...Deep gray clouds swelled behind the jasmine vines. The contrast caught her eye, so she turned back to her room for her easel and the tin of watercolors she kept for quick sketches. After returning to the veranda, she quickly captured the ominous bulging outlines of the clouds before becoming distracted by a dark-haired man far down the street. He stood for a while in front of the Brinkley place, hands on his hips in a way that plucked a strand of memory in Nona. She frowned and set down the brush, gripping the railing and leaning out to look at the man in his blue shirt. He began to walk down the street, and only two houses away he crossed at the corner and turned toward the Hartley house, set back from the street among its trees.

A few fat drops of rain struck her. She listened to the thunder, wondering what sensible man would be out with such a storm coming, then he was close enough for her to see his face.

That face—the same one she still found herself sketching from memory.

Nona flinched back behind the thick screen of the jasmine and closed her eyes against a storm of memories. Touches. Kisses. Rooms with tall open windows and blowing green sheers. A bed with crisp brown sheets. Dark eyes above her, dark hair across a damp brow. A mouth taut with passion. Long-fingered hands.

Jude.

Jude Danzig.

Here, in Brookton. On her very street.

Nona gave a convulsive shiver and felt all the downy hairs on her body rise. She told herself it had been an experiment, nothing more. She had decided at twenty-three it was past time to get rid of her troublesome virginity, to discover for herself whether what she’d heard about men and sex was true.