Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,33

single one of the candies he buys me, loathe to put them in my mouth, because then they'll be gone, and I'll have to wait for the next one to appear in my pocket, like a magic trick. There is a small bag tucked next to my pillow, hidden from my brothers, and I now have six peppermints inside of it.

Is this what love feels like? I don't know if I want to love him, because I did hate him with every part of my soul, but the more I think of him when I fall asleep, the more I think that I'm without a say in the matter.

"Ohhhhhhh holy shit," I whispered, scanning the next few pages with a burgeoning sense of dread.

Their first kiss.

When he told her he loved her.

When she finally said it back.

Sweet stories of courting. Of sneaking out behind the barn so they could be alone.

My eyes could hardly scan fast enough, because it was all so sweet—so terribly, heartbreakingly sweet—that I could hardly stand to read anymore for what it was doing to my heart.

Then the last page of the book, the night before they got married on her eighteenth birthday.

My last day writing as Rose Buchanan. My next book, the one with the beautiful blue cover that he ordered from New York as a wedding present because he said it matched my eyes, will say Rose Margaret Montgomery. Tomorrow I will marry my love, and nothing, nothing in my life could ever be better than this feeling. I'm so glad that I didn't hate him for very long, because I cannot wait to call him My Husband.

Carefully, and so very, very slowly, I closed the cover of the journal and clutched it to my heaving chest. I felt a tear slip down my cheek before I even realized I was crying. I set the book back into the box and sat straight, staring at the far wall of the attic while my mind scrambled around what I'd just read. My palms pressed hard against my cheeks to stem the remainder of the tears, and I took a few deep breaths before I pulled my phone out.

I hit the name on the screen and waited for a voice to pick up.

"Come on, come on, come on," I whispered after another unanswered ring.

"Hey, sweet—" my mom said.

"You said the curse wasn't real," I interrupted. My breathing picked up, and I pressed a hand to my chest. "You guys told us the family curse was crazy-ass, southern bullshit because it wasn't real."

Stunned silence came from the other end of the phone. "Well, that's because it's not."

"It is," I wailed. "It's real, it's so real, and apparently it's a misogynistic curse that's only easy and obvious for the men in this family, and I'm freaking out, and he has a girlfriend, Mom."

"Okay, okay, take a deep breath, please. No panic attacks when I'm a thousand miles away and can't help you."

At her soothing tone, I did as she asked. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

"Good," she said. "One more, Grace."

The last one came out on a gusty sigh, and I heard her laugh.

"Tell me what's going on, baby."

The red book stared up at me, the only piece of something keeping me from rocking in the corner. I felt the overwhelming urge to grab it again, rub my fingers over the cover like a talisman, to see if it would bring order to my disorderly thoughts.

Then I told her everything.

I told her about my arrival into Green Valley, and meeting Tucker, the festival planning, the hike, and then meeting his girlfriend. His stunning, southern belle girlfriend who looked perfect in pink. It came out in choppy sentences and messy rambles, but she listened to all of it without judgment. When I finished telling her about the journals, and Rose, she sucked in a deep breath, then let it out, almost like she was breathing through her own panic attack.

"Damn."

I laughed. "Right?"

"And he calls you Angry Girl?" I heard her smile through the phone, loud and clear.

"He does." My chest hurt thinking about it. It hurt because I wanted nothing more than to hear him say it, because he wasn't afraid to call me that, he wasn't afraid to call me on how unforgivably, unspeakably rude I was to him the first time I met him.

"Oh, honey. I wish I could help you more, but I'm not exactly sure how, you know? Your father and I were