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look before grabbing his bags and leaving without a word.
                  “Who was that?” Erika frowned at his back as he left the store.
                  “Oh, that’s Blake. He’s harmless,” Evie said with a shrug.
                  He doesn’t look harmless , Erika thought placing her items on the counter. “He’s rude.”
                  “He keeps to himself mostly. Always working hard these days. I don’t see him much in here unless his mom asked him to make the trip. He’s had a lot going on.”
                  “That’s no excuse for rudeness,” she said softly. “Still, I probably wasn’t all that nice either.”
                  “Oh?” Evie’s brow rose, knowing there was gossip soon to follow, or at least hoping there would be.
                  “My Jeep overheated on my way to visit…well you know.”
                  Evie nodded. She knew all too well. She was at the funeral for Hank Gibbons. She saw the hurt and pain of the little girl so attached to her father. And the lost love of the woman who had shared her life with the man she had to bury too soon. She was also at the funeral for Blake’s brother, Jared Hamilton, and could see the pain that burrowed a hole in Blake’s heart. And she saw why he had become so closed to the world.
                  “He refilled the coolant for me, without me asking for help, and took off. Like I said, I wasn’t all too nice to him. But he didn’t give me reason to be.”
                  Evie just shrugged. She had seen the look in both Erika and Blake’s eyes and knew that neither one of them realized just what lay behind it—yet. “Like I said, he’s had a lot of things going on lately. How’s your mom?”
                  “Good. Resilient. More than me.”
                  Evie placed a hand on Erika’s. “You have every right to be mad and upset. Healing comes in all forms. Laugh, cry, scream if you have to. Do what you need to do. We’ll all be here for you.”
                  Erika sighed. “I know, I know. I just wish I could understand. Then maybe I’d be closer to accepting. But no matter how much I try to see my mom’s side of all this I can’t.” Erika raised her other hand, dropped it. “It’s still too painful. It’s been three months and it’s still too much. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get back to L.A. next month.”
                  “You could stay here. I’m sure one of those fancy companies in D.C. would hire you.”
                  Erika had given only a blink of thought to the idea of moving back east, to be closer to her mom, the moment she touched down at the airport. Byline Publishing House had a D.C. office she could transfer to. But the thought had come and gone. Growing up she had moved around a lot. She wanted just one place to stay rooted to. She couldn’t move again. She wanted roots and she was determined to make those roots stick in L.A.
                  “I’m sure they would but I enjoy my job now. It’s different out there. I love it.”
                  Erika had no conviction in her words and Evie wondered if Erika knew that. “You’re a smart girl, Erika. I’ve always admired you for following your heart. If your heart is in California, then who am I to argue?”
                  Erika watched as Evie finished packaging her purchases. Was her heart in California? Her work was there. Her home, or at least the apartment she had called home for the past four years, was there. She had grown accustom to the city living so much so that the isolation and loneliness hadn’t sunken in until she’d came home. She thanked Evie, lowered her head and ran through the raindrops to her Jeep.
                  When she arrived back home, her mother was already making