Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,19

wants to stop at a hike on his way in to town. That's kind of his thing," I explained.

Those eyes sharpened with obvious interest. "Which hike?"

"Cooper Road Trail," I repeated.

"That's a good hike. One of my favorites actually." He gave me a sidelong glance before looking back at his truck. "If you want to meet him, I could drive you out there. Maxine said we had to brainstorm, not that it had to be done sitting against a concrete building on a wooden bench that'll put my ass to sleep if I sit on it for too long."

Something frantic in my head wanted me to say no. But as I stared at him, I heard something else entirely come out of my mouth. "That'd be great, thanks."

What?

What?

My heart thudded uncomfortably as he sent me a lopsided grin.

"Come on. Let's get a move on so he doesn't start without us."

Sitting on that bench, I watched Tucker Haywood stand and start unbuttoning his dress shirt.

"What are you doing?" I hissed.

He shrugged as he ripped the tie from around his neck. "Can't hike in this crap, can I? I've got an undershirt on, and that'll work just as well as anything else."

As he took off for his truck, I couldn't make my legs move. What was I doing? I didn't like this man. The last time I was in his truck, I was imagining ways to bail out on the side of the road. But when he glanced over his shoulder and smiled, I stood from the bench without a second thought.

"You coming, Angry Girl?" he said around that grin.

I took a deep breath and nodded.

Against my better judgment, it appeared that I was.

Chapter 6

Tucker

For the second time in as many days, I found myself driving down a pretty tree-lined road with Grace Buchanan in the passenger seat of my truck. But this time, her body posture wasn't rigid or uncomfortable, the mood around us wasn't strung tight with tension. The hair was the same, the boots were the same, but her arm was draped out the open window, one foot was propped up on the dashboard.

"Your brother older or younger than you?" I asked.

She smiled. "Younger. But not by much."

"How close?"

If she was bothered by my questions, she didn't show it. The smile stayed in place, and she held her hand up against the wind racing past the truck, moving it in slow waves. "I'm about three minutes older than him."

I glanced at her in surprise. "No kiddin'?"

"Do you say anything that's not in the form of a question?"

When I laughed, her smiled deepened just enough that I saw the shadow of a dimple. It was gone just as fast. "Sorry. I guess I'm realizing that you're not quite as cranky with me when I'm asking you things about other people."

Grace sighed quietly. "Maybe so."

"It's an occupational hazard to ask questions, I'm afraid."

She hummed in response.

Oh, it was so blatant, to toss out some bait like that, just to see if she'd bite. And I couldn't quite figure out why I wanted her to.

Sure, part of it was how visceral her reaction to me seemed to be, but I didn't want to delve too deeply into the other part of it.

Boredom spurred lots of bad decisions, something else I knew from my job. People committed crimes simply because they wanted to see if they could get away with it, more often than you'd believe. Not that my father and I had to deal with many criminal cases, but the truth was there nonetheless. Every single day, people who walked around in a fog would grasp at something, anything, to pull them out of it.

Maybe Grace wasn't bored, given that she'd just uprooted her life, but she didn't snag the end of the thread I'd just left out, which was just fine. I didn't want to be bored, but I was. And I'd known it for months, probably longer.

Every single day, I woke up in my house and wanted something else for my life. Wanted to turn a crank and rewind the days back to the fulcrum of making the Big Decisions. Law school was chosen for me, as was the type of law I would practice and the place I would practice it. But back then, I was too young and too stupid to really think about the impact. And now, when the dust settled after college and law school and the ins and outs of day to day life, I had