Midnight Ride

by Cat Johnson

  “Oh, you knew her.”

  The venom of her answer made him curious. “Who?”

  “The girl who said hello to you today when you came to talk to me. Remember her? She certainly remembers you. Apparently, according to her conversation with her friend, you two hooked up last year.”

  Frowning, he pawed through his memory. He remembered the girl saying hello to him, and as he thought more, he remembered the same event the previous year. He hung his head and blew out a breath. “Yeah, I didn’t recognize her today, but . . .” He let out a sigh. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, but it was really nothing.”

  “Nothing? You have sex with a girl, forget her totally, don’t even recognize her until I mention it, and then say it was no big deal? I thought I knew you, but obviously I don’t.”

  “Whoa, wait one minute. I didn’t have sex with her. We kissed a couple of times during the event and then I drove home with Justin. Ask him if you don’t believe me. And the reason I didn’t recognize her was because her hair wasn’t blond last year. She looks totally different and honestly, Janie, the only person I was looking at today was you.”

  She looked as if she was considering his explanation. Possibly even believing him, which was good since it was the God’s honest truth.

  He took a chance and dared to go a step closer. “You do know me, Janie. I’m exactly the guy you thought I was. Nothing’s changed. I’m the same.”

  “Maybe you are, but I’m not.”

  Shaking his head, he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t understand her. Hell, he didn’t understand most women. Probably why he’d never had a long-term relationship. It could be his own damn fault. He didn’t speak their language or understand the inner workings of the female mind.

  The pup whined and he felt her start to shake. She must have picked up on his mood. He could only imagine how his own displeasure with the situation was radiating off him and the puppy sensed it. He held her tighter. At least the dog was one creature of the opposite sex he understood. Horses, too. If only he was as proficient at reading human females.

  He looked back at Janie. “What’s changed for you? Why is anything different?”

  “Seeing that girl—”

  “Dammit, Janie. You can’t hold against me something I did a year before I met you. I kissed her. I didn’t fuck her.” He hated that he’d cussed in front of her the moment the word was out of his mouth.

  She rolled her lips in, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. There will always be someone like her between us.”

  “Why? I didn’t know you then. I don’t want to be with her now.”

  “Fine, I understand that she’s from your past. But I’ll always wonder if the next girl I see will be your future.”

  Frustration rolled off him and the pup whined again. “I don’t know what to do to convince you that you’re who I want. No one else.”

  “There’s nothing you can do. I told you. It’s not you. It’s me. It’s how I feel and I can’t change that.”

  He snorted. “You never tried.”

  “I take full blame for all this. I slept with you when I knew I shouldn’t. You were always too young and I can’t blame you for that. I should have known better. Should have known I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

  “I’m almost twenty-five. I’m not some kid.” Even as he said it, he reviewed the evidence against him. He still lived with his parents. He worked for someone else in a dead-end job with no prospects of anything better. She’d met him while he was hiding in her truck like a fool after running from a stupid situation he’d gotten himself into.

  “I know you see me as some screwup, but I’m not. Not really. Yeah, I joke around sometimes, and I have gotten myself into some trouble, but that’s not who I am. At least, not all the time. I can be serious.”

  “That’s not the problem at all. I know you’re not a screwup. You’re a hardworking, generous man, but I’m too old for you.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  She shook her head. “We’ve been over this before. Over and over again. It won’t end any differently this time.”

  “Why did you let me into your life at all? Why let me be with you, make love to you, sleep in your bed and wake up next to you, only to kick me to the curb after?”

  “I told you, I didn’t mean to. You got under my skin. A little at a time. Slowly. So slowly I didn’t realize it was happening until I couldn’t help myself.”

  Her losing control because of him was a good thing. Maybe things had started to look up. “Then what’s the problem?”

  “You’re—”

  “Younger than you,” he finished her sentence.

  “Yes.”

  “So what?”

  “We’re in different places in our lives. We have different futures.”

  He didn’t miss that her argument was all over the place. First, his bringing the dog had thrown her. Then the girl from the rodeo. Now she was back to their ages with the added complication of their different lives and futures. What crap excuse would she come up with next?

  The woman was fighting hard, but doing it badly. He could only hope it was because she really didn’t want to get rid of him. Either way, he wasn’t going to make it easy.

  “How are we in different places?” he countered. “I love animals. I work on a ranch. You have animals. You own a ranch. I want to make a future training horses and raising stock. You have a small herd of cattle and a horse operation. How is that different? Seems to me that you and I are on the same page.”

  “The same book maybe, but not the same page. You’re in chapter one, just starting out. I’m way farther along in my story.”

  This argument had backfired. “Okay. Enough of this book stuff—”

  “No, it’s a good analogy. You’re starting your life and you need a girl your age to share it with.”

  Back to this again. He rubbed his temple with the hand that wasn’t holding the puppy. “I don’t want a girl my age, Janie. Believe me, I know. If I wanted one, I could have one. I’ve had plenty of them.”

  “Exactly.” Her smile was small and sad.

  He knew his mistake the moment he’d made it. Telling her how many girls he’d had was not the best choice for his defense. “That’s all in the past.”

  “It’s not. Your past is part of you. You can have—you have had—any girl you want. You’re still that same man. It’s who you are.”

  He bit back a curse. She’d said it sweetly, but it might be the worst insult he’d ever been dealt. Just because he’d played the game didn’t mean he was and always would be a player. “No. You’re wrong.”

  She shook her head, a slow move that only pissed him off more.

  It was likely she was past listening, but he wasn’t done talking.

  “Listen to me, Janie. Yeah, I have women in my past. Going out was what I did when I was killing time and waiting for the right one to come along. So I’ve been around the block. That’s a good thing. It means I’m sure of what I want. I want you.”

  He could see in her face she wasn’t giving in. He felt like tearing his hair out. Or maybe kissing her until she saw the truth in what he said, what he felt. Instead, he settled on asking, “Why don’t you believe me?”

  Janie shrugged. He began to see that he could talk until he was blue in the face and she wouldn’t believe him, and he was at a loss as to how to change that.

  “I’m gonna go.” It was either leave or shake some sense into her. Since he’d never laid a hand on a woman and never would, he chose to go.

  She took a step forward, mouth open, and then stopped herself. Just the effort, that one move, told him she wasn’t completely happy about his leaving. At least not this way, with things so bad between them.

  He hiked the puppy up a little higher against his chest and was rewarded with a big sloppy tongue kiss. “Good girl.”

  Brushing a hand over the dog’s head, he shot one more glance at Janie before he turned for the door. He didn’t s
ay good-bye, because this wasn’t. He’d be back, but only after she’d had some time to calm down, and to think.

  He wasn’t cocky enough to think he was irresistible, but hell, they’d shared a lot together. She’d think about him after he left. He had to believe that or everything was lost, and he refused to accept that.

  Chapter Thirty

  The tears didn’t come until Tyler was out the door, but once he’d gotten into the truck, they started to flow.

  Wiping her hand across her eyes, Janie thanked God that he had driven away and hadn’t seen her weep. He’d never know how hard letting him go, how hard watching him drive away, had been. She couldn’t have handled him seeing her cry or worse, comforting her. She would have folded. All resolve would have fled if he’d wrapped his arms around her or pressed his lips to her forehead the way she’d seen him drop a kiss to the puppy’s furry little head.

  Why did he have to be so damn good? Good with dogs. Good with horses. Good with kids.... Good in the bedroom. And in the kitchen. And in the bed of his truck.

  Tyler was also very good with women. Janie reminded herself of that before she jumped in her car and drove after him. She drew in and let out a shaky breath, uncertain what to do.

  Taking an over-the-counter sleeping pill and knocking herself into oblivion where she could forget this whole horrible day was very tempting. She hadn’t done that since right after Tom had died. She hadn’t even been really tempted to do so until this very moment.

  That realization seemed pretty momentous. How in the world could losing her husband drive her to the same actions as pushing Tyler out of her life?

  She suspected she knew the answer. She’d started to fall in love with him.

  Had she let herself, she would have turned her heart over to him, and no matter how good a man he was, she still believed he would have broken it eventually.

  How would he have felt about her, about them, when she turned fifty and he was still in his thirties? Still handsome. Still the hot rodeo cowboy who attracted the ladies like flies to honey.

  Even if Tyler truly believed he was fine with the age difference, and even if she chose to believe him, she wasn’t all right with it.

  The fear of losing one more thing in her life that she cared about was nearly paralyzing. It had hit her hard today when he’d thrust that little dog at her, and she’d been overwhelmed by memories of watching her and of Tom’s old dog slowly fall into a sleep he’d never awaken from on the vet’s table.

  Having to watch that, just weeks after watching her husband take his last breath, had numbed her to loving anything. A defense mechanism to keep her from crumbling completely. Tyler had reawakened that part of her she thought she’d put to bed forever.

  Now she felt, and she hurt, and it sucked.

  Maybe she had been living only half a life, inhabiting a world of dull gray until he’d brought back the vivid color to it. But with the vibrancy of really living, all the feelings, both good and bad, also returned.

  The house phone rang. Janie glanced at the receiver in the cradle on the counter nearest the stove, half thinking it might be Tyler. Rene’s name and number came across the readout. She felt horrible doing it, but she didn’t answer. Instead she watched it ring, paranoid the whole time that Rene could somehow know she was there and not picking up. Almost afraid to breathe until, five rings in, the phone finally went silent.

  The reprieve only lasted a few seconds before she heard her cell phone sound from where she’d tossed it on the counter when she’d gotten home. She didn’t have to look at the display to know it would be Rene. When the beep sounded for a voice mail, she walked over and hit the button to retrieve it, guilt riding her the whole time.

  “I finally got home from that rodeo and got Khriste settled, so now it’s time for you to explain what the hell happened today. Call me!”

  Janie hit the END button and put the phone down gently, to make sure she didn’t accidentally hit REDIAL and call back. Rene was a good friend, but the wound was too fresh and the tears too near the surface for Janie to repeat the events of today, even to her. She’d call back eventually. Until then, hiding and avoiding contact seemed like the best course of action.

  and avoiding contact seemed like the best course of action.

  The house was too quiet. She felt Tyler’s absence in the kitchen. Upstairs in the bedroom would be just as bad.

  Janie found herself wandering to one of the few rooms that didn’t contain memories of Tyler—the bedroom she’d shared with Tom. The room where he’d taken his last breath.

  She rarely went in there since moving to the bedroom upstairs. The room would make a good office, but she couldn’t bear to spend that much time in it, so she’d left it set up as a guest room. Not that she had any guests.

  Funny that she gravitated there now. Even stranger that as she perched on the edge of the bed and ran her hand over the comforter, a sense of calm came over her.

  She felt peace, as if the drama the rest of the house buzzed with couldn’t penetrate the walls of this room. She felt closer to Tom, or at least his memory here, than she did at his grave site. That cold piece of marble marking his resting place held no warmth, none of his spirit. This room though, did. Even without any personal items remaining in it.

  Janie flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling, her head cradled in the new pillow she’d bought when she’d redecorated this as a guest room. There were cracks and chips marring the white above her. The whole room needed to be repainted. It hadn’t been done since shortly after she and Tom had gotten married. She didn’t have the energy to do it now, alone.

  Rene had told her more than once that Tom wouldn’t have begrudged her moving on. That there was no reason for her not to. Still, it had seemed wrong to Janie, but here in this room where she felt Tom so strongly, she somehow knew. He wouldn’t want her to go it alone. She felt the weight of guilt lift from her shoulders, but that didn’t change things with Tyler.

  She couldn’t think about him anymore, but she couldn’t not think about him. Sighing, she covered her eyes with her forearm and willed the thoughts to leave her in peace for just one night.

  Amazingly, it seemed to work. Janie felt herself drifting, falling asleep in the one room in this house she’d ever had a good night’s rest in. She’d have to go upstairs eventually, but for now, she let herself relax, just for a little while.

  The ringing of the house phone extension on the table next to her head startled her out of what felt like a deep sleep. Confused and in complete darkness, she slapped the bedside table until her hand knocked the receiver over. Cursing and still half asleep, she sat up and searched with two hands, scrambling to grab it before the call went to voice mail.

  Hitting the button in the process, she finally got the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Aw, Janie. Jeez, you were asleep. I’m so sorry I woke you. It’s Rohn, by the way.”

  His voice only confused her more. She’d been expecting Rene. A small part of her had been hoping for Tyler, though if she was going to stick to her guns and make a clean break with him, they shouldn’t be talking on the phone. But her widowed neighbor Rohn was probably the last person she’d thought would call.

  She glanced at the clock across the room on the dresser. It was just past eight. Still a respectable time to call. “No, really. It’s fine. I dozed off without meaning to.” Logic began to take over. Maybe her stock had gotten into his fields. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah, everything’s fine, actually. Um, this might sound crazy, but do you want to have dinner with me tomorrow?”

  “Um, sure.” Still disoriented, she didn’t know what else to say.

  “Great. I thought we could go to the Italian place in town. I could cook here, but I can only make one thing decent and that’s steak on the grill, so I figured you’d rather go out.”

  “Whatever you want is fine.”

  “A’ight. We’ll go out, then. It’ll be nice for both of us to get
out of the house. So around six okay?”

  “Uh, yeah. Fine.”

  “Great. I’ll pick you up at your house.”

  “Okay.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll see you then.”

  “All right. ’Night.”

  “Good night, Janie.” There was a smile in his voice, which only confused her more.

  After she had hung up, she could finally take the time to think, which had seemed impossible during the call. She considered the strange twist of events.

  What was that about? Janie struggled for an explanation. Surely it wasn’t a date. She hadn’t exactly been a friend, but she’d been at least friendly, neighborly, with his wife, just as Rohn had been with her husband. He probably just wanted to take her out as a thank-you for the pie. Or maybe he wanted to discuss buying her hay. . . .

  The hay. She remembered she’d have to figure out the machines on her own to rake it and bale it herself. Or, a safer bet, give Rohn a discounted price to buy it if he sent Colton over to bale it for him.

  She didn’t think she could take Tyler working at her place again, even for pay this time. To be as close as they had been and then have him be nothing but a hired hand would be torture.

  Janie knew she should call Rene back. It might help to bounce the strange dinner invitation off her friend, but exhaustion won out. She crawled up the stairs and into bed. It could all wait until tomorrow.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Morning came much too early after Tyler’s sleepless night. He probably shouldn’t blame it all on the puppy. After what had happened with Janie, it was doubtful he would have been able to sleep anyway. But the whining when he’d put her on a blanket on the floor next to the bed had lasted so long, he’d given in, picked her up, and let her sleep with him in bed.

  Once she could curl up against his side, the puppy had slept, even snored, while he’d lain there with his mind spinning over what had happened and what he could do about it.