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Day by day. That's how Logan and I take things. I didn't realize until I jumped back into the reality of my life, how busy I can be, and how time really does pass. Doesn't seem like it when I glance up at the clock and watch the minutes tick by like years, but when I look back at the days that have gone since I first locked eyes (and my heart) on Logan and realize that they've sped by at NASCAR pace. I find I start holding on to every moment I have with him, reliving it while I'm doing something routine, picking apart every word we speak when I'm on a pick-up, and living for the next time he pulls up to my house.

During the day, I'm held to duty, and there's no getting out of that. That's life. I'm a grownup, but one who's having the time of her life with a man that makes her feel like that Aretha Franklin song, "Natural Woman." Can't walk straight half the time, which definitely gets me gigged by those nuts in the garage, but I'm a lot more pleasant to work around than I was for a while, according to Dom, who says it so sweetly, like he's going to be fired for being truthful. Since Hando's been given a key, I can also feel like I can be away, if I choose.

Which I am lately while hunting down new digs for me, the dog, and Logan when he comes around. It isn't every night, but often enough that I'd like to be able to spend that time alone with him, doing whatever strikes our fancy, whether it's just taking long rides on his bike or in my truck, cuddling (when I'm dropping blood clots), going out to eat, or our most favorite activity of all. It's sucking that we end up in my bed most nights and have to be careful not to make too much noise. I'm still not used to the idea of being free to bring him home. Mike's let up, but it still seems wrong somehow.

I know Mike thinks I'm going crazy. Maybe I am. Yeah, there are things that bug me about Logan. He's produced a bankroll that he doesn't discuss the origin of with me. I asked. All he would say is,"Baby, you don't want to know. I'm not stealing it and I'm not running drugs or shit like that. Can you trust me that far?" The answer is "yes," and I do. Secretive doesn't necessarily mean shady. He doesn't remember much about his past beyond the last few months. True, he could be covering up some stuff that runs in the same line as his mysterious means of obtaining funds. It's at the back of my mind. Frankly, though, I'm sort of sick of Mike and my own damn inner voice telling me to keep my eyes open and my common sense handy, and the minute I smell something off about Logan, to put distance between us. But I keep coming back to the night we met, and how I understood that there was more to Logan than the drifter he appears to be and how unless I stick by him and see how it all goes down, I might never know what those things are. He might never, either. Here's another thing: he opens me up to me, and it's time I learn who Lily is, while I'm discovering who Logan is and who we are together.

She dials numbers and waits while the answering service on the other end of the line runs through its spiel until it gives her the extension she needs. A pleasant female voice comes on and addresses her. "Big Sur Realty, this is Janice..."

When she made the decision to stay in Big Sur with her family and friends, to let her life be as simple as being a hometown girl who loved her roots too much to let them go, Mike had tried to talk her out of it. She knows he wanted what all parents want for their kids- to see the world, to find out what they can do with what they've been taught through the first eighteen years of their lives. There are places she'd like to go, things she'd like to do, but there's time. Maybe now with Logan in her life, they can share some of those plans, like Mike and Mary have always done together. It's a sweet thought, but one on hold for a while longer.

When he'd finally finished wasting breath trying to talk her out of the cage he was certain she'd put herself in, he had asked her to consider staying in her own home with himself and Mary, at least attending a good business school closeby, and saving money so that when she did decide she needed her own nest, she could either buy it outright or have a good start on paying it off. And when she graduated from college, he made her his business partner, because she understood his work, and had ideas of her own to incorporate into it that have enabled her to finally take next step toward being her own woman- a home of her own.

It's been a search, but she's finally found what she wants for a starter nest, and today it becomes hers. Hers and Grizzly's. He'll love it, because he will have plenty of room to roam free without too much interaction with people and no fences. But it's close enough to civilization that she can have what she needs as well- modern conveniences and technology, and still close to her family and friends and work. Maybe Logan will want to call it home someday, too. Like Grizzly, he will need the seclusion of the hills and forests, the wildness being in nature can provide him. He seems happiest during the times they wander the beach or take long walks and rides over tree-lined country roads. He spent time in the Canadian Rockies, and when he talks about it, she gets the impression that he misses it, or at least, would like to go back and visit.

She stands in the entrance to the shop, waiting for Mike to finish placing the manifold he's been reconstructing into place. He glances at her, then grunts at her to spill what's on her mind. He can listen and work at the same time. "I'm meeting Janice to sign on the house. Do you need me to pick up anything while I'm out?"

"Nope. Go do what you gotta do."

"I think I'll start taking things over today when I'm done."

Setbacks. It's always something. That's life, so they say. But it's done now; my name inked on the title to a little fixer-upper on a quiet mountain road. Mine. Mine, mine, mine! Huge down-payment, small monthlies. Needs quite a bit of work, but I can take bids later. Only the necessary things right now until Grizz and I get settled and I can start making a plan for renovations. The keys to a new part of my own life are still in my hand, gripped tight against the steering wheel, biting into my palm. It's all good, because I'm too excited to really notice that it hurts a little.

She glances at the clock on the dash. Mike will be home in a while, waiting for her so they can load her things. This will be the first night she'll spend in her home. Before Logan, Andy would have been the third person to know about this event in her life and he'd have been the one to be invited to celebrate it with her. She intends to sit up on the roof and watch the Perseid meteor shower all night and drink to the occasion. It is now Logan's place to join her in the doing, if he swings by her folks' place to see her. But she can't help feeling a little sad for Andy. And she has to apologize to him too, for the awkward position she put him in. Before anything else, she needs to get that off her chest.

She changes her position until she is sitting on the driver's seat with her feet on the running board facing him. She speaks softly, but doesn't reach out to him, and he keeps his hands in his pockets as well. "Hey. Yeah, the other night...I'm not sure what was going on in my brain, but it wasn't a good situation. I'm really sorry, Andy. But no, Logan doesn't know about how you all got here, but I think it's pretty obvious to anyone looking that you're a bit of an anomaly, and he's pretty observant." She thinks about his offer again. "Sure, let's get something to drink. Don't want to go too far away, though. Have to meet up with Mike when he gets out of work..."

Tuesday. Two days after Logan told God and everyone in the Phoenix who could see that whatever they had for the summer was over. The day Ann wanted to say goodbye to Ben Wade. Colin asked for the day off to attend, and Mike granted it. Johnny and Dom skulk around, making it obvious that they want to support her, but not sure how to go about saying anything about what they witnessed. She still looks like hell, probably hell to the nth degree, but she can't handle being by herself and not knowing how to find the center of solitude that used to carry her into the next day and the days after like she used to. And that is a major clue to her that Logan affected her in ways no man has before. And over the course of the last year or so, the men in her life have been changing her. Andy and Cort were instrumental in that, if she thinks hard enough. It hurt to let Andy go, even if it wasn't love. He was her buddy and still is, thank god. He's there for her, she's there for him, and they share a sort of soul that lives in both modern and vintage social parameters. Cort...well, Cort was the civilized side of what Logan carries on his sleeve so openly, but Cort had learned to cage his demons long ago. But the problem with Cort is that even if he was here, they had to rearrange their emotional attachment to suit the ties of blood and family. And if she's honest with herself, she did not give Cort the same all-consuming adoration she showered on Logan. Cort and Andy, for all their loner status, had not been so alone as Logan had seemed. But then, maybe everything Logan told her was lies, and he was very very good at hiding them? She doesn't want to believe that, but in the light of day, still aching from the gutting she received so publicly and unsure what to do with the shredded meat of her heart, it's easy to come to that conclusion.

Balancing the accounts is a daily exercise. It's something her mind doesn't even focus on, unless she catches an error or discrepancy that stands out. So when the numbers start to blur and run together on the page, she comes back to the present, and wipes the damned tears (where the hell do all those little bastards come from, anyway? ) away with the heels of her palms. Maybe she should go home after she's done here...

"If you'd look up from that once in a while, it wouldn't hurt your eyeballs so much."

He leans in the doorframe, grinning like some damn fool who thinks he's funny, shaggy head tilted down to meet her eyes, arms and legs crossed as though he belongs here. He does. Still. And the sight of Cort is enough to make the world seem a little happier.

"Oh my God!" She whispers and sends her chair flying when she stumbles around the desk to be caught up in a warm hug.

"You can call me Cort, ma'am," he laughs and sets her down.

"We just started a missing persons report on you! They found your bike, and we thought..."

"Wondered where it went."

"Screw the bike. Where have you been? Ann is worried sick, I was starting to think something bad happened to you and..." She's starting to tick off a list of mother-like questions, when the kid finally comes home after adventuring out longer than anyone might have anticipated.

"Slow down, girl. Got lots to tell you. How long have we been gone, for crying out loud?"

"We?"

"Me and Ben." It's a casual thought to him, but her eyes widen and then she stares at him like she's finally realized he might be a ghost.

"Is he with you?"

"Yeah. He's out in the car, waiting. I wanted to come by and check on you, and see if you had time for a story."

"Holy shit."

"What?"

"They're down at the beach, sending him off."

"What?!"

"As in, 'funeral.' Ann's sure as shit that he's dead." His laugh is almost enough to make her laugh too, except this is not a joke and her own love feels dead too.

"Well, let's not rob Cousin Ben of his chance to make an entrance. That wouldn't do at all. Can you leave this?"

"Yeah."

"Lil..." he seems to just want to look her over, as if making sure to himself she's really there, and he's really home again. "Nothing. Tell you later. Just...Ben and me, well, don't give him too hard a time, okay?"