“Good. Then I’ll go change out of these dirty shoes and jeans and meet you in the kitchen when you’re cleaned up,” Jackson said.

“Thank you. I guess you are a knight in shining . . .”—she stopped and giggled—“armor who comes to a damsel’s rescue. Look at us. We’re both a muddy mess.”

“Kind of romantic, isn’t it?” Jackson chuckled.

“When you consider that we’ve had a date at a cemetery, it is.” She rose on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.

“Never forget that or that I told you I fell in love with you at first sight,” he whispered.

“I don’t know if it was love or lust, but it’s turned into love,” she said just loud enough for him to hear.

He leaned in and kissed her again. “Mud never tasted so good.”

“I agree, but I’m going to need to borrow your shirt again,” she said.

“This time you can even keep it.” He washed up at the sink while she stripped out of her muddy clothing, then went to his bedroom and put on clean clothes. He still had her undergarments that they had washed when she had gotten into the ant pile, so he put them on the vanity in the bathroom, along with the shirt she’d asked for.

April and Flynn looked like they’d just lost their best friend when he made it to the living room. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done tonight,” said Jackson.

“No thanks necessary,” April sighed. “But if you could help Nessa through the next couple of days, that would be great. We thought we were all fine over at our place, but then we looked at the quilting shed. The roof is completely gone, and everything that was in it is gone except for the three filing cabinets.”

“She’s going to be devastated,” Flynn said. “I’m just glad we got that quilt done before the tornado hit us.”

Jackson grinned. “I’ve already offered her the use of one of my bedrooms as a quilting room if she needed it, and she offered me the quilting shed if my shop had gotten blown away.”

“Thank you,” Flynn said. “She wants so badly to make this quilting business work out. You can’t imagine how much that helps.”

“We can get a quilting frame ready and hung before the week is out. Did any of the stuff in the garage get water damaged?” Jackson asked.

“No, the tornado left that alone.” April heaved a sigh of relief. “Flynn and I have found jobs, but Nessa . . .”

“Don’t worry.” Jackson sat down in the rocking chair. “We’ll have a nice quilting room put together for her real soon.”