Tolly Lee is pearls, debutant balls, and old silver on the breakfast table. She is ashamed of something she did 13 years ago, but she was only 16, and she didn't set out to do it. Still, she should not have led college senior Nathan Scott to think she was his age. She never imagined a football star like him would keep calling her, but it was mostly a long-distance relationship, and it's not like they had sex. In the end she paid for her sins with her heart, and she might not be done paying.

When she moved to Merritt, Alabama, Nathan had been gone for over a decade. Now that he's back, and if the good citizens of her adopted hometown learn of her part in costing their hometown hero his chance at an NFL career, she might as well pack up her law practice and move to Siberia.

A sports commentator christened Nathan Scott "The Angel" because of his flawless face and his ability to leap to catch a football, as if he has wings. He still has the face, but his leaping days ended when he was injured after going on the football field distracted, only hours after catching the girl of his dreams in a terrible lie. He never would have accepted the job as head football coach of Merritt High if he'd known Tolly had set up shop on Main Street. Not that he still has feelings for her. But a small town has a way of reviving the past, and when common interest in an orphaned teenager forces Tolly and Nathan to agree to an uneasy truce, guilt and old resentments resurface.

With no end zone in sight, their mutual attraction leads to a Scrimmage Gone South.