Kat was gone.

She and I had rapidly put together a plan to hide the truth of her pregnancy from the world. She'd go back to G____ University, where she had deferred her admission two years prior, and resume her studies until she began to show. It wasn't a perfect plan. It would be assumed that the baby was conceived at school and would likely arrive a month early. The doctors wouldn't be fooled. They would require a different cover story.

It was a tearful decision for both of us. I had to send her away.

The preparations were as difficult. The University was loathing to add another student to their class so late in the summer. We had to act quickly to secure her readmission into the residency assistance program. In the end, we spent the last weeks of our summer together scrambling over packed bags, University registrations, and my wife's concern for the finances.

We found very little intimate time together.

If the months of preparation for Katherine's leaving were hard, her being away was even harder. The house became a cold shell, my wife its only inhabitant. I was only a ghost drifting from room to room.

I could no longer track Kat's days. I no longer knew when she was in her room, when she was showering, when she was out riding. I could no longer hope to find her alone, give her a familiar kiss and go about my day. It was as though a part of me had gone missing.

My wife thought she understood. Agatha called me an empty nester. She thought that, for me, the loss of my daughter to college, to growing up, was like losing the last remnant of her mother. She wasn't wrong. But she wasn't entirely right either.

When Katherine called, she made excuses--to ask for money, to ask for one book or another from her shelf to be sent up to her. But we spoke for long hours on the telephone about everything. It still wasn't enough.

One day, not a month into the semester, I announced that Katherine had called.

"She wants me to bring up her saddle," I lied to Agatha.

"Why don't you just ship it?" she said, idly over her newspaper.

"It would be expensive," I said. "And, anyway, I'd like to see her."

I flinched, but Agatha said nothing. It was too close to the truth, but no less than a father--an ordinary father--might say.

"Fine," she said. "When are you leaving?"

I arrived at Katherine's dorm in the late afternoon, when I was sure she would be out of her classes. I'd brought the saddle, but left it behind in the trunk of the car. I hadn't even told her I was coming.

It was a concrete building built in the seventies. Cold, like a prison. Lights dangled on strings in the windows and music thumped dully, even this early on a Friday. I felt a pang of jealousy, remembering my college years with Katherine's mother and wondering what Kat herself might be getting up to.  But when I dialed her number on my phone, she answered immediately.

"Hey, baby," I said. "Look outside."

I saw the curtain part on an upstairs window and Katherine's grinning face.

"Come down," I said. "I'm taking you to dinner."

She came out wearing tight jeans and a sweatshirt, blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. She threw her arms around me on sight and I lifted her up, wanting so badly to kiss her. But I knew I had to resist.

"I'm so glad you're here," she said. And she kissed me on the cheek.

I drew back and planted a quick kiss on her lips. She looked back over her shoulder.

"It's okay," I said, releasing her. "I missed you."

When we made it to the car, I allowed myself a second kiss, longer this time. 

"I love you, daddy," she said.

Sitting in the car next to me, she looked like a tiny angel, tucked into her manger. She rested her chin on her fist and looked at me looking at her. She touched a hand to her belly. We were smiling at one another as though in a daze. I leaned over and kissed her again.

I'd made reservations at a nice place two towns over, far enough away from the college where she or I wouldn't be recognized, farther, still, from my wife.

In the parking lot, I took her hand. In the lobby, she rested her arm in the crook of my elbow. I felt as though I was ten years younger. I could feel her nervousness beside me, but the hostess nodded at our names and led us to a table near the kitchen. The restaurant was busy. Ours was nearly the last vacant table. I could see Kat looking over the other patrons, scanning for familiar faces.

I took Katherine's hand across the table as she looked over the menu.

"Daddy," she said warningly.

"Adam," I corrected her, quietly. "We're more than that now. You should use my name."

She smiled.

"I still think..."

"As far as anyone is concerned, you're my young wife," I said. "No one is even thinking about us. Look."

I leaned slowly across the table and kissed her. She accepted the kiss quietly, mouth tasting mine. I leaned back and settled into my chair. An older woman in a corner booth smiled at us.

I felt a rush. We were out in public. A couple. For real. Katherine smiled too.

After that, we eased into our dinner. I bought us wine for the table. We talked about the farm back home, how it wasn't the same without her. We talked about her schooling, the other girls in her dorm. She was lonely, she said. All the younger girls wanted to talk about were boys and she had this secret weighing on her, a man back home, she told them. Me.

It was normal. An echo of dates I'd been on with her mother. Soon, I found myself swimming in the past, basking in her blue eyes as they glinted under the restaurant's dim amber lights.

But the night passed too quickly and, soon, I was paying the check, and Kat and I were stumbling, hand in hand back to the car, back to the college where we would become father and daughter again, and no more.

In the car, I held her close, wanting the night to go on forever, wanting to take her back to a place all our own where we could be together, wanting her.

We arrived back at her building in the dark. She allowed me an arm slipped into hers until we came to the glowing entrance to her dorm.

We embraced.

"Can I see your dorm room?" I asked her. "I haven't since we moved you in."

Katherine hesitated.

"Okay," she said. "But I don't think we should do anything else."

I slipped closer to her, placing my mouth nearly against hers.

"Haven't you missed this?" I said.

"The walls are so thin." She didn't pull away.

She breathed out and leaned in. I kissed her, placing my hands on her hips, wanting her.

"I need you," I said.

We stepped back into the shadows, her back against the cold concrete wall of her building. I kissed her neck, feeling her trembling beneath me--from worry or desire, I couldn't tell. Her hands were moving across my back, her mouth searching.

"Someone will see," she said. But it was her hands searching past the waistband of my jeans. It was her fingers caressing the arches of my ass, slipping around my sides and looking for my cock, finding it hard.

I let a hand drift up to her breasts, clasping one in my hand and biting at her neck. Her mouth found mine and we kissed, hard. I felt her tongue in my mouth and pulled her closer to me. She let out a soft moan as my other hand cupped her ass. I rocked my hips against hers, wanting to fuck her right there, eyes be damned. She clung to me, mouth gaping with longing, hot breath against my ear.

Suddenly, she pushed me away. A light had flicked on above. We stood there in the dark, looking up at the light. She had frozen with a hand lingering on my chest. I took it in mine and pulled her eyes back to mine.

"I want to," she said, quietly. "But..."

I kissed her fingertips, her knuckles. She bit her lower lip and looked away from me. I let her draw back and stand against the door.

"I know."

"We'll be caught," Kat said. "What will they do if they catch us?"

I ran a hand along her cheek. I'd lose you forever, I thought. We'd lose everything.

"You're right," I said. Tears were filling my eyes. I wanted to be with her. I was tired of hiding from it, tired of the lies.

"I think you should go," she said, and I could hear the tears entering her voice.

As the light flipped off again above us, I drew her close again, into a tight hug.

"Goodnight then," I said. "Thanks for tonight."

"Will you come up again?"

"Sure," I said. She smiled and left me with a lingering kiss on the lips.

"Goodnight, daddy." 

"I love you."

We parted and I let her go back inside, watched her hips sway as she retreated down the hallway, turning at last to blow me a final kiss. Then, I got back in the car and drove through the night, parking the car in the driveway and leaving Katherine's saddle where I had left it: in the trunk, forgotten.