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passage to and from Salem Village. Though the walk was long, she wanted the time to think apart from Prudence’s incessant questions and teasing nature. Anne had not yet confessed Josiah’s identity—nor had Prudence guessed—so Prudence was left to believe Anne harbored intense affection for a complete stranger. The ruse would not likely stand to Prudence’s penetrating scrutiny, but for the time, Anne wanted to keep Josiah’s return to herself.
    Her thoughts were heavy, and in the solitude she hoped to sort them.
    But there was no sorting through what Josiah was to her—or the memories his appearance stirred. Though bittersweet, they brought such great warmth she could not help but draw near—a naïve moth to a burgeoning flame. So many questions lay at the tip of her tongue, but her heart wanted nothing more than the proximity of this man. A decade before, he had tipped the innocence of her girlhood with every forbidden stroke of his fingers against her flesh. Now, his touch kindled a womanly fire within—one that left her thick with emotions she dared not address.
    She recognized the thinning woods as a sign she neared town. Her family’s inn was but a short distance away. Might Josiah await her there? Her heart raced and skipped. The walk, meant to settle her mind, had only provoked her desires—desires not even the cloud-thick sky could temper.
    Sudden movement in the nearby woods altered the cadence of her heart. Her steps faltered, and with her mind divulged from its haze she realized how terribly still the forest sat. The usual sound of birds hid under a cloak of silence. Though her mother had long warned of the dangers of a young woman traveling unescorted, Anne had always found the path to be one of solace. But now, in the terrible stillness, she thought only of the stranger rumored to haunt the woods near Salem Village. Who but the devil himself could lead to the wrongful accusation of so many of Salem’s most trusted neighbors?
    Wanting no more for the solitude of the forest, she turned…and walked straight into something. Someone. Hands closed on her arms.
    Blinded by fear, she tried to scream but could force no sound from her throat.
    “Anne!” Though insistent, the voice came in low tones. “Worry not, for it is only me.”
    “Josiah!” Relief threatened, but before the feeling could find its course he took her hand and softly pressed it to his lips. At the feel of his intimate caress against her bare skin, a white-hot cataclysm of emotion burst forth, rendering her knees weak and her senses sharp. She found her tongue. “Tell me,” she said breathlessly, “why do you linger in the woods?”
    He smiled crookedly. “I expected you along the path.”
    “You waited all these hours for me?”
    “I have waited six summers to return to you. What is one morning more?”
    She swallowed, but could not diffuse the heat from her cheeks. When his thumb traced the back of her hand, she found his eyes. He had evaded her question the day before, but she must know. “Why did you stay away so long?”
    He tipped his face skyward. Light—filtered by clouds and foliage—made a delicate pattern over his skin. “I was granted opportunity for schooling, a privilege from which I could not walk away.” He paused and looked to their hands, now joined. “Though that is what kept me from you, I must confess I worried for my return. I feared how you might react to me.”
    His admittance startled her. “Whatever is there to fear?”
    “Samuel.” Josiah’s eyes made a plea for understanding and she could not help but wonder as to his intensity. He had been her brother’s closest friend and—in so many small ways of great importance to her young heart—much more than a friend to her. Though he had left her red-faced and sputtering more times than she could count, she and Josiah had never exchanged a truly cross word. In time, she had come to believe that Samuel knew of the clear affections between his