Late summer 1931 and twenty-seven-year-old Adelyn Crawford is lying in a hammock in Tulip Junction, Georgia. She lives on this working farm with her sons, her parents, her uncle Tyree and Aunt Grace, and occasionally, these days with Garnett, her husband. One afternoon she is lying in a hammock that begins to swing, and half of her feels she is asleep; the other half knows better when her former lover Innis Crawford begins to make love to her. She knows that her dead lover is back for her. She worries he is planning to stay this time.

The novel travels back to 1918. Innis's brother, Garnett, is ever-present, a witness to their passion. When Innis dies in a suspicious auto accident, Adelyn falls into Garnett's waiting arms. The courtship with Garnett has an equally inevitable storminess, first in New York City, then Flapper era Paris and the South of France.

Now Innis wants to come back to be with Adelyn. Who will win this battle?