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.
“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.”
She took the salve from him and picked up her cell phone on the way out of the bathroom. She crossed the hall and closed the bedroom door behind her. There was a twin bed on one side of the room and a dresser on the other, much as in the room where she slept at home.
Home!
The word stuck in her mind. Now that she’d told her father she was quitting her teaching job, Blossom would be home, and was, both in word and in her heart. She peeled her wet underpants down and removed her bra, held the towel up in front of her as she tossed them out into the hall, and grabbed the shirt off the doorknob. Then she applied the ointment to all the bites on her legs and slipped her arms into the red-and-black-plaid button-up shirt. The sleeves were way too long, so she rolled them up to her elbows. She was grateful that the shirt had a long tail and went down to her knees, but she still felt naked with no underwear under the garment.
She opened the door a crack and peeked out to see that her bra and panties were gone. In the distance she could hear the dryer already running. She eased the door open just a little more and stepped out into the hallway.
“Hey, want a beer?” Jackson came out of the bathroom.
“I’d love one, and thank you again for rescuing me,” she said.
“No problem. I’m glad I decided to take a walk through the woods rather than going to the falls tonight.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. “You must have thought I was assaulting you, but your shirt and shorts were covered in those evil little devils, so I had to get them off you in a hurry.”
“Sorry that I pounded on your chest.” She smiled up at him.
“I deserved it for not trying to explain, but all I could think about was getting you to a shower and getting you treated so you wouldn’t be miserable for days on end. Have a seat and I’ll get the beers.” He pointed to the sofa in the living room.
She sat down on one end of the well-worn, outdated sofa and scanned the room. Television straight ahead, a scarred coffee table in front of the sofa, and Nanny Lucy’s old hope chest over there in the corner.
Jackson returned from the kitchen with two open beers and handed one to her. She pulled the tail of the shirt down over her knees. She could wear a bikini—much to her mother’s horror—and not blink an eye, but sitting there with a shirt that covered all of her body except her head and calves made her feel naked.
It’s because I don’t have my undergarments, she thought.
He set his beer on the coffee table and sat down on the other end of the sofa. “I see you’re looking at Miz Lucy’s hope chest. From what Flynn says, I may have to give it a home forever.”
“You just might.” Nessa turned her beer up and took a sip. Then she put the bottle on the coffee table and removed the towel from her hair.
“Just toss it on the table,” Jackson said. “You don’t ever plan to get married?”
“Nanny Lucy used to say to never say never.” She felt the corner of her mouth quirk up—what would she think of all their nevers now?
“Then there’s a possibility, but maybe not a probability?” He turned and locked eyes with her.
“I guess it all depends on what my heart tells me. I depend on it to steer me in the right direction in matters of love,” she answered.
“Fair enough,” Jackson said. “Think you’ll wind up with the hope chest?”
“I wouldn’t even begin to try to answer that.” She crossed her legs at the ankles and noticed all the red marks. “I didn’t ever have chicken pox. Do you really think this is how they look?”
“I didn’t have them, either,” he answered, “but my best friend in elementary school had them, and he sent me a picture of his legs and chest, so yep, that’s kind of the way they looked.”
“Then thank God for vaccines.” She picked up her beer and clinked it with his. “Now it’s my turn. Do you plan to marry, or are you going to follow in your uncle D. J.’s footsteps?”
He chuckled. “It all depends on how my heart advises me.”
“I guess I had that coming,” she said. “We probably should talk about whatever this is between us and decide if things will be horribly weird if . . .” She paused.
Jackson shook his head slowly. “Let’s live in the moment for a few weeks and promise not to let things get awkward if we decide that we don’t like each other.”
“I’ve done passed that point. You’re my knight in shining tennis shoes. You saved me from fire ants,” she said.