I married Blair for the papers and the protection they gave our niece against the claim jumpers at the well. Nothing else. I told myself the arrangement was simple, that her innocence would never touch the years of solitude I had carved into these acres.

But her blushes when I issue an order, the way she holds her ground despite the fear in her eyes, have turned this frontier marriage into a daily test of my restraint. Every shared task at the well or the scarred bench pulls at the hunger I refuse to name.

Now the hayloft presses us close, and the claim jumpers are still at the well. The land and the child hang on my restraint.