“You can’t seriously be considering giving up a secure teaching job to make quilts and date a Devereaux.” Isaac’s voice rose to the screech level. “His uncle was strange, a recluse at best. I won’t have my daughter dating a man like that. It could lead to something permanent, and your children will be weird.”

The bark began to bite into her back, so she leaned forward. “Daddy, two dates does not produce little blue-eyed Devereaux babies.”

“Don’t you get sassy with me, girl!” Isaac yelled into her ear. “Sometimes I wish we’d never let you go there in the summer to stay with your grandmother.”

“But you did, and your choice now has consequences. I’m sending in my letter of resignation next week so that my principal will have plenty of time to replace me.” She hadn’t had any notion of doing that so soon until her father fussed at her, but now that she’d said it, she was content with the decision.

“You’ll be sorry,” Isaac said, and he ended the call.

“Maybe, but I don’t think so.” Nessa wiggled, but the pain in her back just got worse and worse even though she wasn’t leaning against the old tree anymore.

She heard something behind her and started to stand up. Before she could, Jackson had jumped over the log, grabbed her up by her hands, and ripped her T-shirt off over her head. Then he threw it against the tree, jerked her shorts down off her hips and did the same thing with them.

As he scooped her up and ran, she shrieked. Her flip-flops flew in different directions. She held on to her cell phone with one hand, beat on his chest with the other one, and screamed. “What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?”

“Fire ants!” he yelled as he dodged low-hanging tree limbs, took his porch steps two at a time, and rushed into the house. He came to a screeching halt in the bathroom and set her in the old claw-footed tub, jerked the shower curtain around it, took her phone from her and laid it on the edge of the vanity, and turned on the water. In seconds, he had stripped his shirt off and was standing in the tub with her.

Jackson lathered up his hands, flipped her dripping, wet hair to one side, and soaped up her back, neck, and arms, then dropped to his knees and did the same to her legs. “Have any crawled under your bra or panties?”

Speechless, she could only shake her head. She was standing in a shower with Jackson Devereaux, both of them next door to naked. His callused hands were like rawhide and silk blended together as they worked over her body a second time and then turned her around to rinse the soap away. “Crawled?” she croaked.