, something about my mother, that I didn't understand," she said at last.
"What was it?" Josh asked, suddenly alarmed. God knew, he had learned more about his own mother than any child should have to know. But surely there were no ugly secrets about Claire Maxwell Storm.
"I found out that she was… that she was very different than the way my father had always described her to me," Felicity began.
"You don't remember her at all?" he asked.
Felicity shook her head. "Only vaguely. She was good and kind and soft and she smelled nice, but that's all. I don't even remember her face. But Papa always told me that she was a perfect lady, that she never raised her voice or did anything unseemly or shocking. He made her sound like a saint, and he wanted me to be just like her. But Joshua," Felicity said, her eyes wide with wonder, "she wasn't like that at all."
"Then what was she like?" Josh asked, still unable to understand her concern.
"Aunt Isabel said she was wild, that she said whatever she thought and that she wasn't afraid of anything or anybody," Felicity explained.
Josh smiled, thinking that he was beginning to understand. "Maybe it just seemed that way to Isabel because she's such a frightened little mouse."
"No, that's what I thought, too, at first, but Grandfather said the same thing. If he thought she was outspoken and rebellious, she must have been. And don't forget, she had the courage to defy Henry Maxwell and run off with a penniless nobody. The woman my father described to me would never have done something like that! Why did my father lie to me, Joshua?"
Felicity watched his face as he considered the answer to her question, a question that had haunted her for months, ever since she had learned the truth about her mother.
"He told you that your mother was like Isabel," Josh murmured, thinking aloud. "And he wanted you to be just like her, and not like your mother… That's it! He wanted you to be like Isabel," he concluded.
"But why?" Felicity asked, more puzzled than ever.
"It's simple," Josh explained. "Twenty years ago, your mother defied her father and ran away, never to be seen again. Twenty years later, Isabel is still by her father's side. When your mother died, you were all your father had left, and he wanted to keep you. He saw that you were like your mother, or at least enough like her to frighten him, so he tried to change you, to mold you into the obedient daughter who would stay with him."
Felicity mulled this over. "And that's why he never wanted me to talk to strangers, especially young men," she realized.
"And why he made you dress like a child. At first even I didn't realize how old you were. Remember?"
Felicity nodded. "Oh, Joshua, how foolish of him! I would never have done what my mother did."
"But he couldn't have known that. And neither can you. Who's to say what anyone will do when they're desperate?" As if he also was desperate, Josh drew Felicity into his arms and held her tightly against his chest. Suddenly he realized that he might have been speaking of his own mother. Once she, too, had faced a situation with which she could no longer deal, and she had run away, leaving behind her husband and her son. Although he would never be able to forgive her that or the evil she had done since, he could at least understand.
Felicity clung to him, grateful for the security of his arms and for the way he had helped her understand this final mystery about her family. As she considered his words, she wondered what she herself would have done if she had met Joshua while her father was still alive. Would they have fallen in love? Would she have been forced to forsake her father for Joshua the way her mother had done for her father? Glad that she would never have to make that decision, she gave her husband one last hug and drew reluctantly away.
"We'd better get back before we're missed," she said with a smile. "We don't want people thinking we sneaked off alone together."