Bonds Of The Heart (6 page)

              She wasn’t like other women he’d known. She was stubborn, edgy, and not at all polished. She didn’t quite fit into Emberton, yet she knew his name before he told her. Her somewhat fancy clothes were made for the big city and not the small town he had called home since he was a young boy. He’d have thought she’d come from money, but her mom’s house suggested otherwise. She wore too much makeup, he decided. Her thick lashes were probably fake. With a nod to himself, summing up Erika Gibbons as accurately as he could, he took the last drag of the cigarette and decided to call it a day.

              By the time he got home, Blake pushed aside the ache of his muscles as the mousy-brown-haired boy leapt from the screen door to greet him. Blake’s smile came easily.

              “You’re home!”

              “Where else would I go?” With his hand, Blake fussed with Robbie’s hair as they walked back to the house together. He would have to take him for a haircut soon.

              The smile that greeted Blake fell into a frown. “Grands said I couldn’t have ice cream until I finished my math homework. I hate fractions. And I hate summer school.”

              “I’ll help you with them, then we’ll both get ice cream.”

              Robbie had suffered hard when the news of Jared’s death had come. His studies suffered as well. Prior, he had been just an average student and now he was close to being put into special classes. Blake was determined to get Robbie back into a normal routine like the school psychologist suggested.

              “Are you any good?” Robbie smirked.

              Blake smiled. The kid was just like his father. “I only studied it for four years.”

              “Who would want to study math for four years?” Robbie made a gagging noise with throat. “I want to be a mechanic like my dad.”

              Blake noted the boy was more like his father every day as he looked around the house. Clothes littered the living room and Blake knew he’d be doing laundry way into the night after Robbie was in bed. “Mechanics need math.”

              “They do?” Robbie’s dark, muted brown eyes widened as they met Blake’s.

              “How else would they know just how to fit the right part to the right car? Now where are those fractions?”

              Robbie led Blake into the dining room where his school books were fanned out over the table. For the next twenty minutes, fractions were the only thing in the world to the two boys at the table. Blake managed to get Robbie to understand fractions easier than his own teacher had by using references to Robbie’s video games. He used games such as ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Minecraft’.

              “I’m not getting this.” Robbie threw his pencil down on the table and folded his arms.

              “That’s not true. Let’s look at this problem. Silvia is growing tomato plants and studying their heights. They give us the fractions and want us to determine the difference between them. So, say you’re in Minecraft, and you’ve planted sugar cane. Now you’ve mined one set of sugar cane about an hour ago, and another set about two hours ago. They are different heights. One is one block in height the other is three blocks in height. See the difference?”

              “Yeah. Maybe.”

              “Now if we use that same thought to the fractions they have here in the problem, can you determine the difference?”

              “I think so.” Robbie grabbed his pencil and started writing in his notebook while Blake looked on. He smiled when Robbie’s face lit up in determining the right answer. When Blake’s mother came in from the kitchen with two bowls of ice cream, Blake smiled and nudged Robbie who was nose-deep in his note book. With a smile, Robbie looked to Blake.

              “We’re done,” Blake whispered. “I think Grands will allow you to have that ice cream now.”

              Robbie scooted from his seat to take his bowl into the kitchen. Blake packed the books into Robbie’s backpack.

              “He should be doing that, you know.” Blake's mother cocked an eyebrow at him.

              “I know, but after fractions anyone would need a break. He’s smart, he gets it. It’s just because of…”

              His mother sighed. “I know, dear. Here, you deserve some too.”

              “Thanks, mom.”

              “You’ve been by to see Jared?”

              “No.”

              Though he had driven by yesterday and on the way home from work, Blake still couldn’t bring himself to enter the cemetery and visit his brother’s grave with the flag next to it. That’s not where he felt his brother anyway.

              Maureen Hamilton watched as her son turned inward again on her. Blake had brooded over the past three months at first drinking himself almost sick with hurt and pain. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t break through to her son. No matter how much comfort she gave him, he wouldn’t let her in.

              She knew Blake’s routine well. He’d take Jared’s old truck and go for a drive along the back roads. He’d stop by the cemetery but never go in. When the pain was too much, he’d find an empty field and just run the truck through the dirt. He would be gone for hours on those days. His pain was still as fresh as the day she had called him with the news.

              She’d barely gotten through it herself with her husband at her side the day the officer and chaplain came to her door. It was the moment every soldier’s family feared, and every mother’s heart broke never to be repaired again. No hurt compared to that of a parent losing a child. No parent should outlive their children, she thought. But she had accepted Jared’s decision to join the Marines. He had come to his parents looking for understanding in his decision. They had given him that, for they taught their children, that understanding went hand in hand with love. And because they loved their children, they knew that each of their boys had to follow their hearts.

              Blake’s had taken him to D.C. to be a partner in a major accounting firm. He had studied and graduated with honors. They were so proud of his accomplishments. They were proud of both their sons’ accomplishments. When Jared’s wife died during childbirth, they helped Jared raise Robbie. When Jared wanted to buy the auto shop, own it, and run it as a family business, they gladly helped him with the money to do so. They stood in the auto body shop with Jared the first day he opened as the new owner.

              Now all she could do was to wait until her youngest, and now only, son was ready to open himself up again to his family and to the rest of the world.

Seven

***

The scent of lemons had Erika’s stomach growling. She didn’t skip breakfast on purpose, she just wanted to drop off the pie at Mrs. Hamilton’s and get her day started.
Practical.
She’d be able to get her mom’s car after she dropped off the pie and start on the new manuscript she’d been sent to edit. She’d find a snack machine for something quick while she was out running errands and eat a big meal of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and maybe even some of her mother’s hash browns when she got home.

              Erika pulled up to the small house from the address her mother had written down for her, she noticed Blake’s old truck in the driveway. She narrowed her eyes, unsure if mechanics made house calls, and silently prayed Blake wasn’t there. As she rang the doorbell her hopes faded and her heart skipped a few beats.

              Blake's stubble had been shaved off and his wet hair dripped onto his bare shoulders. They were broad, as she had first thought, and his torso narrowed to his waist. He wasn’t lanky at all, he was lean and hard. He had a towel in his hand and another wrapped around his waist. Her mouth went dry and she feared she wouldn’t be able to speak coherently.

              “We meet again,” he said, this time with a smile she wasn’t ready for. There was only a hint of amusement behind his shaded gray eyes. She wondered if he ever really let himself laugh or if he was arrogant twenty-four-seven.

              “My mother made this for Mrs. Hamilton.” Her voice wasn’t as steady as she wanted it to be. Silly, she thought, he was just an attractive man. There were plenty of them in L.A. He was just one more. So why did she feel so attracted to him?

              She was in shorts that barely covered her bottom and her hair fell softly around her shoulders, Blake noticed. Her snug black t-shirt under the oversized unzipped hoodie drew his eyes to her curves. The waist he had just held yesterday was teasing him and those big blue eyes of hers stared at him like they had in his dreams the night before.

              “She’s not here.”

              “She’s not—oh. I must have the wrong house.” She glanced at the piece of paper her mother gave her.

              “Come in. She’ll be by soon.” He tipped his head just a nod and held the door open for her but she was still frozen in place.

              “I can’t. I have errands to run. I just came to drop this off. I’d appreciate it if you’d give it to her for me, please.”

              “My mom will be disappointed to find a piece of this missing.” Blake eyed the pie and thought it would be perfect with his coffee, cooling in the kitchen.

              “Your…” She had thought, possibly, that he was just renting a room. She should have learned all her years in California not to assume. “Right. Here you are, then. Enjoy.”

              She held out the pie toward him. Blake threw the towel he had in his hand onto the chair beside the door and reached for the plate from her. His hands brushed over hers, calloused rough to porcelain soft. The same current that ran through him the last time he’d touched her was back. Her hands were small and delicate. Running his thumb against her wrist he felt the rapid drumming of her pulse. His eyes locked with hers.

              “I…I should go.” Her voice was shaky again. Erika pulled her hands from Blake’s once she believed he firmly held the pie plate and it wouldn’t smash on the ground. It’d be a waste of a damn good pie. Pie abuse, she thought.

              “Have dinner with me.” The words were out of his mouth before Blake could stop them.

              Erika blinked. “What?”

              Her eyes widened when he didn’t think they could get any larger. “Have dinner with me. Tonight.”

              “I’m busy.”

              He cocked that arrogant brow of his that she wished wasn’t sexy and tilted his head. “Washing your hair?”

              “No.” Because she couldn’t think of an excuse on the spot, and because she was bad at lying, she lamely replied, “I have things to do.”

              “I’ll pick you up at six then.” He turned closing the door behind him and leaving her on the porch fuming.

***

             
If he thinks for one moment that I’d have dinner with him he’s going to be sadly mistaken
, Erika was furious as she drove from Culpeper. She’d gone into the nearby city to fax papers back to her office and run errands of her own. She hadn’t been able to shake the fury all morning or afternoon. The man was crazy, she decided. To think that she’d have dinner with him after being so rude to her each time they’d been in each other’s company. Preposterous. He had some nerve.

              She had that manuscript to start editing when she got home and she’d planned on just bumming it in sweats and her dad’s old t-shirt for the evening. Maybe even go through some more old boxes in the attic. She’d be all sweaty after hauling them around. It would suit him if he showed up and she answered in those sweats and looking like she had just completed her own
pt
time. Erika smirked and decided to do just that. She’d pin her hair up on top of her head in a mess and he’d have to sulk his way home. As she drove down the main street in town, she noticed smoke sneaking up from under the front hood of her Jeep.

              “No. Not again.” She scowled at the hood, turned up the heat and rolled down her windows to relieve some of the heat from the engine. “If I can just make it home, it can cool and I’ll take it to a mechanic tomorrow,” she tried to tell herself calmly.
And definitely not to Blake
.

              Seeing the smoke increase rather than lessen, She pulled over to the side of the road as the trickle of smoke now started to billow out in front of her making it difficult to see where she was going. She turned off the engine, exited the Jeep, and popped the hood open bracing it up. She was determined not to let this get to her, so she returned to sit in her jeep until it cooled down enough to drive home. She wouldn’t call her mom or a tow truck. The only mechanic in Emberton was Blackie’s and she refused to set foot in that place if it was the last thing she did. Lost in her self-imposed irritation, she didn’t hear or see Blake’s truck pull up behind her.

              He had seen the smoke coming from her Jeep as he passed her a few blocks back. He doubled back and followed a ways behind until the smoke was too thick for her to keep driving. Blake knew she hadn’t been to see a mechanic since the last time the Jeep smoked. This time, however, he didn’t mind stopping to help. He was still annoyed she hadn’t gotten her Jeep looked at.
Stubborn woman.
He parked behind her and walked up to her window.