Picket Fence Pursuit by Jennifer Johnson Page B

doesn’t even have a real job.
    She allowed the spilling of tears. She needed a pity party. Ryan Watkins made no sense. Her love for him didn’t either. She sat up. “I can’t love him.”
    Her perfect job destination, her graduation route flooded her mind. She didn’t want to take a fall-in-love-with-Ryan-Watkins detour. She’d end up worse than her twenty-one-year-old sister, Amanda, who was married to a coal miner and pregnant with twins.
    A vision of herself barefoot and pregnant, kissing Ryan—clad in his Holiday World uniform—filled her mind. Gramps sat on the front porch holding a red-haired toddler while another child played at his feet.
    God, that is not the detour You want me to take. I don’t believe it. I won’t.

Twelve
    Ryan held up the blond-haired fashion doll adorned in a pink princess dress. Dana will love this. He picked up the dark-haired male doll that wore a tuxedo and laid both in his cart. On Ryan’s birthday his favorite present was to buy for his godchildren.
    Moving down the aisle, he took in the massive assortment of dolls. Little Heidi will want a baby. He selected a box that advertised a doll that could eat and soil its diaper. Yuck. He laid it back down. Another boasted its doll could do flips. Ryan shook his head. I want to get her something soft. He moved down and found a baby that looked real, even had downy skin. Perfect. He placed it in the cart beside the fashion dolls. One more stop.
    He strolled to electronics and chose a handheld car racing game. I’m set. Getting into the checkout line, he knew he had two more stops. One to a favorite local restaurant, and one to the mall. He paid for the toys, headed into parking lot, then loaded the car. He yanked out his cell phone and dialed Kylie’s number.
    “Hello.” Her voice sounded light, happy.
    “Hey, Ki.”
    “Um, hi.” It changed to quiet, unsure. Ryan didn’t know if that meant she didn’t want to talk to him or if she still felt bad for what she’d said.
    “Today’s September twenty-first.”
    “You’re right.”
    “It’s my birthday.”
    “Happy birthday.” Her sincerity sounded in the inflection of her voice. “How old are you?”
    “Twenty-nine.”
    “No way.”
    “Yep.”
    “You’re six years older than me.”
    “I’m older than a lot of people think.”
    “I just thought—I mean. . .”
    Ryan wanted to groan. His age made her think him even more of a loser. “I was wondering,” he interrupted before she said something they’d both regret, “if you would go out to dinner with me to celebrate.”
    “You really want me to?”
    “Yep. Can you be ready in about three hours?”
    “Sure.”
    “Okay, see you then.” He snapped his phone shut, drove to the restaurant, and picked up a gift certificate for Neal and Melissa. Afterward, he made his way to the mall in Evansville. He finished at the service center then walked past a glass shop. From the window, he spotted a single, long-stemmed, yellow rose. He thought of Kylie.
    What would she think if I bought her a small gift? The desire to buy her the rose grew. It’s my birthday. She can’t say a thing.
    He smiled as he lifted it off the shelf and took it to the clerk. The college-aged woman rang up the price. “This is my favorite piece,” she said as she wrapped it in tissue.
    “It is?”
    “Yeah. Yellow roses are my favorite. They mean peace and friendship.”
    “They do?”
    The lady laughed. “I think so. I get the colors and their meanings all confused sometimes, but I’m almost positive I’m right.”
    Ryan laughed out loud. “We’ll just say you are.”
    She put the wrapped rose in a bag and handed it to him. “I hope she likes it.”
    Ryan lifted his eyebrows. “I never said that this was for a woman.”
    “What man buys a rose for himself? At the very least it’s for your mom.”
    Ryan laughed out loud again. “Not my mom, and I hope she likes it, too.”
    ❧
    “Kylie, this is Neal and Melissa Nelson.”
    Kylie