Midnight Ride by Cat Johnson Page A

and her ass in those jeans. He knocked his hat back a notch to watch her better.
    Yup. Best thing he’d ever done, volunteering to help her with the fence post and then with the hay harvest. Hell, maybe his good fortune had begun even earlier that fateful night, when one crazy woman had chosen to take him outside for a kiss and fondle to piss off her fiancé.
    If he hadn’t had to hide out in her truck, who knows when he would have met Janie. Funny how fate worked. He shook his head at the wonder of it all and headed for the machine shed.
    Time seemed to fly. Tyler figured that was what happened when a man was trying to get two hours’ worth of work done in an hour so he could get inside to the woman he was sweet on. Before he knew it, it was time for dinner, but it was all good. He’d gotten the equipment checked, tuned, and lubed. It was ready to start harvesting as soon as he could get away from Rohn’s to do it.
    Next dry, sunny afternoon he’d have to do just that, get away so he could cut Janie’s fields, but now it was time to make hay in a different matter. By sweet-talking Janie. He loved turning her cheeks pink with something or another he said. He’d realized a simple compliment would make her blush. That was a total turn-on. He smiled at that thought all the way to the house.
    Janie was in the kitchen and saw him standing there, but it was the polite thing to do, so he knocked on the back door even though he didn’t need to. His mama would be proud.
    Speaking of his mama, he’d have to text home and tell her he was eating out again tonight. Not that she’d care. Since Tuck had gotten married, it had been as if their middle-aged parents were on a honeymoon of their own. Going out all the time. Taking classes together. Acting like they were dating instead of married for forever.
    That was all fine with Tyler. He had things of his own to do. “Hey. Sorry I took so long.”
    “Not at all. You’re right on time.”
    He hooked a thumb toward the sink. “I’ll just wash up.”
    “You can use the bathroom if you’d like. It’s right off the hallway. There’s nicer soap in there than that stuff I use for the dishes.”
    Tyler smiled. What kind of soap it was didn’t exactly matter to him. There’d been times he’d been happy to have any soap at all, but he didn’t argue. “All right. I’ll do that.”
    “Spare towels are inside the closet,” she called after him.
    “Thanks.” He headed out of the kitchen door that led to a hall.
    It felt strange walking through Janie’s house alone. Seeing snippets of her life. Moving deeper into her private domain. He passed a doorway and peeked into a room that looked as if it was a guest room. There was a bed, a side table, a chair, and not much more. Tyler moved farther down the hallway and hit upon the bathroom.
    The spare bedroom might have looked unused, but this bathroom had more life to it. A few old tin signs hung on the walls, which were covered in old-timey-looking wallpaper featuring horses. The bigger towels were a rich brown, while the smaller ones hanging with them were a pretty robin’s-egg blue. The combination seemed both masculine and feminine at the same time.
    Feeling extra curious, or maybe just nosy, Tyler opened the closet Janie had mentioned. More brown towels were stacked neatly on one shelf. Rolls of toilet paper and bars of soap rested on the other shelf. But it was the items on the third shelf that he found the most interesting. Band-Aids in sizes both large and small. Peroxide. Antibiotic ointment. Ace bandages. Gauze, in both pads and rolls. There was even a bottle of veterinary liniment and fly-repelling wound ointment.
    That looked more like the supplies of the woman he suspected Janie to be—the kind who took care of everybody and their injuries, whether man or beast. He smiled as he grabbed a towel and closed the door.
    After taking off his hat, he pulled his T-shirt over his head. The shirt he tossed onto the closed