Please don't go. I reached for him—and my fingers brushed something soft, dangling. The slight movement sent metal clothes hangers screeching overhead, and I cried in my sleep.

Please don't leave. I...I don't have anyone.

With a muffled sob, I jerked up from the floor and burst from the closet to run for the bathroom. The door slammed behind me with a loud bang, but I didn't care. It was two weeks and hundreds of miles removed from that day, and I was waking up in yet another closet, hiding from another storm.

Twisting on the tap I splashed water on my face, watching as it swirled down the drain in a frantic rush. I filled my hands with a generous amount and dowsed myself again. Ice cold water. Cold enough to numb my cheeks bright red. The sound of heeled boots approaching the bathroom door came to a halt before knuckles rapped on the door.

"Ten more minutes, and we've got to hit the road," my aunt announced.

"Okay!" I hollered back. My hands shook as I refilled them, trying to remember what state we were even in. Hours had turned into days; days into weeks. Everything since that awful August day was one big blur of too much time spent on the road, too many nights tossing around in motel beds.

I hit myself in the face with water one last time and reached for a towel. Knowing my grump of an aunt, if I wasn't in the car and ready to go within the time allotted, she would start to bitch.

* * *

Eyes flashing open, I jolted forward in the front seat to do battle with the glove compartment's broken handle, pushing aside crinkled motel receipts and a colorful slew of unpaid parking tickets before unearthing what I was searching for: a beat-up pack of gum. I'd purchased it at a mini-mart two states ago. Sitting back in the seat, my ponytail dug into my scalp as my head met with the headrest and I frowned, ripping out the hair tie to send a mess of black hair sailing around me in the breeze of the open car windows.

Swallowing at the metallic flavor overwhelming my mouth, I turned the pack over and beat the bottom, dislodging the last stick. Desperation made my movements jerky as I rushed to rid myself of the taste of terror with a burst of mint. Double mint brand seemed to be the only thing strong enough to bring me down from my post- traumatic episodes.

This had to be, oh, maybe the tenth pack of gum I had chewed through. "Where are we?"

"You've only been asleep for two-tenths of a mile," my aunt informed me, her voice raised just enough to be heard over the wind.

Yeah, I wish I'd been sleeping for real. I sighed as I unwrapped the gum and popped it between my teeth. Joints stiff with unspent adrenaline, I stretched and looked at the side view mirror, taking note of my stark-blue eyes staring wildly back at me. Jeepers, psychotic much? Blinking away the crazy, I traced the dark semi- circle under one eye. I hadn't been sleeping very well since we left Paradise Park, New Mexico.

I stifled a yawn and ran a hand through my whipping bangs, managing to uncover some of my heart-shaped face with its large and somewhat widely spaced eyes barely long enough to give it all a quick look before it was buried again. With a sense of melancholy creeping into my already on-edge demeanor, I turned away from the mirror. I was an absolute wreck.

The empty gum pack went sailing out the window to ping off a passing mile marker.

"Aurora!" my aunt snapped, her attention fully captured now just as I had intended. I wasn't a repeat-offender litter bug, honest. "For Pete's sake," she seethed at me, "don't be throwing trash on the side of the highway. Didn't you see the signs? It's three hundred dollars if you get caught littering."

I turned to focus on Indy's left hand as it rested on the steering wheel of her beloved and well-traveled Ford Thunderbird. Seriously, the woman was worried about something as obscure as a littering fine when she collected parking tickets like they were coupons for a free sandwich at Arby's? "You owe Tennessee seven hundred and ninety- six dollars in traffic violations," I pointed out as I fidgeted with my seatbelt, reclining to angle my legs out the window. "What's a few hundred more?"

"Overgrown bushes and billboards are not my fault." My aunt's head fell back against the headrest in exasperation, gaze still fixed on the road. "I wouldn't open a single store in a state where they hide the speed limit signs. Everyone probably owes half of their paychecks to traffic violations."

Uh huh. Here's betting she'd have a store in Nashville by next fall. Unimpressed, I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue through the gum to blow a bubble and crack it. Thankfully, its strong flavor had stifled the taste of my anxiety—for now.

A strand of whipping hair lashed back to sting me on the cheek and, wincing, I rubbed the spot. While random stings could really hurt, random travel plans could be just as painful. We had to have taken the longest route possible to get to Pennsylvania, much longer than our regular business-building trips that saw us speeding up and down the Pacific coast. But this time fate—or rather, the irresistible call of financial gain—found us heading east.

Not how I would have liked to spend the last part of summer before school started. "Can we listen to the radio?"

"No," Indy answered firmly, and I frowned.

I thought it odd she hadn't turned on the aftermarket radio these past two weeks. I was pretty sure there was nothing wrong with it.

Sighing at her refusal, I looked through the whipping hair of my own personal windstorm to scrutinize my aunt—always the picture of perfection—untouched by the wind. What qualified as the longer strands of her hair were fastened immobile with a gold bobby pin above each ear, while the back was sheared, a few pieces spiking out at the crown. Her hairstyle was neat, perky, and darn near the color of platinum, her natural color. Today's perfect attire included a navy pantsuit, gold-stud earrings, and her usual riding boots. A nearly hidden bluetooth earbud perched primly in her one ear. I swear, the dang blasted thing was permanently stuck there, always on the ready for the next business-related call. The woman was fresh and alert, even though she'd only gotten six hours of sleep over the last couple of days. My weary eyes fell to linger on the road grime coating the dash. It was beyond me how my aunt did it.

Sweeping fingers through my messy, dark hair, I looked away from Indy's androgynous figure as she lounged behind the steering wheel, tapping a nonchalant rhythm with her polished nails. With her mind always on work, she wasn't much for idle chatter. Nope, she could sit mute like that for miles on end, the roaring silence between us going uninterrupted unless I cared enough to do something to gain her attention, or she received a phone call. Sighing, I snapped my gum again. From the color of our roots to the size of our shoes, no two people could be more unalike, for even though I had been calling the woman aunt my entire life, neither of us shared a similar feature, let alone a common relative.

Good thing that. I frowned, still miffed over the radio. Mood gone fully sour, I let go of my hair, permitting it to blind me. The only thing my so-called aunt and I had in common was the devotion we shared for a single woman.

Darby Whyte. Depressed, I closed my eyes to cut off the sight of highway markers rushing by—one-tenth, two-tenth, three-tenth, four—pre-measured distances ticking off as we traveled further from the past, away from a time during which I was as close to being happy as I had ever been. When I was with my mom.

Almost two decades ago, Darby Whyte was a fashion designer and soon-to-be single mother when she and Indy first met at an up- and-coming fashion house in San Francisco's fashion district.

Indy Anna Johnson was a department head of merchandising development. Darby was a mega-talented designer in her sixth month working at a post-college entrance level position.

Over an intense conversation at lunch, they found that they had something important in common: a deep-seeded dissatisfaction with their workplace. They were both unhappy working for a big-time fashion house with its claustrophobic cubicles and large corporate anonymity. The place was simply not structured for those with an aspiring nature.

And so, each having found a mutual understanding in the other that led to a spark of future-minded kinship, the women devised a plan of escape. At the end of the day, a grossly pregnant Darby and her new-found partner in fashion crime snuck out the janitorial entrance with their arms loaded down with file folders and a laptop, all of which contained top-secret fashion forecasting intel.

Together, the women hit the open road, eventually pausing along the way at a random maternity ward for Darby to pop out baby me before taking to the highway again. With their less-than-honestly acquired knowledge and their Aurora-bundle-of-joy tossed in the backseat, they sped off in search of fashion industry greatness.

Legs cramping, I stretched them further out the car window before pulling them back in, sighing as I opened my eyes when the time-hazy recollection of my mother's face faded. Indy, Mom, and I. We were always on the move back then, setting up temporary design studios in cramped and less-than-stellar motel rooms, traveling from one city's fashion week to next. All of these my adamant roadway fashionistas did in the pursuit of acquiring the notoriety it would take to build themselves a brand.

It had all been going so very well. I angled a bare foot up on the dash when the "two miles to Interstate 80" sign came into focus on the dimming horizon. During the eight years that Darby and Indy were business partners, their reputation in the fashion industry had become a force to be reckoned with. And yet, when they were on the verge of striking it big, while working toward the one show that would finally see them obtaining the financial backing of solid investors, nobody could have predicted something was about to go terribly wrong.

With the sting of my hair becoming too much, I leaned forward to gather it into one hand while I tried to suppress what fragmented memories I had of that night.

Mom and I were in her pale yellow Pontiac on our way to meet up with a Las Vegas-departing Indy to go over the final details of the upcoming L.A. Fashion week when the accident happened—on Interstate 190, in the middle of Death Valley, no less—and no matter how hard I tried to put the details of it out of my head, the result remained the same: I survived, and Mom...hadn't.

Puffing out wind-rosy cheeks, I rolled my head on the headrest as my aunt shifted in her seat in anticipation of the approaching I-80 exit that would take us closer to our destination to begin a new business venture.

Glancing in my direction, Indy gave me her usual this-is- what-I-love-most-in-life smile. Being tall and willowy, she may not have looked it, but she was as tough as nails. When the tragedy struck, she'd been left with one dead partner, a comatose child in a trauma ward who was not her own, and an impossible bear of a fashion week which would prove to be the most vital of her career. Indy had not only taken command of an impossible situation, she was also able to realize their combined dream: the Whyte Wine House of New Age Vintage. Simply known by the trademark Whyte Wine. Named for Darby Whyte, of course.

God, I miss Mom. I looked away from Indy to turn my attention to the upcoming exit—and then down at the speedometer. "Holy shit! You're going a hundred and ten." I lunged forward to brace against the dash. We weren't going to make the turn!

"Watch your language, Aurora," Indy snapped. She stomped on the brake and cut the wheel, angling our big car on squealing tires to send us sliding onto the ramp.

I was left gasping when the force of the maneuver threw me into the door with a bone-jarring crack. I watched the side of our car head for the cement wall.

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Goodness, Indy.  Drive much?
VOTE if you think Indy's driving is the worst! ;)