One Night Love Affair *COMPLETED*

Chapter Thirty One

"MOMMY, MOMMY! LOOK WHAT I made!"

 Lana was sitting on the porch of the Reed ranch, enjoying the peace and soaking in the Texas sun, when Sam came running towards her with impressive speed, holding something in his hand.

"Hey Sammy!"

Lana caught her son, as he jumped on her, snuggling close for a tight hug. The he jumped off her lap and extended the hand with something in it towards her.

"Mommy, look what I made."

She reached out and took whatever Sam was holding.

"Did you do it at school?"

Sam nodded and climbed back into her lap, jumping with excitement as he watched his mother look at his latest creation.

It was a picture of a family, all of them riding horses. Underneath each figure he wrote a name of the person riding the horse and the name of the horse as well.

There were five people and horses drawn. Horse named Zena and a figure with long brown hair captioned as 'mom' were in the middle, with a smaller figure captioned as 'me' and horse named Lightning on her right. On her left was a figure captioned as 'aunty M.' representing Mia and a horse named Cookie. On the far end, next to the little boy's figure, was a tall figure captioned as 'uncle G.' and his horse Flash.

By then Lana already realized Sammy drew a picture of people he considered family. But who was the fifth person on the picture?

The caption read 'dad'.

The moment Lana read it, she knew her quiet and relaxing time was over. Sammy was too young to understand the reasons she kept him a secret, but he was too old to be entirely lied to. She tried to buy herself some time to figure out what she'll tell him, Lana continued to look at the picture.

Unlike other figures in the picture this figure was smaller, like he was far away. He was still part of the picture, he just wasn't exactly part of the group representing Sam's family. The figure also didn't have a face, with a hat drawn deep on his face, making only lips visible.

Beside the fact that Sam painted his dad on the picture for the first time, Lana also noticed he named the horse he was riding 'Hero'.

Her son had no idea who was his father. She avoided answering any questions he had about him like plague. Any other child would push the matter and started crying because his/her mother doesn't want to talk about the man that made him. But Sam was different. He somehow felt his father was touchy subject, and never really pushed it. This picture was the first try in a long time.

Lana could see why, because all the fathers of his schoolmates were helping at making their science fair project and Sam refused Lana to help him, insisting it should be Gabe who will help him. It was the things like that which made Lana sure her son needed a father in his life, and made her regret the decision she made all those years ago.

Sam lifted tugged on the oversized T-shirt she was wearing, trying to gain her attention, after she's gotten lost in her thoughts.

"You drew this all by yourself?"

She squeezed him in a tight hug, so he was barely able to nod his head.

"Just me mommy. I drew it myself."

"Really?" Pretending she didn't believe, she looked at her son with fake disbelief on her face. When he nodded his head again so hard his curls were jumping up and down, she laughed and kissed him on the forehead. "It's great, I think I want to put in a frame and hang it above the fireplace in the living room, so everyone can see it. What do you say about that buddy?"