"Excuse me," Luke said as he approached the counter. "Can you tell me when the twelve o'clock flight from Chicago will be in?"
"It's been delayed," a middle-aged woman behind the counter told him without looking up.
"I know it's been delayed," Luke told her. "What I'd like to know is, for how long?"
"It shouldn't be much longer sir," the woman said in a tone that told Luke the conversation was over. Luke went and sat back down.
After about fifteen minutes he heard the announcement. "Now arriving, flight 615 from Chicago Illinois."
Luke let out another deep breath as he stood and walked over to the gate the passengers from the flight would be walking through in only moments.
Even though Joshua had told him what Cassidy would be wearing, he couldn't help but worry that he wouldn't know which one she was. But when the passenger's began to come out, there's was no doubt when he saw her... she looked just like her mother had.
Luke walked over to her. As he approached he realized she had Jacelyn's hair and lips, but defiantly his eyes.
"Cassidy?" Luke asked in a barely audible whisper. The young girl nodded.
"I'm Luke," he went on. "Um... your, uh....."
"Father," Cassidy said, finishing his sentence. "I know."
Luke sighed. "OK. Well, welcome to Connecticut."
"Thanks," Cassidy said quietly.
"So... uh... what do you..." Luke began, but Cassidy interrupted.
"Listen, Luke, I know this is weird. I don't expect you to try to be fatherly... or even a friend. I wouldn't have come here if I had anywhere else to go."
Luke looked down at her and sighed. "Well look here Cassidy, you're here because you don't have anywhere else to go. You have just met me, and don't know anything about me... so let me fill you in. I live in a small town, I own a diner there. I'm not the most successful man, but I get by. Most importantly though, I'm a good guy... a guy I think you might like if you just let yourself get to know me!"
"Well let me tell you what I'm like," Cassidy told him. "I'm from a big city, and can't see myself settling down in a small town. I grew up with only my mother there. Never had many friends. I've never even had a boyfriend, and I've never had a father figure in my life!"
"I know," Luke told her. "Believe me, I know that. The last twenty-four hours have been the craziest of my life. All of a sudden I have a daughter, and she's sixteen."
Cassidy laughed. "Yeah, well, in the last twenty-four hours I've learned I had been lied to all my life. Mom always told me my father was dead."
"She what?" Luke asked, nearly freezing in place. "She told you I was dead?"
Cassidy nodded. "Growing up, I began to think she might be lying, but I always figured if she was lying, my father must have been some guy who up and left when he found out about me, so I never asked her."
Luke shook his head. "Cassidy, sixteen years ago I was... different. Baseball was my life... and I always told your mother I didn't want to settle down."
"But," he went on. "I would have been there. Well... I can't say for sure, looking back at who I was sixteen years ago, but I don't think I would have let sixteen years have gone by!"
Cassidy laughed. "Yeah, well, nothing you can do about it now."
"That's not true," Luke told her. "Look, I can't make up for the past sixteen years, it's true. But you're here now, and if you'll let me, I'd like to be there for you when, and if you ever need me."
Cassidy shrugged. "It's just too weird right now."
Luke nodded. "I don't expect us to become the best of friends over night or anything," he told her. "Anyways, why don't we just get going?"
"That sounds like a good idea."
