Free The Cottage Next Door by Georgia Bockoven

wasn’t following, he flashed a smile that almost made her gasp. Smiles from men who looked like Michael were supposed to be slightly surly, a bad-­boy kind of thing, like the one James Dean had in the poster her sister put up when she was ten and didn’t take down until the day she married a guy who was more Logan Lerman than James Dean.
    “I’m coming,” she said. She spotted a wave that was headed straight toward her, its force stronger than any of the others she’d already dodged. Instead of backing up, she went toward it, letting the edge of the wave wash over her feet and climb her ankles.
    “Holy crap,” she said loud enough to disturb the seagulls halfway to the cliff. “I thought it was going to be warm.” Still, she didn’t move. How could she? This, too, was part of her dream.
    Michael held out his hand. “Come up here where it’s still warm and dig your feet into the sand.”
    She took his hand and let him lead her to the remnant of what must have been a magnificent tree a long, long time ago. The trunk, a weathered gray, lay on the ground, the top and sides as smooth as if it had been sanded and polished.
    “This is what passes for a bench on our little beach,” he said. “It’s a great place to come when you have to work something out or when you just want to be alone.”
    She sat on the end where there were still cut marks from a logger’s saw. Putting her legs out in front of her and crossing her ankles, she adjusted her sweatshirt to protect her shells. “How did it get here?”
    Instead of sitting next to Diana, Michael settled on the sand and used the log for a backrest. “It was brought in during a storm back in the seventies. A log this size is fairly rare this far south, but common in Oregon. The ­people who were here when the storm came through say the surges were so powerful, they stripped half the sand from the cove and hauled it out to sea. It took more than two years, and help from the state, for the sand to return. By then another storm had pushed up the log even higher. For years a group of homeowners tried to get the state to use one of their bulldozers to push the log higher still, but it never happened.” He spread both arms along the length of the log, put his head back and grinned.
    “And then along came Tony Gallardo and his buddies.”
    She recognized the name but it took several seconds for it to register. “The movie star Tony Gallardo?”
    Michael nodded. “He was filming a movie in Watsonville. By the time he and his buddies got off work, the beach was filled with ­people and there wasn’t any place to set up a volleyball net. Then one night, without thinking anyone could or would be upset, they moved the log to clear a space. Luckily they moved the log up the beach, and not down.”
    She stared at the waves as she listened to Michael, counting them to see if every seventh one really was bigger than the rest. She was disappointed when it wasn’t and started to turn away, when what looked like an innocent gentle wave hit with a force that carried it twice as far as any that had gone before. “I’m going to like it here.”
    “What brought that on?”
    “Some things you just know.”
    “What if I told you that Tony doesn’t live here anymore? He sold the house on the cliff he used to own to Chris Sadler.”
    She laughed. “Well, that changes everything. Looks like I’ll be headed back to corn country as soon as you can find someone to take my place at the galleries.” She focused on what he’d just told her. “Wait a minute. Are you talking about the Chris Sadler who just won an Oscar?”
    “That’s him.”
    “Damn—­looks like I’m going to have to reconsider leaving.”
    “Whatever it takes to keep you here.” One way or another he was going to find a way to make this work.
    “What about Peter—­and your mom. Don’t they get a vote?”
    “Minor details.” He picked up a broken shell and tossed it toward the ocean. She needed as much