Midnight Wrangler Read Online Free Page B

to be Tyler’s handwriting was the word GIRLS and a phone number. He mumbled a cuss that didn’t nearly cover all he was feeling when he realized what it was—the phone number for Tyler’s hookers.
    The number was the local exchange from the next county, just a short drive away. Scowling that he’d even thought that, he tossed the paper into his drawer and slammed it closed.
    Shaking his head at Tyler’s attempt to be helpful, Rohn cussed one more time as he realized he should tear the thing up and throw it away, not keep it in his desk where anyone could find it, Or, God forbid, he could be tempted to call it in a moment of weakness and extreme loneliness.
    He reached into the drawer, grabbed the little square of paper, and wadded it up into a tiny ball before tossing it into the trash beneath his desk.
    That done, he still couldn’t wrestle his mind back onto the payroll. Giving up for now, Rohn pushed the button to turn on the computer. Of course he’d never consider Tyler’s crazy idea to hire a woman to have sex with him, but damn he needed to do something about his lack of companionship, because one more long, lonely winter on this ranch might drive him insane. Like shoot-the-television-with-a-shotgun kind of insane.
    When the old desktop computer finished chugging along and finally showed him the screen he needed, he punched the only name he could think of into the search bar— Matchmaker— because he kept seeing their damn commercials every night on television.
    Desperate times called for desperate measures. That was probably exactly what he was going to find at this site—desperate women. Christ, he didn’t want to do this, but he’d be damned if he went to Tyler and Janie asking if they could set him up on a blind date with one of Janie’s single female friends.
    Never in a million years when he took those wedding vows with Lila twenty years ago did he imagine he’d be back here now. Alone. Lonely. Thrust into the dating world.
    An old framed picture of Lila from when she’d been young sat next to the computer, taken in the days before cell phone cameras and digital photography.
    Rohn drew in a deep breath and shook his head. “Ah, Lila. Why’d you leave me so soon?”
    Then again, Lila hadn’t been the first to leave him. His girlfriend from high school had, too. Bonnie with eyes so blue they put the Oklahoma sky to shame.
    College had taken his Bonnie Blue away. Cancer took his wife, Lila. Maybe Rohn was just destined to be alone.
    He glanced at the screen, amused that Matchmaker’s proven dating system guaranteed a perfect match for him and wanted to prove it with a free thirty-day trial.
    Would Lila have approved of this online dating crap? She’d be far less disappointed in him for this, than if he’d taken Tyler’s suggestion and called a hooker. Of that, he was sure.
    Either way, at this point Lila’s blessing was beyond his ability to get. She’d moved on to a better place, and until it was his time to join her, he had to move on with his life.
    He swallowed the dryness in his throat and clicked on the field for New Accounts, knowing with every fiber of his being he was going to regret it.
    Two questions into filling out his profile, when the philosophical shit they asked began to make his brain hurt, Rohn abandoned the form and turned back to the checkbook on the desk.
    It was saying something that the paperwork he usually avoided was preferable to setting up his online dating account. One big old warning sign, that was, and a smart man would heed it.
    Rohn would decide if he was a smart man later, after he wrote the checks and got some dinner in his belly.
    Maybe he’d throw a nice thick steak on the grill. He couldn’t fill the void in his life with a female, but it was simple enough to fill the hole in his gut with some tasty meat. And a beer wouldn’t hurt.
    Of course, one beer would