Midnight Ride

by Cat Johnson

  “Well, all that rain earlier this spring really helped. Last year was so dry.” The weather was the best Janie could come up with. How pitiful.

  “Oh, I know.” He nodded. “Terrible drought last year.”

  “Mmm-hmm. It was.” Janie rolled her eyes at herself as she glanced at the passing scenery out the side window.

  With this less-than-auspicious start to the evening, it was going to be interesting seeing what other mundane things they could cover before they ran out of conversation. At least there’d be food shortly. Eating was always good to fill awkward lulls.

  “So I hope you like Italian food.”

  “Love it. I don’t cook it as frequently as I’d like to, though. I really shouldn’t eat all those carbs too often.”

  “Oh, did you want to go somewhere else?”

  “No, no. This is fine. Really.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure.”

  “Very sure. Thank you.” She let out a breath. A man hadn’t worked this hard to accommodate her wishes in—forever.

  When she was dating Tom, he’d just make the decisions and she’d follow along. And Tyler—well, there weren’t all that many decisions to be made there. Sex in the bedroom again or in the kitchen?

  She tore her mind from Tyler. That was over. One day maybe there’d be a time she’d be able to enjoy reliving those memories without feeling the knife stab through her heart, but not yet.

  Luckily, the restaurant came into view, putting an end to the painful silence. There was a bit of jostling as Rohn made sure she never got to open any door for herself, not in the truck, nor while entering the restaurant, and they entered the dim interior.

  It smelled amazing inside, which was a good topic of conversation actually. Janie jumped on it. “It smells great in here. Good choice.”

  “Thanks, and it does.”

  The hostess greeted them. “Two for dinner?”

  “Yes, please. I made reservations. Lerner.”

  “Sure. Right this way.” The hostess grabbed two menus, and Rohn waited for Janie to follow her before he brought up the rear, just as he waited for her to be seated before he sat himself.

  She buried her attention in the menu, happy for the excuse not to have to make conversation for a little bit. God, she’d turned into a hermit. Maybe Rene had been right. She needed to get out among the living more.

  “Anything look good?” he asked.

  “Everything looks good.” She hadn’t eaten much today. Nerves and misery combined had squelched any hunger pangs until she’d walked in and smelled the food cooking. “Maybe the eggplant parmigiana. That’s something I never make for myself at home.”

  He laughed. “That describes pretty much everything on the menu for me.”

  Had she been interested in Rohn romantically, this would have been the perfect time to suggest he come over for dinner at her house, or that she could cook something and bring it to him. But she didn’t make that suggestion. Instead, she just smiled. “Then you have plenty to choose from.”

  “That I do.” After a few seconds, he closed the menu and leaned his elbows on the table. “I have to admit something to you.”

  “Um, okay.” She lowered her own menu, starting to worry a little bit about what this confession would be.

  “Colton talked me into calling and asking you out. I thought the idea was crazy at first, but now I’m glad I did it.”

  So this was a date. Janie forced another smile and looked down at the menu open in front of her.

  A server arrived just in time to fill the silence. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  Janie jumped at the offer. “Yes, please. Red wine.”

  “A beer for me. Thanks.” Rohn paused for the waitress to leave before he reached out and laid his hand on the table between them. “Janie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s okay. It’s just dinner.”

  She lifted a brow. “Hmm?”

  “I can see you’re not ready for this yet. It’s only been, what? Barely a year for you since Tom passed.”

  “Yes. About a year.”

  “I should have realized. I’m a lot of years further along than you are.”

  It hit her, hard and fast. She was a horrible person because she had started to move on, and in doing so she’d done far more than just have dinner with a man.

  To her horror, the tears welled so fast, they spilled over her cheeks in quick drops that hit the pages of the menu before she could catch them.

  “Shit.” He hissed out a curse and handed her a napkin. “I’m so sorry.”

  She grabbed the soft paper and pressed it to her eyes. “No. Don’t be. Believe me, it’s not your fault.”

  Tears not quite under control, she still managed to thank the server who’d appeared to set the wine in front of her.

  “Ready to order?” The waitress hovered, just when Janie really wanted her to go away.

  “Can you give us a few more minutes?” Thank God for Rohn. He saved the day and saved Janie further embarrassment.

  “Of course.” The server left and Janie wiped at her eyes again.

  “Janie, we can go, if you want.”

  “No. I’m fine. Thank you. And I’m so sorry.”

  “No need to apologize.”

  “Yeah, I really need to.” She couldn’t have him thinking it was his fault. “The truth is, I have—or I thought I had—accepted that it was time to move on finally. I met a guy.”

  To his credit, Rohn kept his expression neutral. “A’ight. So what happened?”

  “Well, among other things, there’s the guilt. It has only been a year.” She’d thought she’d made peace with Tom and could move on, but the tears told a different story.

  “Janie, I’m sorry I said that. I just wanted you to feel better and to let you know that I understood if you weren’t ready. Speaking plainly here, the truth is, Tom was diagnosed more than two years ago with what amounted to a death sentence. He and I talked about it once, back before the disease really took hold. He prepared himself then that he had six months, maybe a year if he was lucky. He thought you’d prepared yourself, too, to move on after. He wanted you to live your life.”

  The tears misted her eyes again. “Did he say that?”

  “He did. So if your guilt over Tom is what’s keeping you from happiness with this other man, don’t let it. It’s not what he wanted for you.”

  She smiled. “Well, there’s more.”

  “A’ight. I’m listening if you want to talk.”

  He was a pretty amazing man to take her out on a date and then offer to listen to her talk, and cry, about another man. She hated to take advantage of him like this, but Rohn might be the one person she knew who truly understood what she was feeling.

  Rene was a friend, but her spouse was alive and well. Rohn had been through this. Janie forced her eyes to meet his. “He’s younger than me, by a lot.”

  He grinned. “That’s okay. Seems like every starlet in Hollywood has a younger man nowadays.”

  She let out a laugh. “You might not have noticed since I wore the shoes without the manure on them, but I’m no star.”

  “I know who you are, and I don’t think it matters. Did the age difference bother him?”

  “Not at all. Just me, apparently. But he’s so good-looking, and he’s a bronc rider and a tie-down roper and bull rider—he’s like one big magnet for the buckle bunnies. I can’t compete with them. I’m eleven years older than he is and nearly twenty years older than some of the girls who are after him.”

  Rohn pursed his lips as he nodded slowly. “Seems like quite a guy.”

  “He is.” She sighed. “And he’s so generous with his time and good with animals and kids, but none of it matters because he’s young and wild and I’m sure even though he says he’s ready to settle down with one woman, it won’t last. How long before he’s bored?”

  “Well, I can tell you this. I have some experience with this situation. Believe it or not, I was young an
d kind of wild myself back in the day, but the minute I met Lila, I was ready to trade in all my buckle-bunny privileges for a wedding ring.”

  “That seems like such a different time, when you and I were young. Now they text rather than talk in person or on the phone. I read an article that young girls today, middle school and high school aged, consider”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“oral sex equivalent to kissing. Can you imagine?”

  Rohn let out a burst of laughter. “If that’s true, I can’t say I’m not a little envious I was born thirty years too early. But seriously, let me tell you this. I’ve got three young guys working for me. Yeah, they like to go out and get wild, but every one of them is deeper than they appear. Take Tyler, for example.” Rohn’s gaze pinned Janie. “You know him.”

  She swallowed hard and tried to breathe. “Yeah.”

  “He’s got a heart the size of Oklahoma, and he’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. When he puts his mind to it, he works twice as hard as anyone I know, but he hides it all behind this cocky, devil-may-care attitude, which I’m convinced is a defense mechanism.”

  Intrigued by his insight into Tyler, Janie couldn’t help but ask, “Defense against what?”

  “I think he’s got big dreams for himself, but I think he’s afraid of failing. So he pretends he doesn’t care. Like it doesn’t matter. He grew up in the shadow of an older brother who could do no wrong. State rodeo champion. War hero. It’s hard for a young guy to live up to that kind of standard, so he adopted the persona of the family screwup. That way no one expected anything from him, and he couldn’t disappoint them.”

  Janie’s eyes widened at Rohn’s analysis. He was a lot more intuitive than she’d ever expected him, or any man, to be. “Wow.”

  He laughed at her reaction. “Don’t be too impressed. I’m not looking to get my own talk show or anything. I happened to grow up with a brother just like Tyler’s, so I know more than most how he feels.”

  Janie nodded, feeling a warmth, a camaraderie with Rohn she didn’t feel with many others. “Thanks for this. I know it didn’t work out exactly as you’d planned.”

  He dismissed that concern with the wave of one hand. “Eh, you know what, I’m glad it worked out this way. A good friend is far more valuable to me at this point in my life than a girlfriend. God, how I hate that word girlfriend. Almost as much as I hate the term dating.”

  She smiled at his cringe. “I know. Me too.”

  “So, you hungry? Because I’m ready to gnaw on this here table.”

  “Yeah, I am.” Far more important than dinner, Rohn had given her some pretty heavy food for thought regarding Tyler. What she was going to do about it, she still wasn’t sure, but that was something to think about later. Janie tried her best to push him to the back of her mind and give Rohn her attention. “So what did you decide on?”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “You’re looking mighty cheerful this morning.” Colton tipped his head toward Rohn where he stood pouring coffee. “How’d the date go last night?”

  Rohn turned toward the table where Justin, Colton, and Tyler sat. “Dinner was very nice.”

  “And?” Colton prompted.

  Tyler prepared himself to hear the worst and hoped the coffee he’d drunk didn’t come back up as his gut twisted.

  “And that’s all I’m gonna say about it.”

  Colton frowned deep, looking as unhappy as Tyler felt when Rohn sat, his satisfied smile not quite hidden behind the coffee mug as he took a sip. Justin shot a sideways glance at Tyler, who regretted ever letting him in on his secret. Bad enough to lose Janie, but to have Justin know and watch the whole thing happen made it feel all the worse.

  To lose her just because he didn’t fit into whatever age bracket she thought acceptable was a bitter pill to swallow. Rohn fit her criteria. Tyler didn’t, and his age was the one thing he couldn’t change.

  At least Rohn was a good guy. Time to man up and stop wallowing. If Janie preferred Rohn, there was nothing Tyler could do about it. That didn’t mean he could sit by and watch, though. If Rohn and Janie really were together, Tyler would give his notice and find another job. His heart could only stand so much, and standing by watching Janie with another man was more than he could take.

  The puppy whined from the floor, standing up on her back legs to scratch at his jeans with her front paws. “Daisy, be good before boss man kicks you out.”

  “Aw, she just wants some attention.” Rohn reached a hand down toward the floor. “Here, girl.”

  She skittered across the floor beneath the table to Rohn’s side. Tyler pretended to ignore the dog’s abandonment, but he feared his mug couldn’t quite hide his scowl.

  Justin watched the dog’s move, shot Tyler a glance, and then asked, “What’re we doing today, boss?”

  Before Rohn could answer, Tyler said, “If we’re not too busy, I wouldn’t mind cutting out early. I still need to bale that hay over at the Smithwick place.”

  If he remembered correctly, Janie had lessons scheduled for this afternoon. He could jump on the machine, get the job done, and leave, hopefully without ever having to talk to her.

  Rohn’s eyes met his. “Sure. Head over whenever you want. I don’t have too much planned for today.”

  Tyler nodded. “Thanks.”

  Talk of plans for the day went on around him, but he didn’t participate. With Colton and Justin chattering away, he didn’t think anyone would notice.

  When the coffee was finished and it was time to start the day, they all stood to head out to work.

  Justin and Colton were headed out the door when Rohn laid a hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Rohn waited for the screen door to slam shut behind the other two before he said, “So, you and Janie?”

  Tyler felt the blood drain from his face. “Rohn, you hadn’t asked her out yet.”

  “Relax. It’s okay.”

  He frowned, surprised when it began to sink in that Rohn knew. “She told you about us?”

  “No. I figured it out on my own. You don’t exactly have a poker face, kid. At first, I couldn’t figure out why you looked so strange whenever her name came up. Then last night when she told me there was a young, wild rodeo cowboy she was interested in, it all made sense.”

  “She said she was interested in me?”

  “Yup.”

  “She dumped me because she thinks I’m too young.”

  “Yeah, so I gathered, but it was more than that.”

  Tyler nodded, trying to be a man and accept her decision. “Yeah. It was because she was interested in you.”

  Rohn surprised him by laughing. “No, she’s definitely not interested in me. At least not like that.”

  “She’s not?” He forced himself to meet Rohn’s gaze head-on.

  “No, she’s not. Son, it took me about five minutes to figure out her heart is already promised somewhere else.”

  Tyler’s brows shot up. “To me?”

  “Yes, to you. Jesus, I took you for smarter than this when it came to women.”

  He wasn’t stupid, just confused. “But she broke it off with me. I got Daisy for her, and she wouldn’t even hold the pup.”

  “Ah, so that’s where the dog came from.” Rohn nodded. “Listen, not everything is about you. Maybe you need to consider where she’s coming from. She lost the man she thought she’d grow old with, and not all that long ago. Death changes a person. Makes them wary to open themselves up to that kind of hurt again.”

  The knowledge hit Tyler like a lightning bolt. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before, because it was so damn clear now. “You’re right. She’s lost everyone she’s ever really loved. Her mother, her grandfather, her husband.”

  “Yup.” Rohn nodded. “And you couldn’t know this, but she even had to put their old dog down, right about the time her Tom died. It was a lot for her to handle all at once.”

  Tyler felt s
o stupid. Of course she’d be afraid of loving again. She’d rather be alone than bear another loss. She didn’t even want to risk loving the puppy because one day it would be gone. “So what do I do?”

  The older man shook his head. “That is up to you. All I can tell you is don’t give up too easily on her. Give her time. I think she’ll come around. Oh, and take the day off, with pay, and get that hay baled at her place before the rain they’re predicting comes. She and I discussed my buying her harvest last night, and I expect a quality product for what I’m going to be paying her for it.”

  Rohn was like a guardian angel, for both of them. Sending Tyler to her place to work for the day where he’d no doubt run into her and hopefully be able to make things right. Making sure she had the cash she needed by probably overpaying for the hay. Stepping back to let Tyler have a shot at Janie when he’d obviously had an interest in her himself.

  Tyler had always liked Rohn, but now he had even more respect for the man.

  He dipped his head. “A’ight. Thanks.”

  “Don’t forget to take the dog.” Rohn glanced down at the pup on the floor. “If that face doesn’t win her over, nothing will.”

  Tyler had a few ideas up his sleeve that might do the trick, but Rohn was right, the dog couldn’t hurt. Daisy following closely behind, Tyler left Rohn’s kitchen and headed toward his truck with a lot lighter step than when he’d walked in barely an hour before.

  He and Daisy had a big job to accomplish today, and the least of it was baling that hay.

  “Do you feel better now that you finally talked to me about things, instead of dodging my calls?” Rene asked through the cell phone.

  “I guess.” Janie had known she wouldn’t be able to hide from the conversation with Rene forever. Since Rene had cornered Janie after church, there was really no getting out of talking to her.

  “Why do you still sound so down? You’ve got not one but two incredibly handsome and eligible bachelors interested in you at the same time, and you’re acting like it’s the end of the world.”

  “First of all, I told you Rohn and I agreed we’re friends and nothing more. Second, I was a total bitch to Tyler when he came over last time, so there’s no guarantee I’ll ever see him again.” Phone in hand, Janie walked down the stairs from her bedroom.