Oklahoma Reunion

“She is. When I left the clinic, she was curled in a little ball, sleeping.”

Jenna smiled. She released a yawn and rubbed her left eye with a knuckle.

“Tired?”

She nodded. “I was going to go to bed, but my closet doors are stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“They slide open, and Momma says they get off their track sometimes.”

“Do you want me to take a look at them for you?”

“Yes, please.”

He opened the screen and paused in the foyer. Kait was in the kitchen to his left, her back to him as she spoke to someone while eyeing a calendar on the refrigerator.

He followed Jenna upstairs, his hand on the smooth oak banister as he moved up the wide staircase of threadbare-carpeted steps to the second floor of the old house.

“That’s my grandpa’s room,” Jenna said as they passed a five-paneled door with a crystal knob. Her voice became a hush. “We aren’t allowed to go in there.”

They passed another room, the door slightly ajar. “Momma’s. But don’t look because it’s kind of messy. She’s going through lots of boxes.” Jenna released a frustrated sigh. “She says we can’t stay.”

“I see.”

“This is my room. It used to be my mother’s when she lived here a long, long time ago.”

Not so very long ago, he mused while eyeing the simple twin bed and matching bureau. A beautiful, worn pastel quilt covered the bed. Funny, he’d known Kait since they were sixteen, and he’d never set foot inside this big old house before.

Jenna went to the closet and pushed on the door with a grunt. “It won’t open.”

She was right. The panels were off their track. He raised the outer panel and shoved it back into place, then the door slid open with ease. Inside, the clothes were arranged neatly on hangers.

“All fixed.”

“Oh, thank you,” Jenna gushed as though he’d slain dragons. She pulled a neatly folded pair of pajamas from the closet.

Ryan glanced around the room, his gaze stopping on the artwork tacked to the wall.

One large crayon drawing was of a man and a woman with a little girl in the middle. All were holding hands. For moments, he simply stared at the picture, mesmerized.

“Did you like school when you were a kid like me?” Jenna asked.

“Hmm? School?” He tore his attention from the picture. “Yeah. I liked recess best.”

Jenna laughed.

Ryan looked around the room, and his glance caught a pile of books on a desk next to the bed. “Are all those schoolbooks yours?”

“Yes. I have lots of homework while we’re here.”

“What grade are you in?”

“Second.”

Second? Why did he think Jenna was younger? Ryan frowned. Then again, Kait always did look younger than her years.

“I’m going to be eight next month.”

“November?” He murmured the word.

“Uh-huh. November 25th. Momma says I’m her ‘Thank You, Lord, Thanksgiving baby.’”

November.

A tremor raced through him as his mind began a panicked gallop backward.

Kait left in March eight years ago. Ryan could barely breathe as he slowly did the math. He gripped the bureau for support as his knees threatened to buckle.

“Thanksgiving baby.” Ryan whispered the words aloud as he looked into Jenna’s sweet face. His gaze skimmed over the dark eyes, the freckles on the bridge of her nose—a nose just like his own.

The penny fell into the slot.

Jenna was his daughter.

Chapter Four

Ryan paced back and forth on Kait’s porch. He shivered as the cool evening breeze whipped past.

November. Thanksgiving baby.

What a fool he was—eight years the fool.

Conflicting emotions pummeled him. He was as thrilled as he was heartsick. Mostly he was plain ashamed.

Closing his eyes tightly, he recalled the details of the crayon drawing on Jenna’s wall. It was of a family holding hands and looking out at the future.

All that that little girl wants is a family.

As if it was yesterday, he remembered one of his and Kait’s last conversations so long ago. They’d discussed their plans after college—graduate program, then marriage and a family.

Ryan and Kait. Forever.

He’d kissed her tenderly beneath the soft light of this very porch before leaving her at her front door at the start of spring break.

What happened? How had it all become so convoluted?

He was a father. Jenna’s father.