Free Joe's Wife by Cheryl St.john Page A

blue-eyed man with the intent expressions. He was all bottled up and inside himself, and her only glimpses of his feelings were in the shadowy nuances of his expressive eyes when his barriers were down.
    Everything he did, he did purposefully and with calm control: eating, walking, speaking.
    Meg refilled his coffee cup and the unfamiliar scent of tobacco flitted against her nostrils as she leaned over him. She glanced down at the spare planes of his tanned face. "Do you like dried-apple pie?" she asked.
    "Yes."
    "I'll make one for tonight."
    His expression didn't reveal pleasure in her offer, but rather an almost pained look of resignation.
    Behind her, Gus clanged a skillet on top of the hot stove to dry.
    "I can't drink any more coffee," Tye said. "Thank you for the meal."
    He stood, catching his balance on the leg he didn't favor, and grabbed his hat from a peg. Major stood outside the door and sniffed at Tye's pant legs as he exited.
    A strange man, to be sure. A very strange man. But a man she trusted to help her.
    A few days later, Meg hung the laundry Gus had helped her wring. The clank of hammer against iron echoed across the space between the house and the barn, a few choice words following a prolonged silence. She didn't like swearing, and the men never did it in her presence, but often the wind carried the colorful phrases to her from the corral.
    Meg was grateful for Gus's help with kitchen and household chores, for she found them tedious, and once she worked her way through them, she preferred outdoor tasks.
    The hammering sound came again, and she followed it to where Tye had a mare tied to a post, her hoof bracketed between his knees. He bent over the task of pounding a shoe into place.
    He clipped the nails and filed them as methodically and with as much concentration as he did everything, not noticing her presence even after he'd clipped the last nail, filed it smooth and straightened, catching his balance. He loosed the mare and swatted her rump to watch her gallop sure-footedly across the enclosure. Apparently satisfied with his job, he went after the horse, his limp more pronounced than Meg had ever seen it.
    He spotted her then but looked away quickly and opened the far gate to release the mare into the pasture.
    "The Eaton boys haven't been in since day before yesterday," Meg said when he neared. "They usually at least come at
noon
. I thought I'd better ride out and check on the herds, take the boys a sandwich. They probably just went home for dinner, but I'd like the ride."
    "I'll ride with you," he said.
    "I'll change." She hurried toward the house.
    She removed her petticoats and pulled a pair of Joe's knickerbockers on beneath her skirt. Returning to the corral, she found two horses saddled.
    The red dun bearing her saddle didn't shy as she approached. He accepted her weight and stood placidly.
    "You took the buck out of him," she said to Tye, who led a sturdy gray mare with his saddle.
    "Yes, ma'am." He raised his good left leg to the stirrup and swung the other up over the back of the horse with a grimace.
    Neither Gus nor Purdy was up to gentling the horses for her, and she was unaccustomed to the courtesy. Since there were no gentle horses left—she'd sold the tamest ones for profit—she'd had to handle them on her own each time she wanted to ride. Sometimes she feared she'd knock a hole in her chest with her chin before they settled down enough to command.
    Tye opened the gate from where he sat and closed it behind them. Meg kicked her horse into a gallop.
    They rode along the stream that meandered through the southeast section of the Circle T, wild rosebushes lining its banks. Tye climbed down from the mare and dipped water in his palm to drink. Before mounting again, he plucked a rose from one of the bushes, snapped off the thorns and handed it to her.
    Their gloves brushed as she accepted the delicate pink flower. "Thank you."
    Their eyes met only briefly before he adjusted his hat and