"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."
Josh made a face. "She thinks she can handle twin boys all by herself?"
"She claims she's been handling men all her life, and since these two are so small, they're hardly even a challenge," Felicity explained. "Besides, now that the shock has worn off, even Asa has started to pitch in to help."
"I don't believe I ever saw a man so surprised as he was when you told him the news," Josh recalled with a chuckle. For a few minutes they reminisced about the birth of Blanche's sons and considered the possibility that one or both of them might one day court their own daughter. "I got the cutest photograph of them, too. There's only a slight blur where one of them-I can't tell which one it is-moved his hand just a bit."
"Can anyone tell them apart?"
Felicity shook her head. "Blanche claims she can, but how would any of the rest of us ever know if she's right?"
Josh smiled his understanding. "Well, if Claire's going to marry one of them, I hope she can tell the difference." Josh glanced down at where his daughter still suckled at her mother's breast. He grinned wickedly. "That looks like fun," he remarked.
Felicity grinned back and with her free hand slipped aside her chemise to reveal her other breast. "Help yourself," she offered provocatively.
Josh caught his breath on an overwhelming surge of desire. "I can wait my turn," he responded hoarsely.
Felicity looked down at her daughter and determined that the baby was practically asleep. Gently, she removed her nipple from the baby's mouth and carefully laid her down in the nearby cradle. Felicity patted the little girl a few times to make sure she was safely in dreamland, and then she turned back to her husband.
"Your turn," Felicity said coyly, only to find herself being thrust over her husband's shoulder and carried off to their bed. She whooped in feigned outrage as Joshua tumbled her down on the mattress, but he quickly silenced her protests with his own lips.
Felicity slid her arms around his neck and buried her fingers in the silky softness of his silver hair. His kisses were devouring, and she surrendered, eager to be consumed. His hands worked magic as they pushed aside the barrier of her clothes to caress the breasts he had earlier coveted. Her nipples puckered to aching readiness, and he soothed them with his mouth in an erotic parody of infant eagerness.
Felicity cried out as pleasure swamped her senses, turning her desires into compulsion. "Joshua, please!" she begged. He needed no further encouragement. Tearing away the clothes that restricted them, he took her with an urgency that matched her own. Together they strove for the ultimate union, clinging with hands and lips until their bodies convulsed as one, melding them into a single being.
Joshua lifted himself on his elbows so he could watch her face as the aftershocks rippled through her body. "You're so beautiful," he whispered.
She smiled slowly, savoring the moment. "This reminds me of the first time," she murmured, glancing down at their partially clad bodies. But when she lifted her gaze to Joshua's again, she was surprised to see him frowning.
"I had no right to take you that day," he said, brushing wisps of golden hair off her forehead. "I forced you so that you would have to marry me."
"I knew that," she informed him sweetly. "The only thing I couldn't figure out was why you wanted to marry me."
"What?" Josh said in complete astonishment.
"It's true," she assured him, "It never occurred to me that you might actually be in love with me."
"It never occurred to me either," he replied with a self-mocking grin. "I was just as surprised as you were. But I do love you, more every day," he added, rolling off of her and carrying her with him so that she now rested against his chest.
"And I love you even more," she said with an impish grin.
But he did not return that grin. Instead he grew pensive. "Are you sure that just being my wife is going to be enough for you? If you change your mind about Philadelphia…"
"I'm not going to change my mind," Felicity said with some exasperation. "I told you, I was feeling a little desperate about my photographs back when I thought they were the only 'babies' I would ever have. Now I know that's not true, and for the time being, at least, I'll be perfectly happy to simply photograph my own children."
"Children?" Josh repeated suspiciously.
"Of course," she assured him. "You didn't think I'd be happy with just Claire, did you? I intend to have lots more, because I know you only got married so you could have children to leave the ranch to-"
He used a kiss to cut off her outrageous charges in mid-sentence. When she was breathless, he pulled away again. "You're absolutely right," he assured her just as outrageously, "and I think we'd better get started on the next baby right away."
"I thought we just did," she said innocently.
"That," he informed her, "was only practice."
Author's Note
In doing research for my previous novels, I would occasionally come across a photograph of what appeared to be a sleeping baby. The captions to the pictures explained that the child, who was invariably dressed in a long christening gown, was dead. I found such captions incomprehensible according to my twentieth-century understanding. Then I finally happened across the explanation that traveling photographers were often asked to photograph infants prior to burial so the parents would have a memento of the deceased child. People who lived during the Victorian era were perhaps more sentimental and less squeamish about such things than we are today.
The details about Felicity's childbirth experiences are based on actual fact. The story, as told to me, was so fascinating that I have remembered it for almost two decades until at last I have the opportunity to put it into a book.
Victoria Thompson
***
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