Batter of Wits (Green Valley Chronicles #22) - Smartypants Romance Page 0,5

verge of absolute hysteria, I thought about what I’d said to my dad, about a man falling prostrate before me as soon as I got into town.

Instead, here I was, channeling every hidden psychotic shred of my DNA into this one entirely innocent person who had the terrible misfortune of being the first one to find me on the side of the road.

He walked toward his truck, only pausing to hold out his hand for his cell phone, which I slapped down onto his palm. Inexplicably, it made him grin.

"You're heading to Green Valley then?" he asked, opening the driver's side door of his truck and leaning against the frame.

I slicked my tongue over my teeth, cursing that little slip. "Why do you need to know?"

"So suspicious," he mused. "I'm heading that way myself, since that's where I live. If that's your destination, I can give you a lift into town. Drop you wherever you need to go."

I eyed his truck, then his carefully smooth facial expression. It was like he knew the emotional tightrope I was walking.

He didn’t know the half of it.

"You could walk, if you wanted to," he said, "but it's about a twenty-minute drive, so you'd be good and tired by the time you got there. Your stomach would probably be crawling out of your own body to find some food, if you think you’re hungry now.”

I cocked my head. "You know, Ted Bundy would've used the same logic on someone like me."

With the patience of a saint, he reached into his pocket, fished out his wallet and then leaned forward to hand me his driver's license.

"Go ahead," he said. "Snap a pic, send it to your aunt, it'll go through eventually, and even if it doesn't whoever finds your hypothetical body will have a record that you were with me."

I scoffed. "Sure, until you steal my cell phone and delete the outgoing text while it's sending."

But did I snap a picture? Sure as shit did.

Tucker Ames Haywood, age twenty-six, from Green Valley, Tennessee.

Huh. Exactly the same age as I was. Actually, our birthdays were two days apart.

I ignored his expression when I handed his license back, pivoting quickly to yank the keys out of the ignition, grab my laptop bag, my camera, and purse from the floor of the passenger seat, slam the hood of the car down, and then lock the doors. I hit the lock button again, waiting for the reassuring beep of the horn to let me know it was secured.

I lifted my chin and walked to the passenger side of the truck, keeping my eyes forward while I hooked the seatbelt. The truck smelled like him, clean and masculine, and I vaguely wondered if I could make it the entire drive to Green Valley without inhaling a single time.

"Where we headed?" he asked, turning the key and sliding his sunglasses back onto his face.

For some reason, I felt better when his eyes were covered. Like my body could relax, just a little bit.

I rattled off my aunt's address.

A smile broke over that face again. "Fran and Robert's place? Francine Buchanan is your aunt?"

I turned and eyed him. "Why?"

"I work with your uncle from time to time." That stupid smile widened. "I was just there for dinner a couple nights ago."

My jaw dropped somewhere around the vicinity of my ankles.

"Careful there, Angry Girl, wouldn't want to catch any flies with that mouth open."

When I snapped it shut, he chuckled, low and slow, the sound catching on his southern accent in a way that I did not appreciate.

Tucker Ames Haywood hooked a wrist over the top of the steering wheel as he started in the direction of town.

I already kinda hated Green Valley.

Chapter 2

Tucker

About a year back, I had to deliver a stray cat back to its owner in Maryville. Someone found it sitting on the base of the tree in front of work, and I was volunteered by my father to bring it back to its distraught owner.

It was a Red Ragdoll named Angel, with a beautiful coat of golden hair, and greenish hazel eyes that looked straight into my soul. That's what it'd felt like, at least, when I tried to pet Angel, reaching out carefully where he sat regally in the passenger seat of my truck. His eyes watched me warily as my hand made slow, steady progress in his direction.

Right before the tips of my fingers stroked the top of his head, I saw them narrow ominously. His lips