Goddamn, she looks gorgeous. Wearing a pair of faded jeans ripped at the knee, a sweatshirt, and fuzzy socks. Hair pulled up in a ponytail and not a lick of makeup on her face.
And now she looks woozy, her legs buckling slightly when I reveal that I found her dad.
I step forward quickly, put my arm around her waist, and hold her tightly. Turning her toward Allen, I watch as her eyes roam all over his face.
Slowly… taking in every detail. Probably comparing the arch of her eyebrows to his, or the way their noses tilt slightly upward at the end. I took one look at Allen Henning when I tracked him down to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and I had no doubt he was Cat’s father.
That was three days ago. Bridger worked his magic and found out that Sergeant Major Allen Henning retired from the Army just this year after twenty-five years of active duty. He never returned to Green Bay, instead settling in Fayetteville as he’d spent almost as much time there as he had growing up in Wisconsin. Allen had married a local girl and they had two children, a boy age fifteen and a girl, age eleven.
I left my Suburban in Vegas and caught a flight to Raleigh, North Carolina. Once there, I rented a car and drove the hour and a half to Fayetteville. I had no clue how Allen would receive me because I knew very little about the character of this man, but I didn’t let that hold me back. I made it to his house at dinnertime as he was just setting down with his family to eat.
He was gracious but didn’t invite me in. Instead, he stepped out onto the front porch into the air that was still quite warm and humid in early September.
I didn’t hold any punches because I knew I’d found the right man. “Mr. Henning… I’m in love with a woman who I believe is your daughter.”
He blinked at me in surprise, but he wasn’t pissed, and that started to clue me in to the man’s character. “Excuse me?”
“Back in 1990, you briefly dated a woman named Trish Lyons.”
His eyebrows furrowed inward as he flipped backward in time and then his nose wrinkled slightly. “Yeah… we were together a few months. She sort of dumped me with no explanation. Hadn’t thought about her in years actually.”
“Well… she was pregnant when she left and didn’t tell you about it. Went back to Vegas and had the baby. A girl named Catherine.”
To give the man credit, he stayed upright although his face went ghostly white. “I have a daughter?”
“Yes,” I told him with a smile. “She’s twenty-four. She’s also sweet, amazing, and gorgeous. She had a shitty life. Yet, she still turned out amazing. She had no one her entire life who she could count on, and her mother always told her you abandoned them. I sought you out to see if that was true, and if it wasn’t, to give Cat a little piece of her heritage.”
“I never would have abandoned her if I’d known,” he whispered roughly.
“I know,” I told him. “I can just tell you wouldn’t.”
Allen then invited me in. He called his wife, Marsha, into the living room where he recounted to her what I’d just told him in a quiet voice so the kids wouldn’t hear. She had the same stunned look, but then she immediately became concerned about Catherine the way Allen had.
I then got invited to dinner, but we agreed not to say anything to the kids. Allen felt that was a conversation he and Marsha needed to have with them after they learned more about Cat.
So I sat at the dinner table with the Henning family, and I learned all about them.
And they are fucking phenomenal. Cat is getting ready to inherit a dad who is eager to make up for lost time and a stepmother who is ready to dote on her. Allen told me this morning when I picked him up at his house to make the trip here with me that the kids were over the moon to learn they have a sibling.
Today has dragged by so slowly, flying out of Raleigh to Dallas, and then into Jackson. Allen and I have spent plenty of time the last few days talking about Catherine. While I haven’t told him any details about her life with Samuel, I told him everything I knew about the way Trish raised her. To say that Allen wanted to make a side trip to Vegas and give the woman a piece of his mind was an understatement.
I also watched Allen grieve today while we sat in Dallas on our layover. It hit him all at once… he missed twenty-four years of his daughter’s life. Missed changing her diapers and her first steps. Teaching her to read and how to drive a car. Missed threatening the first boy to take her on a date, and while Cat ultimately married poorly, he missed his opportunity to give his daughter away. I have to say, it’s awkward watching a grown man get emotional, and mainly because my fucking eyes misted up too as he talked about all the shit he missed out on.