Home. Josh glanced around the ranch with a practiced eye, looking for any sign that something was out of the ordinary, but he saw nothing unusual. Nothing, that is, except for the sling on Grady's arm. And the fact that Felicity would not be there to greet him.
"Welcome home, boss," Grady said when Josh reined up beside him. "I'm sorry I had to send for you. I hated like hell to ruin your visit and all…"
"That's all right," Josh reassured him, swinging down from his horse. "Just tell me what's been happening."
As Josh unsaddled, Grady filled him in on the events that had occurred since his own ambush.
"… and then yesterday we found ten calves with their throats cut," Grady finished, reluctantly giving Josh the last in a long list of atrocities.
Josh swore. "That just doesn't sound like Ortega. The man has never been vicious," he protested.
But Grady shook his head. "We've been hearing all kinds of rumors. Seems like he almost died last spring when you shot him, and he's out for revenge. From the things he's been doing around here, he must be plumb loco."
Josh had to agree, if it was indeed Ortega who was responsible for these acts. Unfortunately, he also had another enemy who might well hate him enough to destroy his property in such a cruel manner. "Has anybody seen that Jeremiah fellow around?" he asked.
"No, but…" Grady hesitated a moment, reluctant to mention something that might be painful to Josh. "Candace finally told me that he came to see her. She said you already knew about it."
"Yeah, Blanche put it in the letter," Josh reported as the two men started toward the house, where Josh knew he would find Candace.
Candace was waiting for him, and Josh stopped short at the sight of her. How could she possibly have aged so much in the few short weeks he had been gone? The face he had seen every day of his life had gone from ageless to old in a month's time.
"Oh, Mr. Josh," she cried, tears spilling down her ebony cheeks. "I'm so sorry!"
"There, now, it's not your fault," he murmured, taking her trembling body in his arms. Had she always been this thin? he wondered as he led her over to the settee and made her sit down. He motioned to Grady to leave them alone, and then, sitting beside her, he put his arm over her shoulders and soothed her as best he could until at last she quieted.
"I should never have made you promise," she said, wiping the tears from her face with the sleeve of her dress. "If you'd killed him then-"
"Hush, you don't mean that," he chastened. "He's your son! And besides, we don't know that he's involved in what's been happening."
"But he's evil, Mr. Josh, all filled up with hate. You should have heard the things he said about you and Miss Felicity. Mrs. Delano thought maybe he was only trying to scare me, but she didn't see his eyes. He hates you so…" Candace drew a shuddering breath. "And he told me he was going to join up with Ortega again and help him ruin you. And it's all my fault."
"Candace, it is not your fault," Josh insisted.
"Yes, it is," she insisted right back. "If I'd gone home with your mother like she wanted me to, this never would have happened…"
"We don't know that," Josh said in exasperation, fighting an urge to try to shake some sense into her. Why was she so determined to take all the blame for something that was clearly not her fault? "What's done is done. We can't go back and change it now, anyway. I don't want to hear another word about it. Do you understand?"
She nodded miserably. "And I'm sorry you had to leave Miss Felicity back there…"
"She's having the time of her life," Josh assured her, although the words almost stuck in his throat.
"But she'll miss you…" Candace tried.
"She'll be fine," Josh said, knowing only too well how true his words were. "Now, how about rustling me up something to eat? My stomach is starting to gnaw on my backbone," he added with a forced smile.
"Right away," she sniffed, rising from the settee.
Josh watched her go with a frown, noticing for the first time the way her proud shoulders had begun to stoop. When had that started? And why had he never noticed it until now?
The next day Josh insisted on going out to see the murdered calves, although Grady and the men strongly objected. They argued that Ortega would love an opportunity to take a potshot at Josh, but Josh ignored their warnings. As it turned out, no one took a potshot at him, on that day or on any of the days that followed. In fact, all the previous harassment ceased abruptly.
Too abruptly, everyone agreed as the tension mounted hourly. Something big was about to happen, and the strain of waiting began to take its toll on all the men. They went about their duties with every sense alert for trouble, but still nothing happened. The days dragged into weeks, and the weeks became a month. The bluebonnets turned the grass into an indigo carpet, heralding the formal beginning of summer. And still no sign of Ortega. Or Jeremiah Logan.
Felicity wrote faithfully, and although her letters arrived sporadically and sometimes two together, Josh received a clear picture of her life in Philadelphia. Richard took her to a concert. Richard took her to a play. Richard took her to see Buffalo Bill. Richard took her to the park. Her grandfather bought her more new clothes and gave her some jewelry that had belonged to her grandmother.
Oh, she said she missed him and hoped the roundup was going well, too, but that was just common politeness. Although she signed herself "your loving wife," she never mentioned coming home. Josh tried not to torture himself about it at night when he lay alone in the big bed they had once shared. He told himself that as soon as this mess with Ortega straightened out, he would summon her home. If she refused, he would simply return to Philadelphia and fetch her. Then they would be able to pick up the pieces of their lives and start over.
Meanwhile, he could not bring himself to reply to her letters. He sat down at least a dozen times to write, but there was nothing to say. He dared not mention the trouble with Ortega, and he had no other news. He also dared not mention how much he missed her and wanted her here with him for fear she might actually come. Although it was his fondest wish, he refused to put her in danger.
The perils she faced in Philadelphia, while just as real, were far less hazardous than the ones awaiting her in Texas. And whatever Winthrop might plot, whatever Maxwell might scheme, Felicity was still Josh's wife. She belonged to him, and no amount of money would ever change that fact. But such thoughts were cold comfort to him as he waited day after day for Ortega's next move.
Felicity looked up in surprise when Bellwood informed her that her grandfather wanted her to come to his room and meet someone. Normally she only visited her grandfather in the afternoon, when she either read to him or the two of them just talked. During those times, he had told her many things about her mother and himself, and she in turn had filled him in on the part of her life he had missed.
As Felicity hurried up the stairs in response to this unusual summons, she reflected on how the afternoon visits with him and the activities that Richard planned for her had helped pass the lonely days without Joshua. Unfortunately, nothing could help her with the lonely nights. And both the days and nights seemed to be getting longer as each mail failed to bring her a letter from her husband. At first she had excused him, remembering how busy he would be with the roundup, but no excuse could explain why no letter had come after all these weeks.
Sometimes she became angry and swore she would not write another line to him until he responded. Then she would decide it was better to torment him with tales of her glamorous life in Philadelphia, so she would write page after page. When these tales still brought no response, she would grow frightened. What if her earlier fears proved true? What if he really had decided he no longer wanted her as his wife? Had he left her here for good? Was this silence his way of telling her their marriage was over?