Tami Taylor's fingers flew across the keyboard of her laptop while her wine glass waited patiently on the kitchen table to be drained of its last single ounce.

The cowboy hat of Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens lay discarded on the floor, she typed. He pinned Winona beneath a sinewy leg and shifted his weight halfway on top of her. She reached up with her delicate fingers and stroked the light brown stubble of his chiseled chin. She didn't know how he achieved that perfect, masculine look with just the right amount of growth: not too smooth, not too rough, complete, full, but not overpowering. Winnona giggled a as she realized the same adjectives that described his stubble could describe his lovemaking.

"Are you still on that computer?" Coach Taylor asked his wife. "What are you writing?"

"Well, you were watching game tape all evening. Thought I could amuse myself." Tami felt him behind her. Looking over her shoulder. She lowered the screen of the laptop quickly. Not all the way to put it automatically to sleep. Enough so he couldn't see.

"Are you writing Justified fanfiction again? Seriously, Tami? I'm starting to think you're a little obsessed with that Raylan guy."

Eric had been a bit prickly about her new hobby. It wasn't like she invited him to read the stories, but he'd gone online once and found one last week, before she changed her penname to something he wouldn't guess.

"Seriously, Tami, I don't spend all my time obsessing about some good-looking TV woman."

"No, you just spent a half hour after dinner purusing the swimsuit issue," she shot back.

"I was reading Sports Illustrated. I'm a football coach, Tami. I have a professional subscription. Discounted and everything."

"Yeah, I don't think there's a lot to read in that particular issue."

"It has some very interesting articles," he insisted, but he apparently thought it a good time to make his retreat back to his recliner, where he unpaused his game film.

Tami lifted the screen of her laptop and started typing again.

"What's so funny?" he growled more than asked, and the sound of his gravely, half-offended voice sent a shiver through her still tingling flesh ."Nothing," Winona answered, and her fingers trailed down to his naked shoulder, danced on his back. "You're just cute."

"Cute?" he asked, and rolled off her. He lay on his back, utterly naked, exposed, and unconcerned, on top of the blankets rumpled from their night of passion.

"Are you writin' a sex scene?" Eric was standing in front of the lap top this time. Still, Tami lowered the screen. You never knew when he might come around in back of her and try to read it.

"I'm developing character," she insisted. "That's why I write fanfiction. To develop characters. To really look into their psyches. I'm practicing my writing skills. I'm honing my eye for detail so I can become a better writer."

Eric took two steps beside her chair. He put a hand on the screen as though to lift it and look. "That's a sad justification. Really? To develop characters? To hone your writing skills? Really? Not to fantasize? Not so you can imagine that Raylan guy sweaty and glistening and in nothing but a cowboy hat?" He started to ease the screen up.

She put a hand over his hand. "Don't," she said. "It's not finished. I don't like anyone to see my writing until it's finished."

"Well it must never be finished, because you've never let me read one." Eric sighed. "I don't know what that Raylan guy's got that I haven't got. What, you like them thin? I'm a little too stocky for you?"

"I like stocky, hon. You make me feel like a woman."

"Hmmm…so you like the stubble? I'm too clean shaven for you?"

"I love your smooth cheek, sugar. It's better for kissin' and especially for when you…you know."

"Hmmm…so, what? You like his accent? You like Kentucky better than Texas?"

"I love Texas, babe. A Texas accent is sexy." Not as sexy as a British accent, but that was another category of fanfiction he hadn't even guessed she wrote for...

"Hmmm…" He let go of the screen. He walked back to their bedroom. She heard him open the old, metal closet that came with the house. It always squealed when it opened. She didn't bother to think about why he had opened it. She was just relieved that he had departed without insisting on reading the text.

Tami lifted the screen again. She began to type.

Winona abruptly straddled him. Raylan smiled. It was as happy as he ever looked, and he looked unhappy far too often. She began to shift her hips sensually against him …

Tami sensed her husband's presence again. With a jitter, she grabbed the laptop screen and lowered it. This time she latched it closed. It was clear he wasn't going to leave her alone to write. She looked up at him where he stood across the table from her. She let out a laugh and then as quickly as she could brought her hands to her mouth to suppress it.

He was wearing a cowboy hat. One he'd bought for some western-themed high school dance he'd been forced to chaperone two years ago. He had never worn it since because he thought it was as stupid to wear a cowboy hat if you weren't wrangling cattle as it was to wear a construction hat if you weren't operating heavy machinery.

"Great," he said. "She laughs. She laughs. What's a man to do to please a woman around here?"

"Oh, hon," she said, standing up and trying to suppress her giggles. She grabbed the cowboy hat off his head and put it on her own. "Hon, you know when I think you're sexiest?"

"When?"

"After you've been coaching a game. When you come home and I take off your cap and you hair's all disheveled. When you're wearing your Pioneer jacket. I love you. I desire you. You, as you are, babe. Now why don't you go put on that jacket and that cap for me and meet me in the bedroom. And then I'll take you out of it… "

"Yeah?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah."

"A'right, baby." He began to walk to the hall closet. He'd left his cap hanging on the knob, and the jacket was inside. "Hey, hon," he called back to her while he was walking, in that tone she knew instantly was meant to get her dander up, "While you're waitin' for me in the bedroom, why don't you put on a swimsuit?"

/-*-/

"Wow!" Coach Taylor exclaimed. "Damn! I mean, wow!" He laughed giddily. "Hahahah, Tami, damn, woman, baby that was…wow! Yeah…I…hahaha…" He was lying naked beneath the covers, his equally naked wife spooned in his arms.

Tami felt the warmth of his flesh against hers as the power of his laughter shook his body. "Wow, hahaha….I never…I never heard you talk that dirty before. I mean, wow. That whole thing was…amazing."

"See," she murmured, as his happy laughter stilled and his body calmed against hers. "My writing fanfiction isn't such an awful thing. It's not as if Raylan Givens is going to step off the page. And I've got a handsome, considerate, willing husband at home to bring all that energy to…"

"Mhmmm…now there's a better justification than the last one you tried." He tightened his hold on her. He laughed again, once. He murmured, "I love you. Damn I love you." He was silent.

She started to drift off to sleep. His voice woke her. "Tomorrow," he said, "I'm gonna put Gracie to bed and handle the whole bedtime routine. Why don't you, uh…take a little quiet time to yourself while I'm doing that. You know, retreat someplace quiet with your laptop. My study if you want. Work on your fanfiction. Work on developing your skills." He kissed her neck. His voice was low and masculine. "Yeah, babe...hone those skills."

/ AND THAT THERE'S THE END /