Busy running an upscale spa and beauty salon, Alyson Ruth Barr is floating into old age supported by her big, quirky, southern family. Three times widowed, at 55, she's looking forward to a quiet life in the shady pool of small town Noisy Creek. With dozens of nieces and nephews--and aging parents who are beginning to slow--being matriarch of the Barr family fills her days just fine. If her nights are sometimes lonely, well, she has the memory of three good men with which to console herself... until Colin Jenkins, a contractor twenty years her junior, steps into her life. Is he a birthday prank perpetuated by her sisters? A stud in heat looking for financial gain? Or something different and completely unexpected? With the help of family and friends, Ruth is forced to reexamine her life, to look the changes of her own aging body squarely in the eye, and decide whether to float in the shallows or swim for the wild current.