Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,21

for doing this."

I finished tying my boots and turned in my seat to look at her, my arm stretched along the back of the bench that separated us. "And yet here you are, moving across the country with him. How come?"

To my surprise, she didn't look away. It was the first time all afternoon that she'd met my gaze without irritation tightening her features or annoyance clouding her eyes. Instead, I saw confusion line her forehead, there and gone in a flash.

No answer came from Grace, and whatever tension had been missing at the beginning of the ride was tugged tight like a rope, from her right to me.

Why are you here? I wanted to ask. I wanted to ask it as much as I'd ever wanted to ask anything, and that made absolutely no sense.

My phone rang and I blinked away from Grace's direct stare.

"This is Tucker," I said, not even looking at the screen.

"How'd your meeting go?" Magnolia asked.

I almost smiled, but I couldn't. My face felt hot, like I'd been caught doing something wrong. With a quick glance at Grace, who was looking at her own phone screen, I took a deep breath and opened the truck door to step out.

"Maxine kicked me out."

"What?"

I stretched my back and smiled. "Not really. She assigned me something, didn't need me to stay at the meeting, so I'm about to hike Cooper Road before I head back to the office."

Magnolia sighed, a dainty little exhalation. "Skipping work all afternoon?"

"Not all afternoon. We haven't had rain all week, so the trail won't take longer than a couple of hours."

"All right. Don't get eaten by any bears."

I laughed. "I won't."

"Want to grab dinner tonight?"

"Yeah, dinner sounds good. What time should I pick you up?"

"I made reservations for six thirty."

That almost made me smile. Leave it to Magnolia to make reservations before she checked to see if I had plans. "Six fifteen it is."

"Love you."

I felt the words come up by rote, I'd been saying them for so long. "You too. See you tonight."

As I tucked the phone back in my pocket, Grace got out of the truck and stretched her arms over her head. With her hands visible above the roof of the truck, I caught a glimpse of a small tattoo on the inside of her wrist, and another up by the crease of her elbow.

"Was that the missus?" she asked dryly.

I shook my head and braced my arms on the bed of the truck while she did the same opposite me. Facing off with her like that gave me the same sensation as when I walked into a courtroom and saw the opposition for the first time. Telling her the truth about Magnolia, and how it would feel to put that truth in between myself and this fascinating stranger, gave me a flicker of unease. Something I should have heeded as another clear warning. "My girlfriend, Magnolia."

I said the words carefully, and studied her face as I said them.

"Goodness, that's a southern name." Her tone was earnest, but her eyes, they sparked with something I couldn't name. Relief, maybe?

"We are in the south."

Grace lifted her chin and stared up at the trees. "Don't I know it," she answered quietly.

We waited for her brother, and Grace wandered over to a towering pine tree. She leaned over and aimed her camera straight up the trunk, so close to the tree that it looked like her face must have been scratching the bark.

The sound of an engine broke the silence, and a massive grin split Grace's face when a black Subaru pulled into the parking lot, with a small U-Haul connected behind it.

As he parked, Grace bounced on the balls of her feet. When she tried to pull open his car door, he locked it with a grin.

"Asshole," she said on a laugh.

"Harpy," he said back, though his voice was muffled by the closed window.

When he exited the car, she launched herself at him for a hug, which he took with a wide smile.

"Gawd, you gained weight since you came here."

She slugged him in the stomach. "I've been here one day, moron. I can't believe I missed you."

Watching them, even though I was only separated by the bed of my truck and the space between our cars, felt like I was a million miles away. Most of the time, I didn't think much about being an only child, until I saw Grace and her twin brother greeting each other after only a few