"Oh yes," she quickly agreed, eager to correct the impression she had given.
"Truth to tell, the fact that you've been here several days already, unchaperoned, looks pretty bad," he continued, leaning back in his chair to watch the effect of his words.
Felicity's eyes widened. She had not considered this possibility. Of course, no one around here knew her, so she really had no reputation to tarnish. But if she stayed in the area, this could ruin her. "I… I didn't realize…"
Josh relaxed. She seemed genuinely upset. If she had designs on him, she would now be demanding that he give her the protection of his name. Instead, she was shocked by the magnitude of her problem. All he had to do was solve it for her. "There is one way you could stay here and everything would be completely proper," he remarked.
"What?" she asked absently, preoccupied with her predicament.
"If you were a married woman, living here with your husband, then nobody would think twice about it," Josh pointed out reasonably, liking the way he had phrased it, making it sound as if he might have been marrying her off to anyone except himself.
Felicity stared at him in complete surprise. To whom was he planning to marry her off? He couldn't possibly think she was interested in any of the men. Or maybe he did. He might think she liked Cody more than a little from the way she had let the boy help her today. That would explain why Mr. Logan had been watching them so closely all evening. For some reason she did not fully understand, she did not want Mr. Logan to think she liked Cody. "But there's nobody on the ranch I want to marry," she explained quickly, knowing even as she spoke that it was a lie. There was one man she would consider, but of course, he would never…
"There isn't?" Josh asked. Either she was a very good actress or else she had really not considered the possibility of marrying him. The thought should have pleased him, but it did not. Perversely, he felt annoyed. "What about me?" he demanded.
Felicity stared at him in surprise. He was teasing her. He had to be. This was all some great, ugly joke. Unfortunately,
Felicity did not feel like laughing. "Don't be silly," she said faintly.
Josh stood up, slowly and deliberately. "Why is it silly?" he asked, placing his hands on his hips in silent challenge. This wasn't at all the reaction he had expected from her. She didn't even seem to consider him a viable candidate.
If he could see himself at this moment, Felicity thought, he wouldn't even need to ask why the idea was ridiculous. Standing there like a conquering general in the midst of his fine home, a bearskin rug (which he no doubt had bagged himself) stretched out at his feet, his silver hair gleaming in the firelight and his handsome face twisted into a frown, he was just about the last man on earth whom anyone would pair up with little Felicity Storm. She didn't want to say all that, though. Casting about in her mind, she came up with a more practical-sounding reason. "Well, you're a little old for me."
"Old?" he repeated, completely puzzled and not even certain he had understood her correctly. How could she possibly think he was too old for her? There couldn't be more than ten years difference in their ages, and on the frontier even a difference of twenty years or more wasn't considered excessive. For a moment he thought she must be grasping at straws, but one look at those guileless blue eyes convinced him otherwise. Her objection was perfectly sincere. Another, very unsettling, thought occurred to him. "Just how old do you think I am?" he inquired.
Felicity thought this an odd question and certainly one she was loath to answer. No one liked to have his age guessed incorrectly, as Felicity knew from bitter personal experience, and she had no definite concept of his age. But she also knew that he was going to insist on an answer. She studied his face. He wasn't as old as her father had been, because he didn't have nearly as many wrinkles, but she also knew he must be pretty close to her father's age because of his white hair. She swallowed and ventured, "Forty?"
"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.