him?” Gaby asked.
She drew in a long breath. “I watched this movie. It’s about a female FBI agent, and she taught this lesson about SING, about how and where you can hit a man for the best effect. I did the groin pull. Oh, boy, did he let me go. I ran into my room and locked it, and he cussed for five minutes straight. Then Mama came home and I told her. And she didn’t believe me.”
Gaby felt her anguish. “Something similar happened to me,” she said tautly, not going into details. She didn’t add that it was her own grandfather who’d sold her to the foreign man, or the details. That would have been much too personal at the moment.
“It sucks, the way some men are,” Jackie said.
“It does,” Gaby agreed. She looked up. “Your mother will come to her senses one day and she’ll apologize.”
“Yeah? Well, it doesn’t help much right now, does it?” she muttered.
“No. It doesn’t.” She studied the younger woman and saw beneath the flashy black makeup and the piercings to a basically shy and introverted person who had a sensitivity that she carefully hid.
Jackie drew in a long breath. “I’ve been a horror. My uncle Nick has the patience of a saint, but he should have thrown me out.”
“You’re his niece,” she said. “He’d never do that.”
She looked up. Her dark eyes were full of pain and bad memories. “It wasn’t the first time,” she said and averted her gaze. “I just didn’t tell her about the first one. She was getting over my dad dying, and I figured she was trying to hide her grief in a new romance.”
“Your father died?” she asked gently.
Jackie nodded. “He drowned one summer when we were at a resort on an island in the Caribbean. There was a red flag warning about riptides, but he ignored them. He was depressed about his job. He was about to lose it, and it hurt his pride that my mother had all the money on her side of the family. She said he did it on purpose. I miss him...”
“My father and mother died together,” Gaby told her. “They were on a dig, in Africa. Their jeep overturned.”
Jackie grimaced. “How old were you?”
“Thirteen,” she said. “I went to live with my grandmother. She’s the kindest person I’ve ever known.” She cocked her head. “How old were you, when you lost your father?”
“Ten.” Jackie looked at her with sad eyes. “My uncle is nice. I just don’t want to be here,” she said harshly. “I want to be with my mother, and I can’t. She said she loves me, but she didn’t believe me, and I was telling the truth!” She bit her lower lip and tears welled up in her eyes.
Gaby got out of her chair, pulled Jackie up and hugged her, rocked her, while she cried.
“We all have storms,” she said to the weeping girl. “They pass. Life can be sweet. You have to learn to sip it. Not gulp it down. You live one day at a time and live it as if it was the last day you had. I find that it works very well, as a philosophy.”
“I guess it’s not such a bad way,” Jackie said after a minute. She pulled away and looked embarrassed. “Thanks,” she added huskily.
Gaby just smiled. “Sometimes all you need to get a new perspective is a hug,” she teased.
Jackie laughed. She wiped her eyes, smearing her makeup down her cheeks. “Mom isn’t the sort to hug people. Neither is my uncle. When my daddy died, Mom went off with a new boyfriend. I felt lost. I still do.”
“Your uncle loves you,” Gaby said. “Even if he doesn’t go around hugging you. But you have to meet him halfway.”
Jackie made a face. “I guess so.”
Gaby cocked her head and looked at the young girl. “You know, you really do have a unique look. It’s not at all bad.”
Jackie flushed. “You really think so? I mean, most boys think I’m weird.”
“I’m weird, too. I don’t care what people think.”
Jackie laughed for the first time since Gaby had arrived on the scene. “I noticed. Bagpipes?” she asked, eyes very wide.
“My forebears on my mother’s side were Highland Scots who migrated to America. You might say that bagpipes are my ethnic music.”
Jackie replied, “Well, to each his own.” She looked up. “I really hate bagpipes.”
“I really hate rap. So we’re even,” she teased.
Jackie smiled. “I suppose so.” She turned away and then