[Shakes head ruefully]

But even on the way up there, I didn’t listen to that CD.

I felt it would be far more dramatic to throw it at him in person, after telling him I was never going to listen to it, before I turned and walked away from him.

[Sighs, not unhappily]

It didn’t work out that way.

I sat in my car and stared at the bungalow with the gray siding, white trim and shake roof, thinking how cute it was and how I could hear the sound of the ocean and how the inside was probably even better and I just could not picture Preacher staying in a house like that.

Selecting a house like that.

Who was he now?

Where had he been for the last six years?

What had he been doing?

“No, no,” I said out loud. “I do not care.”

I rolled up my window but got the sound of the ocean back after I snatched up the CD Preacher had given me, opened my door and got out.

There were steps down to the front door, which jutted out to the side of a house built into a rise by the beach, and the door at the bottom of those steps had a big, nine-paned window that took up the top of it.

When he walked up to that door, he’d see me.

This nearly had me turning around, but I didn’t.

I didn’t because Preacher didn’t get to make decisions for the both of us.

Colossal decisions that caused pain and heartache and large chunks of lost time.

Decisions that meant he thought he could stroll back into my life and be all…

All…

Preacher.

And then I’d just listen to a CD and fall right into his plans.

No.

He didn’t get to do that.

And he needed to know that.

And then this needed to be done.

I stood at the door, pressed the doorbell, and steeled myself when I saw his big body coming down a short hall.

It didn’t occur to me I’d see him too, and therefore see he had on jeans (again) and a tee (again) but bare feet.

And his hair was messy.

That was a sexy look on a good-looking guy.

And Preacher was a very good-looking guy.

All right.

Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

It was too late.

He was opening the door.

God, his face.

He looked so…

Happy.

“Cher—”

I held out the CD to cut this off at the pass, deciding at the last minute not to throw it at him.

“I don’t want this,” I declared.

He looked down at the CD then up at me.

“No,” he stated. “You want this.”

And then he’d hooked me with an arm around my waist and dragged me inside.

Lyla and McCade: