Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 52241 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 209(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52241 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 209(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
He was always there for me. He came to all my birthday parties and always brought the best presents. When my parents couldn’t make it, he showed up at my school plays and soccer games—he was an all round great guy and to tell the truth, I had a huge crush on him.
“Daddy Jack, I’m going to marry you when I grow up,” I used to tell him.
He would laugh and ruffle my long, golden brown hair.
“Well now, Princess—I think I’m a little too old for you, don’t you?”
“No you’re not—you’re just the perfect age!” I always proclaimed and Daddy Jack would laugh and promise that yes, I could marry him when I grew up. It was the only way to shut me up, since I pestered him so much.
Then, when I was about ten, Daddy Jack moved away.
I was devastated and my parents were heartbroken too. Jack was a part of our family—it seemed impossible that we could learn to live without him.
But somehow, we did. He called occasionally but gradually he faded into the memories of my childhood. I didn’t see him again until nine years later, after the car wreck…
It happened so fast I didn’t know what to think. Mom and Dad were just supposed to take a second honeymoon and the next thing I knew, the police were showing up at the front door with horrible, unimaginable news.
I just felt numb. Nothing seemed to matter anymore now that they were never coming home again. I stopped going to the classes I was taking that semester and stayed in the house, sleeping as much as I could to get away from the nightmare but never crying because it didn’t seem real. I kept thinking I would wake up and hear their key in the door and my father telling my mother he would unload the car later because for right now, he was too damn tired from all that driving…
And then, one day about a week after it happened, I did hear a key.
I sat bolt upright on the couch, my ears pricked, my nerves on edge. It couldn’t be…was the nightmare over?
And then the door opened and I saw a familiar face. It wasn’t my parents though—it was Daddy Jack.
His black hair had gone silver at the temples but his eyes were the same pale blue and his arms, thick with muscle, were still covered in the strange blue, swirling tattoos.
“Daddy Jack?” I gasped, looking up at him and using the old nickname out of habit.
“Madison? Princess?” He stood there looking at me uncertainly for a moment, and then I jumped off the couch and ran to him, throwing myself into his arms.
Daddy Jack had been holding two suitcases but he dropped them to gather me up and hold me close to him. I wrapped both my arms and legs around him and he cradled me close as I buried my face in his neck. I smelled his warm, familiar musk like fur and bonfire smoke and shivered all over—it smelled like safety and warmth and comfort and home.
The tears came then—the ones I had been too numb and horrified to shed before. The ones I’d been holding back because it hurt too much to cry alone. But I wasn’t alone anymore—Daddy Jack was here.
“They’re gone!” I sobbed, burying my face in his broad chest. “Daddy Jack, they’re gone and they’re never…ever coming back.”
“I know, Princess. I know. I’m sorry…so damn sorry,” he rumbled. Bringing me to the couch, he settled with me in his lap and held me, stroking my trembling shoulders and just letting me cry.
I wept and wept until I felt like I would never be able to cry again. Somehow seeing Jack again helped me accept the unacceptable and think about the unthinkable—my parents really were gone and I was all alone in the world. An orphan—that’s what I was. Like something out of a Dickens novel. It seemed too strange to be true and yet I had to accept it—it was my new reality.
“Jack,” I whispered, lifting my face at last to look up at him. “What am I going to do? I’m all alone—Mom and Dad were both only children and all my grandparents are gone too. I don’t have anybody left.”
“Yes, you do, Princess,” he said firmly. “You’re not alone and you never will be. I’ve got you.”
“Do you promise?” I demanded. “I…I know I’m nineteen and old enough to be on my own now, but I don’t feel like I am,” I admitted. “I’m scared, Daddy Jack.” I knew it was childish to use the old nickname, but somehow it just slipped out sometimes.
“You don’t have to be, Princess,” he promised me, his voice rough with emotion. “I swore an oath to your father when I moved away that if anything ever happened to him and your mom, I’d come back and help you deal with it. So here I am and we’re going to get through this together.”