Free Joe's Wife by Cheryl St.john

way through.
    He ate slowly, not remembering the last time he'd eaten ham, but he'd never tasted one so succulent. She'd made a thin, dark, salty gravy, pure pleasure to his unaccustomed palate.
    The hands took seconds and dashed through their meal, Purdy excusing himself and Gus getting up to start scrubbing pans.
    Tye glanced up to find Meg finished, watching him.
    He laid his fork down.
    "Is everything all right?" she asked.
    "Everything's good. Don't know when I've eaten so well."
    "Well, don't stop."
    He picked up his fork and endured her watching him finish the meal. "Coffee?"
    He nodded, and she brought the pot from the stove and filled the delicate china cup. Tye's finger didn't fit in the handle, so he picked it up by holding the brim between his thumb and forefinger and drank the delicious black brew. "Thank you."
    He studied her as she sipped her coffee, her small fingers holding the handle just so. Her warm tawny coloring reminded him of nature, of a beautiful mountain lion or an autumn hillside streaked with ore. Her eyes were bright and gemlike, lit from within like a smoldering fire.
    He thought of how he'd lowered her from the wagon twice that day, and how his hands had spanned her tiny waist. That harmless touch had been enough to inspire his lusty nature into more dishonorable thoughts. His fingers had recognized the bone shelf, and he wondered how she tied that corset herself, and if she wore it only beneath her Sunday clothing and had cast if off for the day dress she wore now.
    What else did she wear beneath those modest dresses? Her skirts didn't rustle like she wore stiff crinoline, but they were full and swayed as she walked, so layers of petticoats were evident. Were they dyed? Red or black? He'd glimpsed a white one that day at the boardinghouse. White seemed to suit Meg.
    Those thoughts reminded him she was Joe's wife. Joe Telford had married her, had known what sort of underclothing she preferred, and had initiated her to a man's touch. Those images disturbed him, so he blocked them from his mind.
    She turned those wide, tawny eyes on him now. "Tye?"
    She was the only person besides his mother and one or two schoolmasters who'd ever called him Tye. It made him sit up a little straighter and cast the errant thoughts aside. "Ma'am?"
    "Last year the Eaton boys and I cut two hay fields, but it got wet and rotted before we could get it into the barns. We spent this spring raking it so the new would grow. I had to buy feed over the winter, and it's gone now."
    "The fields look good," he said. "We should get two or three cuttings this summer."
    "I just want you to know where things stand. I told you right off I couldn't keep going alone. I need your help in figuring out what to do."
    "It'll probably be a spell before the first cut," he said. "But we really only need to feed the teams. The cattle are on their own until roundup, anyway. And we can move the rest of the horses from this pasture to another farther south as soon as I can get a new fence up. There's plenty of land here, plenty of grass and water. You got them through the winter, and they'll make it now."
    "We need seed for the garden, and the banknote comes due every three months. That's just a few weeks away."
    He considered her words and the pending situation. "Do you have any horses you can sell?"
    "We could sell one of Joe's horses, maybe one of the Welsh. He was going to breed them. That would be the last resort, though. I'd rather sell the furniture first."
    "Maybe we can make some money studding them," he suggested. He wouldn't allow her to sell her furniture.
    "Maybe," she replied. "If we found someone interested."
    "Let me take care of that," he said.
    Meg nodded her agreement and let her glance fall across his hair and face, grateful for someone to share the burden at last, someone who wanted to keep the ranch as badly as she did. Someone who wasn't trying to get her to sell the place off and move to the city.
    He was an anomaly, this