“Are you in shock? There’s at least a hundred bites on your back alone. Do I need to take you to the emergency room?” he asked.

Nessa shook her head again. Bites?

“Then let’s get you out of here and dried off. I’ve got some salve that Uncle D. J. brewed up that will help them not itch, but you’re going to look like you’ve got chicken pox for a few days.” He talked as he slung the curtain back and got out of the tub. “The important thing was to get all of the ants off you and wash the bites down with soap so they won’t get infected and turn into blisters.”

Nessa stepped over the edge of the tub and onto a brown rug. “Thank you.”

Jackson picked up two towels from a stack on an old ladder-back chair and handed them to her. “You’re more than welcome. One for your hair and one for your body. I found out a while back that the ants like to build a castle by that old log. Get dried off, and I’ll put the salve on you. Are you sure you don’t need to be checked by a doctor?”

“I’m sure.” Nessa’s heart pounded and her pulse raced, but neither had a thing to do with all the ant bites. “I should have looked before I sat down. I thought it was the tree bark biting into my back.”

“You’ve found your voice, so you’re probably not in shock.” Jackson grabbed up another towel and dried most of his body, then took a jar of ointment from the medicine cabinet and rubbed a little on two bites on his arm. “I got lucky. Only two got me while I was hauling you out of there.”

Nessa wrapped a towel around her head like a turban and then dried off her upper body. Today of all days, she was wearing her oldest underwear, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that now. “I’m sorry you got bit, too,” she said.

“No worries. It’s only two. You’re the one that they were really angry at. Turn around and let me get at those bites. This really does help. I should have gotten the recipe for it before Uncle D. J. passed on, but at least he left three jars for me.” Jackson smeared the salve all over her back.

“That smells like the beach,” she said.

“It’s the coconut oil that he put in the mixture.” Jackson handed the jar to her. “You can take this one with you and put some on your legs in the bedroom right across the hall. I’ll hang one of my shirts on the doorknob for you. Just toss your wet underwear out in the hallway. I’ll get them in the laundry.”