Nessa’s knee bumped against his as she slid forward in the seat to reach for the salt, and there was the same electricity between them that he’d felt every time he was in her presence. He couldn’t blame the chemistry on abstinence when just the touch of her knee caused a stirring in his body and soul alike.

The lawyer in him weighed the pros and cons of having a relationship with a neighbor who might not even stay in Blossom. The pros were that she was close by, he could see her often, and she was so easy to talk to. The cons were that if things got serious and she moved back to the Panhandle, his heart might be broken, and if there was a bad breakup, things could get really awkward between them as neighbors.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Nessa said.

“Do you live in the moment or think about the future?” he asked.

“That’s what you were thinking about?” she asked.

He took a drink of his tea. A good lawyer never played all his cards on the first day of a trial. “In a roundabout way. I was thinking about you, but you don’t have to find a penny to pay me.”

“I spend way too much time thinking about the future. Living in a religious household with a father that looked forward to heaven meant that I’d better be asking for forgiveness for my past, be thankful for the present, and hope for heaven.” She finished off the last bite of her burger. “How about you?”

“Living with lawyers all around me, I was trained to always look forward to the future, too,” he answered. “Get an education. Become a lawyer and work for the firm. Start a retirement fund. But I’ve been working on trying to live a little in the moment. We only get today. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is always a day away.”

“Is that a closing statement?” Nessa asked.

“If I was defending a person, it would be.” Jackson grinned. “I’d ask the jury to give my client one more chance to enjoy the day and to take time to smell the roses.” He thought of all the rosebushes around Miz Lucy’s house and how she had taken such good care of them.

Nessa almost giggled. “I’m sorry. You were being philosophical, and it’s not funny, but something Nanny Lucy said came to my mind. She was actually talking about some girl at her church who had the attention of all kinds of good boys but settled on a bad boy who got her pregnant. She said that the girl was like a pretty butterfly that had flitted among all the pretty flowers in a pasture and then lit on a fresh cow patty.”

“And why is that relevant to what I said?” Jackson frowned.