Wicked Need (The Wicked Horse Series Book 3) (28 page)

Trish stands up from
the table and walks back into the living room. I don’t
follow but watch her pull a small box out of a rattan chest on one
end of the couch. She opens it up, riffles through, and comes back to
me, sullenly handing me a piece of paper.

I take it from her
and see it’s
a computer printout of a news article dated February 3, 2003. There’s
a grainy picture of a man wearing a military uniform with a beret.
The title says, “Fort Bragg Soldier Awarded Bronze Star”.

“I would
Google him every now and then,” she says, nodding down to the
paper in my hand. “Found that a few years ago, but not really
sure why I kept it. Was just curiosity, I guess.”

My eyes move back
and forth as I read the short article:

Fort Bragg, NC
(AP): Sergeant Major Allen Henning with the 82nd Airborne Division
was awarded the Bronze Star with Valor for selfless actions he
undertook in Afghanistan that saved the lives of numerous soldiers.
Sergeant Major Henning, along with fourteen other soldiers, came
under enemy fire while stationed at Forward Operating Base Eagle in
the Balad district of Afghanistan. After identifying the shooter in
an Afghani uniform, who had already shot two soldiers under Henning’s
command, Sergeant Major Henning managed to return cover fire to
enable others to get to safety. He then managed to wound the
assailant, effectively disarming him and ensuring his quick capture
by U.S. Forces.

The article goes on
to say that Allen Henning is from Green Bay, Wisconsin and had joined
the Army in 1990 at the age of eighteen. I know Cat is twenty-four,
born in 1991, so if this is her father, that would have made him
nineteen at the time.

I look up to Trish,
who doesn’t
hold an ounce of fondness on her face for the man who gave her a
daughter.

“What’s
the story with you two?” I ask bluntly.

She grimaces and
sits back down at the table. “I
was living with a friend in Fayetteville, North Carolina and met
Allen there. He’d been in the Army only a few months stationed
at Ft. Bragg. We had a brief affair and then I came back to Vegas. He
apparently went on to do quite well for himself.”

“Define brief
affair,” I push at her.

She shrugs. “We
were together maybe four months. Because we were young and stupid, we
were fucking like rabbits with no protection. I got pregnant and
never told him.”

“Why not?”
I ask, trying not to let my lip curl up in disdain at her.

“He was gung
ho about the Army, and I sure as shit didn’t want to lead that
type of life. He got sent to some school at a base in Alabama. He
wanted me to wait for him back at Fort Bragg but as soon as he left,
I used that opportunity to come back home to Vegas.”

“You just left
without telling him you were leaving?”

“Knew he’d
try to talk me out of it. If he’d known I was pregnant, he
would have followed me to Vegas. Allen was just one of those
upstanding people, always doing the right thing. Was kind of dull
actually.”

Man, this woman is
cracked in the head.

“If you didn’t
want to be tied down, why in the world would you even keep the baby?”
I have to ask her. Because in the few minutes I’ve been in this
woman’s presence, I can tell she has no business being a
mother.

“I didn’t
have the funds to get back to Vegas. Told my mom I was pregnant and
abandoned, which wasn’t the entire truth, but she wired me
money to get home. She made me promise to keep the baby though as she
didn’t believe in abortion. So I had Catherine and lived with
my mom for about three years. She pretty much took care of the baby
until she died from a sudden brain aneurysm, then I had to step up to
the plate and become a mom.”

Yeah, lady…
you most certainly didn’t step up to the plate.

“Why didn’t
you just give Cat to her father if you didn’t want her?”
I ask, unable to hold the derision out of my voice.

“Because she
had her uses,” she says without an ounce of shame, still
looking me in the face. “Tax breaks and government assistance.”

“You have got
to be fucking kidding me,” I growl at her from across the
table, pushing my chair back and standing up. “You kept a child
because she helped you with taxes and food stamps? What the hell is
wrong with you?”

Trish’s
face flushes red as she tries to defend herself. “I did the
best I could. I never beat her or abused her.”

“You neglected
her,” I spit at her. “You kept her from a parent who
might have wanted to give her love and devotion. The only thing you
love about your daughter is the money she gives you.”

She shrugs again,
not willing to engage me in a debate over her mothering skills.
Instead, she says, “Look…
how about I just get my money and you go on your fool’s errand
trying to chase Allen down? Not sure what you hope to accomplish with
that, but that was the easiest twenty-five thousand made in the
history of the world.”

“Twelve-thousand-five
hundred,” I correct her as I pull my checkbook out of my back
pocket. “You don’t get the other half until I find her
dad.”

The disdainful task
of handing money over to that woman complete, I jump in my Suburban
and head back to the Bellagio, calling Bridger on the way through the
hands-free Bluetooth.

“Fruitful
discussion?” is how Bridger answers.

“Yeah…
got the name of Cat’s father. Allen Henning. Was in the Army,
at least as of 2003 when he won a Bronze Star. Originally from Green
Bay and was stationed at Fort Bragg. That’s all I got.”

“Piece of
cake,” Bridger says, and I will have to take his word on it.
The man has dozens of contacts that provide all sorts of useful
information, and I’m grateful he’s helping me on this.
“I’ll have something for you by morning.”

“Thanks, man,”
I say as I rub the back of neck, which is aching from the tension of
having to actually be in Trish Lyons’ presence.

“Sure thing,”
he says. “And your girl went home alone last night. Sat at the
bar and drank water the rest of the night after that one glass of
wine. Left around midnight. I’m assuming she went back to your
place.”

I wonder what Cat
thought when she got to the apartment and I wasn’t
there. I left a note, intentionally vague, that just said I was going
to be out of town for a few days and would call her when I could.
That must have sufficed for her, as she hasn’t attempted to
reach out to me.

“Also got
something on Cat’s attacker,” Bridger says, causing me to
sit up straight in my seat, my aching neck forgotten. “Kyle
identified him… says he’s a member of the club but her
attack was something he did on his own. It wasn’t brought
before the president and sanctioned. Sounds like he got a nice chunk
of change that he kept all to himself, so the club wasn’t happy
at all about having heat brought down on them with no pay in return.”

I grimace because
just a minute change of circumstances—Kevin approaching the
head honcho instead of some rogue member—would have meant we’d
never get this information.

“What’s
that mean?” I ask.

“It means Kyle
was authorized to tip the cops to where they can find the dude.
Hopefully, he’ll roll on Kevin or they’ll find some
evidence connecting them.”

Hopefully.

Because until Kevin
was behind bars, Cat wasn’t
truly safe. I hadn’t liked the thought of leaving town, but
Bridger confirmed Kevin had gone back to Vegas and that he’d
keep an eye on Cat for me.

Knowing that fuckwad
is here in Vegas and that I could do some serious damage if I could
track him down has me vibrating with adrenaline. Wouldn’t
be hard to get his address. Bet Bridger could whip it up for me in no
time at all.

Shaking my head, I
force myself to leave those thoughts by the wayside. If I’m
lucky, I’m going to have Cat’s father’s location
tomorrow morning and I’ll be heading out to talk to him. I
can’t let Kevin waylay me just because I want the pleasure of
breaking his face.

That’s
going to have to wait until I can get Cat’s father back for
her.

Cat

I walk through the
cavernous house made of logs and slate that will soon be transferred
to me in name once Samuel’s
estate is settled. Until then, and with Kevin back in Vegas according
to Richard, I decided to move out of Rand’s apartment and back
into the home I shared with my late husband when we visited Jackson.

The entire place is
furnished and decorated in typical western flair with heavy pine
furniture covered in leather and silk throw pillows in Native
American palettes to soften up the look. Typical stuffed and mounted
game trophies on the wall. Accent lamps done in cowhide and elk
antlers.

It’s
unoriginal but homey, and if it were not the house I shared with
Samuel Vaughn, I’d find it charming.

But instead, I hate
this place because it’s
only purpose was to have a place to sleep when he brought me to The
Silo. I have no intention of keeping it. Once things get settled,
I’ll sell and bank the money. Once I figure out what I want to
be now that I’ve been forced to grow up, I’ll have the
financial freedom to chase new dreams, but I won’t be doing it
near anything that remotely reminds me of Samuel Vaughn. That means
the Jackson house has to go at some point.

For now though, I’ll
take the refuge, as there’s no way I could stay at Rand’s
place after how we left things four nights ago. I spent the rest of
the night he left me at The Silo brooding and sipping at bottled
water. He told me to do what I needed to do.

He essentially said
I should fuck someone else if I needed to do that.

That was confusing
to me at first because it almost sounded like he didn’t
care, but when I really thought about it, that’s not what was
going on at all. Rand was telling me to do what
I needed to do
,
whatever that may be, to figure out what I want. He was hoping I’d
figure out I wanted him, of course.

And, of course, I
absolutely want him.

It’s
just that I don’t think I deserve him.

So that night, I
sipped at my water, brooded, and I thought about life, choices,
consequences, and regret. I thought about love and lust, security and
comfort. I didn’t
need anyone to paint me a clearer picture.

I know now that Rand
Bishop is it for me. I’ll never find another like him, and I’ll
never want anything more in the world than him.

I just had to talk
myself into truly believing I could have it and not stain him at the
same time.

So I went to the
apartment, maybe in the hopes of letting him try to knock some sense
into me, only to find him gone.

Nothing but a simple
note:

Cat,

Be gone for a few
days. Please stay—don’t
feel like you need to leave. Will try to call soon.

Rand

I must have stared
at that note for twenty minutes, trying to glean something out of it
to help me figure out what was in Rand’s
mind. Did he take off because he assumed I would indeed fuck someone
else at The Silo? Was that his way of “accepting” my
feelings that I’m not good enough?

Is he agreeing with
me about that?’

The unmistakable and
emphatic answer comes to me as clear as a bell.

No
.

No way would Rand
think that about me.

He’s
been my one true champion from that day he pulled me out of my car
and brought me to his apartment. He’s spent countless energy on
validating and affirming me. He’s never judged me once for my
choices, and despite knowing the worst about me, he still desires me
on both a physical and emotional level.

Which begs the
question…
if Rand can be that stubbornly set on seeing me as a good person, why
can’t I? I mean… I admire Rand. He’s a smart guy.
Well rounded, kind, and empathetic. He has good business sense and
isn’t a fool. So why in the hell would I even think to discount
what he sees about me?

Why would I ever
think that’s
not the entire truth?

Walking past the
overstuffed couch in the living room, I reach out and straighten a
throw pillow. My life has been reduced to fluffing pillows because
there’s
nothing else to do but sit around and wait for Rand to come back.

No idea where he
could have gone. I went to Westward Ink two days ago, but Pish didn’t
know where he was or when he’d be back. I considered going to
the Wicked Horse and asking Bridger, but for some reason, I didn’t
think I could look him in the eye and admit I may have made a very
big mistake by going to The Silo that night, which in turn, drove
Rand away.

My doorbell rings,
startling me with a shock of adrenaline because there’s
no reason for anyone to be at my door. I have no friends and my heart
refuses to believe it would be Rand.