The Growing Season — Jan Cox Speas

She was lovely, seventeen, and life was reaching out for her with promise, agony, and first love . . .

Jody was beautiful, still shy, and finding out what every girl learns young in a poor Carolina mill town. Already she knew why her stepfather looked at her . . . why his son wanted to get her alone. Why she had to get away.

It was the season for meeting a man who was strong enough to be gentle - Tay Brennan, the good-looking loner, who wanted to make good for time spent in the army and jail . . . who took Jody with him when small-town jealousies and violence got them in trouble with the law.