The Farmer's Daughter Rebels

The best advice Todd Calloway ever gave got him fired.

If you really want to rebel against your parents, come to school, get the grades, get a scholarship, and leave.

He said it to every rebellious kid who sat in his small-town English classroom. When Ruby Jo Elkins — valedictorian, farmer's daughter, and the smartest student he ever taught — took his advice all the way to a full ride at Dartmouth, her family made sure he paid for it.

Six years and three dead-end jobs later, Todd's starting over as a professor in Vermont. His new teaching assistant walks through the door in a tied-up plaid shirt and cutoff shorts, drawl intact, and she is very much in her twenties anymore.

Ruby Jo spent six years following his career, and she's got unfinished business — with her parents, with the town that tried to keep her small, and with the only man who ever told her she could be more.