Jesus told Luke Aviles to stop sleeping with Destiny Connors.

She was not cool with that. Not cool at all. Which was why she tossed Luke’s belongings off the deck, one piece at a time. Her bungalow was perched high in a canyon in the Hollywood Hills. Forty rickety steps led up from the driveway to the front door-a climb Destiny hated, even though the view was spectacular. At night she could stare down at the lights of the city while listening to the coyotes howl.

She liked that sense of the wild.

Orange and lime-green running shoes. Gone.

Brown leather belt with silver falcon buckle. Adios, baby. “Why are you doing this?” Luke scurried around the driveway, retrieving his garbage, playing the innocent party because that was his gig now. Innocent and so full of forgiveness-for the director who left Luke on the virtual cutting-room floor because he was hotter than the lead; or for the fool in line at Starbucks, some poser producer ripping someone’s eyeballs out on his cell phone just to show he could; or the homeless fellow on their corner with the limp and one crazy eye who assaulted Destiny’s MINI Coop with Windex every time the red light timed her out.

Luke prowled like a hungry lion on the hunt for more unworthy souls to wrap those strong arms around. Care and concern for all who needed it.

She had skidded into silence, then detonated a white fury. After that played out, she wept simply because she didn’t know what else to do. When the sky lightened to ash, he volunteered to make a bagel run. While he was gone, she decided to make her own run, backpedalling to the old Destiny Connors who turtled her tears so fiercely that no one could divine them from her hard ground.

By the time Luke got back with her extra-large hazelnut, light on the cream, and sesame-seed bagel, she had padlocked the gate at the bottom of the stairs. Unless he wanted to scale thirty feet of canyon wall, he was effectively barred from her bungalow.

She didn’t want him back, not as long as he reeked of sainthood and celibacy. So she hauled another armful of his stuff from the bedroom out to the deck.

Excerpted from To Know You by Shannon Ethridge and Kathryn Mackel. Copyright 2013.  All Rights Reserved. Published by Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN. Used by Permission. Not to be copied without Publisher’s prior written approval.