Wicked Need (The Wicked Horse Series Book 3) (30 page)

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.

And now here we
stand with Cat looking like she’s
about ready to pass out and Allen looking like he’s going to
vomit if someone doesn’t say something fast.

So I step into
action, my hand gripping Cat at her waist. “Cat…
baby… this is your dad, Allen Henning. Lots to explain, but
first, he never knew of your existence until I showed up on his
doorstep three days ago.”

Cat’s
head tilts as she looks at him, almost as if she’s afraid to
ask even the first question for fear of being crushed. So he decides
to take matters into his own hand and simply pulls her into his arms
for a hug.

She goes willingly,
her arms wrapping around his waist and her cheek pressing into his
wide chest. They sway back and forth, gripping each other tightly.
Cat with her eyes closed but tears still dribbling out and flowing
down her cheeks. Allen with this temple resting on top of her head,
his eyes also closed, and the happiest, most peaceful and serene
smile gracing his lips.

I could stand there
all afternoon and watch Cat just hugging her father, but she’s
the first to pull back. She looks up at her dad, who gently wipes her
tears and then turns her gaze to meet mine. “How? How in the
world did you find him?”

“I paid your
mom a visit,” I say simply, but there’s no way in hell
I’ll admit I paid the woman for the information unless Cat asks
me point blank.

“She’d
never give that information up,” Cat says as she narrows her
eyes at me. “How much did you pay her?”

Well, fuck.

I duck my head,
think about lying, and then finally look back at her with a grimace.
“A
lot, and it was worth every penny. Let’s leave it at that.”

She nods, but I know
she’s
not letting it go. She’s merely deferring the discussion until
she can get me alone, not wanting any unpleasantness to ruin this
moment. I take the opportunity to fill her in as succinctly as I can,
figuring Allen can do the rest.

“Your mom told
me that she dated Allen briefly in 1990 while she lived in
Fayetteville, North Carolina with a friend,” I begin.

Cat’s
eyebrows jump upward. “She lived in North Carolina?”

I nod. “Briefly.
Dated Allen and got pregnant. Left and went back to Vegas without
telling him.”

Cat’s
gaze swings back to her father’s. “You never knew about
me?”

“Never,”
he says fiercely. “And if I did, I would have never let you go.
Never.”

Fuck…
okay, that’s getting to me.

Getting to me even
more to see Cat’s
eyes fill up with bright, shining tears of joy. Time to lighten the
mood just a bit.

“So, okay…
how about you two move the party inside and get to know each other?”
I say, taking Cat’s arm and turning her toward the door. I clap
Allen on the shoulder and pull him along.

Cat opens the front
door, steps into the foyer, and turns to welcome us both in. Allen
crosses the threshold as she smiles at him with absolute eternal hope
on her face. Her eyes slide to me and she motions with her hand to
invite me in.

I shake my head.
“Uh-uh.
You two need alone time. You have lots to talk about.”

She cocks her head
at me, but I don’t
stick around. I nod at Cat’s father with a smile before turning
to jog down the porch steps. Allen and Cat have a lot of catching up
to do. I’ve come to learn a lot about this man and his family
the last two days, and Cat needs to hear it all from him as well. She
also needs to decide how much of her past she wants to share with
him, and that’s a private matter that I don’t need to
impede on.

As I reach the
rental car—my mind suddenly trying to figure out if I should
fly to Vegas tomorrow to get my Suburban, which means I’d
incur the wrath of Pish if I don’t get my ass back to work—I
hear Cat call out, “Hey… Rand… wait up?”

I turn to see her
coming down the porch steps, her dad standing in the doorway with his
hands tucked in his pockets, watching us carefully. I didn’t
hold anything back from Allen. He knows I love the hell out of Cat.

“What’s
up?” I say casually, not really knowing where Cat’s head
is at. Bridger told me she left my apartment and moved back in the
house. He told me all about Cat quitting her job with Callie and the
police suspecting Kevin but not able to do a damn thing until they
find the attacker.

Cat comes to a stop
a few feet from me, looking uncertain. I hate that. I want her to
feel free to jump in my arms, but she’s
just been given a shock, and things between us are unstable at best.
So I give her a friendly smile to encourage her to speak.

“Looks like
there wasn’t a will that cut me out,” she tells me as she
sticks her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and rocks on her
feet nervously. “Richard called me… told me to move back
in here and that Kevin was going back to Vegas.”

My gaze flicks to
the large house and then back to her. “I
get it… who wouldn’t want to live in that?”

She winces slightly
but doesn’t
engage in the very awkward conversation that would ensue about her
moving out of my apartment while I was gone. Instead, she says,
“Detective Blanton interviewed Kevin. He thinks he was involved
with my attack, but Kevin won’t admit anything.”

I nod. Bridger had
kept me in the loop. “Bridger’s
buddy, Kyle, came through. Identified the guy who attacked you. It
wasn’t sanctioned by the MC, so they’re going to share
that info with the police. They’ll put a warrant out for his
arrest.”

Cat’s
gorgeous mouth forms into an “O” of surprise. “I
didn’t know that.”

“Well,
hopefully, they’ll find the guy quickly and he’ll roll on
Kevin. Then you can put all of this behind you.”

She nods, gaze
dropping to the ground…
clearly indecisive about what to say. When her face lifts, she turns
to look at her dad standing in the doorway waiting for her, and then
back to me.

“I can’t
believe you went to all that trouble for me,” she says quietly
and with such earnest gratitude, I actually feel a little hot under
the collar.

My gut says to play
it cool with her, but fuck that…
I missed her too much and I want her to know that this isn’t
over between us. “I’d do anything for you, Cat. Come find
me when you’re ready, but for now… go get to know your
dad. He’s a great guy.”

Her eyes shimmer as
she smiles at me brilliantly. She inclines her head to me…
a silent gesture of acceptance and pleasure over my words… and
turns to race back to the house like a little girl who is having her
first Christmas. I watch until she hits the porch. Her dad moves to
the side to allow her to come through, and they link arms as they
turn to go inside. When the door shuts, I get in the rental car and
head home.

Cat

It’s
been a week since Rand brought my father to me. Since that amazing
man went out and tracked down the missing puzzle piece in my life. I
didn’t realize how badly I needed that piece until it was
presented to me.

I’m
not sure I’ll ever be able to adequately convey to Rand what
that means to me.

Did to me.

The way it changed
me.

Not many people can
really understand my background. It’s
hard to comprehend what it does to the human spirit… the
belief that someone doesn’t want you. I knew my mom didn’t
want me, and I only had her telling me my father abandoned me to
complete my familial unit.

I told my father
everything during his visit.

And I mean
everything, even down to telling him about Samuel and how he used me.
I didn’t
give him vivid details, but I gave him enough that my dad started
crying, which made me cry too. He then assured me that he wants me.
That even when he didn’t know I existed, he wanted me. That was
lovely, and I cried harder.

My dad then pointed
out that given my history and not having the most important people to
depend upon—that being parents—he said it was no wonder I
accepted what Samuel wanted of me as his wife. He thought it spoke to
perhaps my inherent need to be wanted, even as vile as the
circumstances were. He reiterated to me something that Rand has said
on more than one occasion…
that I was a survivor.

The five days I had
with my dad were not nearly enough. We spent every moment together,
just talking endlessly. We had twenty-four years of catching up to
do. While my life’s
details were not easy for him to take, I reveled in hearing about
his. He was a career Army man and a true hero. I apparently have
amazing grandparents back in Green Bay that cannot wait to meet me.
His wife, Marsha—my new stepmom, so weird to say that—is
the freakin’ bomb. We’ve talked several times by phone
and she’s everything that my mother was not. I also had a
tentative talk on the phone with my new siblings. My brother, Jared,
is fifteen and really into soccer. This was an awkward conversation
because I know nothing about soccer or fifteen-year-old boys, but in
the end, it was okay because he said, “I can’t wait to
meet you, Cat,” and that made my day.

Now my sister,
Natasha, is a spitfire at age eleven. I do know something about
eleven-year-old girls so we talked about music, Snapchat, fingernail
polish, and boys, not necessarily in that order, and well…
mostly about boys. I did this while my dad listened in on my end of
the conversation and rolled his eyes, muttering, “I don’t
want to know about this stuff.”

It was a perfect
five days.

I was completely
reborn, and I say completely because the process started before my
dad came back into my life. I realize now that process started the
night Rand found me in my car and made me start believing in a better
life.

And now I stand
outside Rand’s
apartment, wondering how I can take this last piece of my life’s
puzzle and snap it into place so that my existence will be as close
to perfect as a person can hope for. I wipe my hands on my skirt
because they’re sweaty from nerves and take a deep breath,
trying to will my heart to slow the hell down.

Rapping my knuckles
against the door twice, I listen intently. I can hear him walking,
hear the creaking of the floor on the other side of the door, and
then he’s
standing there in front of me, looking better than ever. Blond hair
falling over his forehead and he pushes it back, giving me a lazy
smile. He stretches his other hand out high to grab onto the
doorjamb, which raises his t-shirt up slightly so I get a peek of his
stomach. I can’t help it… my eyes fall and stare, and
when my tongue pops out to lick my lower lip, Rand gives a husky
laugh.

Cheeks red and warm,
my gaze snaps back up to his. Amusement shining in his eyes, he says,
“Took
you long enough to come see me.”

“Well, with my
dad visiting and all—”

“He flew out
two days ago,” he points out to me, and this is something I
know well. It’s taken me two days to get my nerve up to come
see Rand after my dad left for North Carolina.

Two days where I
tried to prepare the best speech ever to let him know what he means
to me, and as I stand here now, I can’t
remember a damn word.

It’s
gone. Blank. All the pretty poetic words about what he’s done
for me and the realizations I’ve come to… just…
gone.

So I blurt out, “I
think I love you.”

The amusement drains
out of Rand’s
eyes and his stare becomes very intent, his body going still.

Was that the wrong
thing to say? Shit.

“I mean…
what I really meant to say is—”

Rand lunges at me,
hands going to either side of my face. With a tight grip, he yanks me
into him. Our mouths crash together, our bodies press in tight. My
entire being sighs in relief and that last piece of the puzzle snaps
in with a resounding click.

Or is that my heart
finally settling into place now that it finally knows what love
really is?

Not sure.

I’m
being lifted, his hands moving from my face to my ass, where he pulls
me up his body and my legs lock around him. We don’t stop that
delicious kiss for even a moment as Rand turns into the apartment and
kicks the door shut behind him. My arms circle around his entire
head, fingers in his hair as our tongues duel and our teeth scrape
against each other.

Then I’m
flying… free for a moment until my back hits his bed and his
body covers me from the top. Mouth back on mine as hands start to
roam.

My fingers slip
under the back of his t-shirt, pressing into his muscles. Rand grinds
his pelvis against me, and we both groan over the sensation.

His hand slides
under my skirt and goes straight to my hip. He starts to yank at my
panties, trying to get them off me.

“I really need
to fuck you,” he mutters as he rears up and puts both hands to
the task.

“Wait,”
I say, my arms rising and my palms going to his chest. “That
night at The Silo… when I went there… I didn’t—”