Chapter 34

While I walked toward the kitchen and the happy voices I could clearly hear, I was thinking how I was going to tell the two most important people in my life that their best friend had died while trying to help me. When I rounded the corner, the girls were sitting together, with Sally in the middle, laughing at something I hadn't heard. Sally saw me come in and immediately seemed to know there was something wrong.

"Dad, what's wrong? Why do you have tears running down your cheeks? Dad, talk to me, you're scaring me!"

"Calm down, Sally. Myrna, Sally, I have some bad news I need to tell you. I don't know how to tell you gently because I never learned how to break bad news to people I love."

They were all staring at me now and I took a deep breath.

"Myrna, Sally, I need to tell you that Bill is dead. Jerry called me and said they found him in his hotel room this morning. I don't know for sure, but I think the church might have had something to do with it."

"Jon, how did that sweet old man die?"

"Myrna, he was executed by someone, but the police don't know who."

I watched her face as the news set in. I walked around the table and she was in my arms, sobbing on my shoulder. Within seconds, Sally joined her and I was holding two sobbing women. I was at a total loss as to what to do now. Dammit, all my training from years ago hadn't shown me how to handle this. Kat was looking at them with wide eyes and had tears in her eyes too. I looked over at Carver and he just seemed shocked. As soon as I caught his eye, he got up and came over, taking Myrna in his arms, just holding her and letting her cry. I sat down with Sally in my lap and just held her, hoping I could figure out some way to ease the hurt I knew she was feeling. Here she was, only thirteen going on fourteen, and had seen more death in the last few months than most people saw in a lifetime. I had killed her mother, and now Bill, the only other person she knew outside the family, was gone. No wonder she was sobbing so hard, I thought as I held her.

"Jon, who's handling the arrangements for his body and the funeral?"

"Myrna, Jerry said he was going to set it all up and would call me later today to fill me in."

"Jon, do you think this church had anything to do with it?"

"I don't know for sure, Myrna, but he was checking into them on the sly, trying to help me get ready to go after them."

As she was talking, Myrna twisted out of Carver's arms, and came over to where I was sitting and sat down across from me. She motioned Kat to come over beside her. When she sat down, I knew she was going to give me a lecture. I sat and waited to see what she was going to say, and it sure wasn't what I expected.

"Jon, when you came here to live, I could hardly stand to be around you. I thought you were stuck up and snooty towards me and your grandfather. Do you know we spent many nights, right at this table, talking about you? I told him if you kept treating me like I was your hired help, instead of a member of the family, I would quit working for him. He kept telling me to wait, to give you time to adjust to living in this country, because you never knew you had a family. He told me all he had found out about you in the years he looked for you. I spent a lot of time reading everything I could about the French Foreign Legion, to try to understand. I even rented all the movies about them, so I could watch and try to understand you a little better. He used to sit here and watch them with me, telling me what was real and which were Hollywood Scenes. Some of the things I read made me finally realize some of the hell that you must have gone through, and you were still so young. Tiny told me a lot about your time as a Legionnaire also, and he told me about what they called training. It took me several years, before you even arrived, to realize you were a trained killer, or that's what I thought you were. When you came home with that sweet thing in your arms, I just about fainted from shock. I never would have believed you had an ounce of feeling in you. When I saw how much you loved her and how, right before my eyes, you changed from a cold and distant person to a loving father almost overnight."

She got up and got us all coffee, kissing Carver on the top of his head before she sat down again. I noticed Sally had stopped crying and was holding me, listening to Myrna as closely as I was. This was a side of Myrna that I had never seen before, and I wanted to know why she had changed her mind about me. I couldn't remember ever acting that badly. She picked up where she had left off, as soon as she was seated. Kat was watching me and Myrna, and seemed fascinated by what she was saying, and Carver seemed to be also.

"The first time I saw you watching her and that horse, and saw all the pictures you took and the money you spent on her, it seemed to me that you were trying to give her something you lacked as you grew up. Love and affection was what she needed, and you spent hours lavishing it on her to make sure she was happy. I loved her like she was my own, almost as soon as I laid eyes on her. She was so helpless and afraid to leave your side the first few weeks she was here. It seemed like she would never pull out of the shell she had covered herself with. I watched her change and gain something she didn't have until you showed it to her. She gained her pride and confidence because of the open and clear love you showed her. When you got shot at the barn, I almost died because I realized you had become like a son to me also. I was still never sure about your feelings toward me, until you said what you did in the hospital. When we came home, I cried for two days because I was so ashamed of the way I had treated you for all those years. I realized I had never given you a way or even an opening to show or tell me how you felt about me. Carver and I had a long talk last night, and it made me realize that you and Sally, and now Kat are my family. The tears and hurt in your eyes, when you told us about Bill, tore me up worse than the news about his death. Only a man who loved someone deeply would have that hurt in his eyes because he dreaded giving news that would hurt the ones he loved most. Jon, we have to attend the funeral before we leave, and I think Carver will agree with me that we can wait for a few more days before he makes an honest woman out of me. The big question now is, what are you and Kat going to do? Jon, I know I'm sounding bossy again, but if you let her slip through your fingers, it will be the biggest mistake of your life. She loves you as much as I love Carver."

When she finished, she got up and filled our cups again. I looked at Kat and her eyes were moist, and I knew deep inside there was no way I would ever let this beautiful childlike woman slip through my fingers.

"Dad, I agree with Myrna on this. I love you with all my being and always will, but you need Kat as much as she needs you. I want my father happy and she is the one who seems to make you that way. Besides, I also want some brothers and sisters to grow up with, and what girl in her right mind would not want two sets of loving parents like I will have soon. You and Myrna have been there anytime I needed you, and I am proud of all the kids you have helped over the years. I want you to keep helping them like you've helped me. We have what a lot of kids I know will never have, each other, and I don't think that will ever change. I will always do my very best to make you proud of me, and I will even quit bossing you around if you marry Kat like you promised her."

I looked at Sally and thought about whole situation, and even with my thick head, I knew she was right. I looked over at Kat, and all I could see was her love for me and how beautiful she was. I hugged Sally and kissed her, and got hugged and kissed back. For the first time in weeks, I felt at peace with myself.

"I love you, Dad," she said as she hugged me.

"I love you too, even if sometimes I don't show it. You are growing up and it scares me that you are growing up so fast."