Before Felicity could respond, someone knocked on the bedroom door. "Come in," she called.
Joshua did so, a worried frown on his face. "Is everything all right?"
"Everything is just fine," Dr. Strong repeated. "And congratulations, Mr. Logan. I don't believe I had a chance to say that earlier in all the excitement."
"Thank you," Josh said, shaking Dr. Strong's hand. "And thank you for looking after her all these months."
"I did very little," Dr. Strong replied with a smile. "And I must say, I'm glad my services were not required here at the end. You and your wife handled everything beautifully."
After Josh and Felicity had thanked him yet again, Dr. Strong took his leave, promising to check back with them in the morning. When they were alone, Josh moved over next to the bed, where he could get another look at his new daughter.
"She's awfully little," he noticed, patting the small bottom.
"She's even bigger than Caleb Joshua was," Felicity said, growing solemn at the sad memory of her beautiful son.
For a moment they gazed at this living baby and remembered the one they had lost. Then Josh realized the importance of what she had said. "Did you say this baby is bigger?"
Felicity nodded, her eyes shining with the renewed hope Dr. Strong's prediction had given her. "Do you know what this means, Joshua? This means we have our life back!"
At his puzzled frown, she explained. "Don't you see? We don't have to be afraid anymore. We can love each other just like we did in the beginning, and we don't have to be afraid that I'll have a baby. I won't die, and we won't lose any more children, either. Oh, Joshua, do you understand? Our life will be just like it was before!"
But Josh stared down at her radiant expression and shook his head. "I don't want our life to be just like it was before, Lissy."
Felicity stared back at him in horror, her hope snuffed. Instinctively, she drew her child closer to her side as if to protect her from whatever awful thing Joshua was going to say. "What do you mean?" she asked warily.
Seeing Felicity's reaction, Josh hastened to reassure her, sitting down on the edge of the bed and reaching out to tenderly stroke her cheek. "What I mean is that I want things to be different for you. When I think back over our marriage, the only time I remember you being really happy was when you first came here, to Philadelphia."
"That's not true!" Felicity protested, but he shook his head.
"It is true. You were never sure of your place as my wife, and that's my fault. You tried so hard to please me, and I never told you how much you had succeeded. I never even told you how much I loved you. And then, when you lost the baby…"
"Don't, Joshua!" she cried, unwilling to let the memory of those awful days mar the joy of the future.
"And then you came here," he continued relentlessly. "You seemed to forget your unhappiness. You were like a different person here, but I got jealous. That's why I wanted to take you away, back home to Texas, where you'd be all mine again. Leaving you here was one of the hardest things I ever had to do."
Felicity felt her eyes fill with tears as she remembered her own bitterness over what she had considered his desertion. She reached up and clasped the hand that still rested by her face and placed a kiss on the roughened palm. "But we were happy when I came back home," she reminded him.
He smiled sadly at the memory. "For a very short while, but then we realized you were pregnant."
He did not need to explain. She remembered only too well the strained desperation she had felt during that time to continue the carefree charade. He, too, must have known the same desperation.
"Joshua, all that is over now. The reasons we were miserable no longer exist. I know you love me, and we don't have to be afraid anymore…"
"But that isn't enough," he insisted, and once more she listened with dread to what he wanted to tell her. "Like I said, the only times you've been really happy are when you were here… and when you're taking photographs. You've never said anything, but I know how much you love that work and how much it meant to you when your pictures were displayed. I… I'm starting to agree with your grandfather that you should have your own studio here and-"
"Are you saying I should live here, with Grandfather?" she asked in horror.
"No!" he hastily explained. "At least not all the time. But if it's that important to you, maybe you could spend part of the year here and part of the year with me…"
Felicity watched his silver eyes cloud with pain as he said these words, and for the first time she understood, really understood, what he was telling her. He believed that she preferred this life to the one they had in Texas and that the fame she had achieved was vitally important to her. The old Joshua would have feared such feelings and would have packed her off to Texas and kept her locked safely away from these temptations. But her new Joshua was willing to share her, was willing to let her have her life that was so alien to his own. This new Joshua was willing to risk losing her in order to give her what he believed would make her happy.
"Would you be with me while I was here?" she asked, testing her theory.
"As much as I could," he affirmed.
"You'd have to be away from the ranch," she reminded him, recalling his fierce devotion to the land, a love that ran so deep she had once actually believed he would leave her just to conduct a roundup.
"Other people can take care of the ranch," he said. "You're more important to me."
Once more tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them away. Now was not the time for weeping. This was the happiest moment in her life. "Joshua, you're more important to me than photography or Philadelphia. Don't you know that?" He looked as if he wanted to, but couldn't quite. "Joshua, listen to me! I do love photography, but I can be a photographer in Texas. I can't be your wife here in Philadelphia, without you, and I'd rather be your wife than anything else!"
His gray eyes searched her face for a long moment before he finally trusted himself to feel the surging joy her words produced. Reminding himself of her delicate condition, he resisted the urge to grab her up and crush her to him. Instead, he carefully leaned over and placed a tender kiss on her upturned mouth.
The kiss was long and infinitely sweet. When at last he lifted his lips from hers, he smiled. "You'll be the best photographer in Texas."
Felicity smiled back, easily reading the love and gratitude on his beloved face. "I'll settle for being a good photographer and a happy wife," she replied.
Josh trudged wearily up onto the ranch house porch. He hated coming home to an empty house, knowing Felicity and baby Claire would not be there to greet him. But as he stepped over the threshold into the front room, he sensed a change, as if the room were charged with some sort of electricity. Candace greeted him with a knowing smile.
"They're home," she reported, confirming what he had instinctively known. She motioned toward the bedroom door.
Inside the bedroom, he found Claire nursing happily at her mother's breast as the two females he loved most snuggled together in the rocking chair. Claire paused long enough to give her father a milky smile before returning to the task before her. Felicity reached out her free hand to him.
"Welcome home," he said, crossing the room in long strides to kiss her smiling mouth.
"Did you miss us?" she asked.
"Terribly," he said, kneeling down beside the chair so he could flirt with his daughter. He captured one baby foot and nibbled at her toes, making her giggle but not distracting her long from her feeding. "I thought you'd be gone a few more days."
"Blanche ran us off," Felicity reported cheerfully. "She said she didn't need any more help."