Batter of Wits

Releasing 4/21

Chapter ONE

Grace

"Motherfucking son of a bitch deserted ass backwoods southern roads," I yelled skyward. For good measure, I smacked the hood of my stupid useless car. Not that I believed in them, but this was not a good sign. And of course, this happened to me. Not Grady, who'd know what was wrong with his car. Me.

I couldn't tell a socket wrench from a tube sock.

The move to Tennessee was about a fresh start, and this bullshit was not what I had in mind.

Trees everywhere.

Mosquitoes everywhere, I thought grimly, right after I smacked a monster one off my arm.

Poorly marked roads everywhere.

The one thing that was not everywhere was a strong cell signal. I would've smacked my now useless cell phone against the hood of the car too, but I couldn't risk it breaking, as it was my one connection to any sort of civilization.

If I closed my eyes and harnessed my very active imagination, I could pretend like I was in a really good session of hot yoga. Channel my breathing, turn my focus inward, and allow the stress of the moment to fall away.

The frustrated burn of tears along the bridge of my nose is what broke that little fantasy.

I didn't know where I was.

I didn't know what was wrong with my car, loaded down with every earthly possession I owned.

I didn't know how far away I was from Green Valley, so it's not like I could start walking.

And now, I was waiting for a serial killer to pop out of the woods and chop me up into little pieces. Sliding my hand into the front pocket of my frayed jean shorts, I stroked the edge of my pepper spray.

I might've been stranded in the middle of nowhere, but I was no idiot, okay?

I blew out another slow breath and held my cell phone up in the air, desperately wishing for one teeny tiny bar of service to appear so I could call Aunt Fran. It's not like my brother would be much help. Grady was one day behind me, after some weird techie blah blah emergency at work held up his departure.

No big deal, I'd said. I can drive by myself, I'd said. Who needs to caravan in the day and age of Waze? I'd said.

An exhausted laugh burst out of me, and I tipped my head back, let the sun beat down on my face and shoulders. At least I had the sun. If it was gloomy, or raining, or (shudder) snowing, I'd be curled up in my car wiping snot off my face from all the helpless tears.

Something my mom taught me and Grady was that in every situation, every single one that life could throw at you, there was something to be thankful for. Even if you felt beaten down, lift your chin, open your eyes and find that one thing.

And for me, right now, I was thankful for the sun.

Maybe the humidity should have shoved me right into irrepressible anger, but it didn't. The damp air, heavy and hot and strangely comforting, felt like one of those trendy weighted blanket things. I was a California girl, so heat didn't scare me. And on top of that, I had an unruly mop of hair that refused to be tamed, so I didn't care if it added a bit of curl to the waves that were already there.

Still, I slid my hands into it and lifted it off my neck while I soaked up some Vitamin D.

A bead of sweat slipped down my back and I sighed.

Grady thought I was crazy for it, but I felt more comfortable in the heat than any other kind of weather. That's why I almost always wore my trusty black combat boots, even if it was ninety degrees out.

My blood ran hotter than most people's, my memaw liked to say.

Instead of cursing up at the sky again, I dug a hair tie out of my back pocket and piled my hair on top of my head, then marched to the front of my car and yanked the hood open.

The ticking engine and other shit I couldn't name stared back at me while I braced my hands on the car and stared right back.

My stomach rumbled ominously, and I cursed the fact that a couple of hours earlier, I'd eaten my last apple, not worried in the slightest that I was out of food, because I'd be just fine until I pulled in at Aunt Fran and Uncle Robert's.

So, to top everything off on the shit sandwich, I was officially hangry.

I could feel it inching up my body, from my hollow, aching stomach, along my spine and into my head in the form of a pounding headache.

"What the hell am I going to do now?" I muttered, glancing over my shoulder at the empty stretch of tree-lined road.

Honestly, even if my only option for help was some un-bathed redneck in a rusted-out pickup truck, I'd probably greet him with open arms and a big fat kiss at this point.

Another thirty minutes or so, and my stomach would probably start ingesting my spleen just to keep me alive.

"Everything is fine," I whispered. "You will be fine, Grace Bailey Buchanan."

Everything would be fine, because damn it, I was going to will it that way.

It was not my destiny to die along the side of the road before I could cross the city lines. Or maybe I had. I glanced behind me, and just over the crest of the hill, I could see the back of a road sign.

Great. I made it past the city limits of Green Valley, and the universe decided to dump me.

Right as I was about to pass out from starvation.

The sound of a rumbling engine had my head snapping up and a weary sigh of relief blowing through my lips. Over the slight rise in the road, I saw the dark-colored truck appear slowly, a veritable mirage in the backwoods wilderness.

In that moment, my entire body slumped in relief before I stepped out from behind the hood of the car.

"Please don't be a murderer, please don't be a murderer," I whispered. "If you are friendly and helpful and know about cars, I just might kiss you."

I propped my hands on my hips and attempted a smile that screamed, please help me because I might have a mental breakdown if you don't and also, I'm very sane and well-adjusted.

With the shadows from the trees dappling the road, I couldn't see the driver through the windshield until they slowed almost to a stop just in front of me.

The window rolled down, and the first thing I thought was Hallelujah, Captain America just appeared in front of me. The sexy, bearded version of Captain America too, complete with massive shoulders and mirrored aviators.

There were no thoughts of curses, no butterflies fluttering through my belly at the sight of his cheekbones and facial hair.

I almost had a real, true smile on my face, when he opened his mouth.

"Well now, you're not having a very good day, are you? Couldn't've picked a prettier spot though."

Folks, if I could properly explain what happened to my body the moment his voice hit my eardrums, I would do it. Any descriptions, any clever analogies would fall woefully short to the skin-shriveling, heart-pinching, pursed-lip, narrow-eyed hatred that I felt when that deep, slow voice tickled the insides of my ears.

I'll tell you this much, not once in my twenty-six years on this beautiful earth had I experienced the phenomenon of hate at first sight. I didn't even know it existed until that moment.

Not until him.

And because it was so strong, so real, so tangible, I felt insane. Like that voice reached into my head and flipped the off-switch to my sanity.

Most days, I was a nice person. I smiled at strangers, I held doors open for the people behind me, and on occasion, I’d helped little old ladies in the grocery store.

So this—whatever took over my body at the sound of his voice—was not normal.

My eyes narrowed dangerously, even as I couldn’t fully understand why. "Excuse me?" I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him the full weight of my glare. "My car broke down and I don't have any cell service, and you're talking about how pretty it is?"

The glare was wasted on him, because a wide, white-toothed smile spread over his face. "No need to get up in arms, miss, just meant that it's an awfully pretty place to be broken down, isn't it? I've always loved this stretch of road."

Had I been hot before?

Scratch that.

An icy tidal wave of hatred cooled my blood posthaste, and I cocked a hip out to the side. "It's simply divine. Now could I please use your phone to call my aunt? I want off this awfully pretty road, if you don't mind."

The words, acidic and rude, poured out of my mouth so quickly, I couldn't even stop to analyze how terrible I sounded. This wasn't me! I was nice to strangers! one part of my brain screamed, but the overwhelming vitriol I felt toward him and his handsome face muted that shit pretty fast.

His truck door popped open, and when he unfolded out of his seat, to his full height, I swallowed heavily. Captain America was easily six-five, and as broad as a tree trunk. Bearded though he was, his hair was immaculate, same as his truck, which gleamed like it'd been freshly waxed.

His thick legs were covered in dark denim, and the simple white T-shirt stretched over his broad chest was as blinding as his poster boy grin.

"I'm Tucker, pleasure to meet you." He held out his hand and I narrowed my eyes at that too.

A bitchy-faced alien had taken over my body because every part of me was responding without a single conscious thought on my end.

I’d never narrowed my eyes this frequently in my entire friggin’ life.

"Uh-huh. Can I borrow your phone, please?"

With a rueful grin, he pulled his hand back. "You can try to get through to your aunt," he said, pulling his phone from his front pocket, "but pretty as this stretch is, it doesn't get much in the way of service, no matter which carrier you have."

"Great," I mumbled, pulling up Aunt Fran's number on my phone so I could dial it into his. While I did that, he ambled over to the opened hood of my car and braced his arms in the same way I had.

Except I didn't have bulging forearm muscles or veins that popped.

Not that I was looking.

I screwed my lips up when his phone wouldn't connect the call either, finally punching the red button on his screen a little bit harder than I needed to.

The way my body was reacting to his presence could only be described as weird. Really, really weird.

Have you played with magnets? You flip one of them the wrong way, and they instantly repel each other. No matter what you do, you’ll never get them to snap in place.

There’s a force field between those incorrectly flipped magnets—invisible and impenetrable—that you’ll never be able to overcome with your mind.

I wanted to take a step closer, see what he was looking at in my car, and try to start over.

But my body wouldn’t. A steel wall between us couldn’t have been more effective, because when my brain screamed at my feet to move, at my tongue to say something nicer, sweeter, with a bucket-load more gratitude, I couldn’t do any of those things.

The signals being sent to my hands and arms and feet and facial expressions was an all caps command that WE DO NOT LIKE THIS PERSON.

Maybe this was a really extreme case of hangry. I rubbed my forehead and tried to remember the last time I ate. Was the apple an hour ago? Or two?

Was I hallucinating this entire exchange? Because that would be a loss of sanity I could accept.

"Where's your aunt from?" he asked, eyes down while his large hand checked a few knobs or belts or whatever.

I held my snort at his question, because this was the south. In California, we went out of our way not to ask stranger's questions for fear that they might engage us in conversation.

"Can you see what's wrong?" I asked in lieu of an answer.

He wasn't fooled, judging by the way his cheeks lifted, as if he was smiling.

"Not yet." He glanced up, eyes dark, dark brown in his face. "Might be your alternator, or your distributor sensor, if it just died while you were driving."

"Dead as a fucking doornail," I muttered, resisting the urge to kick the back tire of my car.

He whistled softly.

"What? Did you find what's wrong?"

"No, ma'am, just don't usually hear a woman curse like that in front of a stranger."

"Yeah well, I'm not from around here, if you hadn't fucking noticed," I said. "I curse in front of whoever I damn well please."

Good

Lord

what was wrong with me?

"Good for you," he said, completely unruffled. He stood and crossed his arms over his chest and let his eyes roam my face, unhurried and without any attempt to hide his curiosity.

Why didn’t he say anything else? Why was he hanging out in front of my car like he had nowhere better to be?

“Yeah, it is good for me," I said, marching closer to him, barely stopping my finger from poking him in that chest of his. "Do you even know what year it is? If I want to drink, or swear, or screw someone I just met, that's my prerogative, and I don't need some southern asshole judging me for it. You don't know me, buddy, so back off."

Just once, oh-so-briefly, his eyes flashed hot and his hard jaw tightened when I said screw someone I just met. In the space of one breath, I got a sweaty, tangled, moan-inducing vision of him and I in the front of his truck, clothes barely removed, me sprawled across the bench and him hovering above me, braced up by his massive arms as he moved between my legs.

Which would've been an awesome mental image, if I didn't hate him with every annoyed, hangry, exhausted cell in my body.

Yes, I liked the idea of hallucinating, the more I thought about it. A heat-induced mental breakdown. I’d take any sort of explanation, because even as I heard the words come out of my mouth, I desperately wanted to stop them, but I couldn’t.

Like a child might if they started spilling a jar of tiny beads, I wished I could slap my fingers across my mouth and hold all the individual letters forming each individual word and keep them in where they were safe and couldn’t make a horrible mess.

"Lemme guess," he drawled, "you're either from New York or LA"

Beads. Beads were flying everywhere as the jar tipped past the point of no return.

"Bite me. Women like me live all over this country, maybe not in Green Valley, Tennessee, but just about everywhere else."

He scratched the side of his jaw as he watched me. "Oh, I'm sure we've got 'em here too, Angry Girl."

My chin jerked up. "That is not my name."

"I wouldn't know, now would I? You chose not to tell me." He tsked. "Not very friendly of you, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you," I snapped. I rolled my lips between my teeth, because honestly, I was ready to slap myself across the face. “S-sorry,” I forced the words out, even though it physically hurt my jaw to do so. “I’m a little … hungry. I haven’t eaten in a while.”

A nightmare, I thought desperately. Let this be a nightmare.

But no, even in my nightmares, I wouldn't have conjured this. So maybe I wasn't little miss sunshine with everyone, but my mother would rip my ear off if she could hear me speak to a stranger the way I was speaking to him.

But … I couldn't stop.

Why couldn’t I stop?

On the 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 TWO

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 drew back in a snarl, the white tips of his teeth shining in his mouth. That cat hissed something fierce, but it wasn't until he took a swipe of my hand and drew blood, that I knew I was better off keeping my hands to myself while as I got him back to his home.

As I navigated my truck back to Green Valley, my newest reluctant passenger might've been of the human variety, but she'd taken a hit at me nonetheless. And as she currently sat, long legs tucked up against her chest and her eyes trained straight ahead on the tree-lined roads that would lead us into town, I got a vivid flashback of Angel the cat.

Miss Big City, with her heavy black combat boots and short shorts, had the same color hair, golden and wild, as the cat did. Same color eyes too, I thought with an amused smile, thinking about how she'd swatted and hissed in much the same way as the forgotten feline.

I’d done road trips before, and I remember that edgy frustration of being trapped in a small space for too long. But not once could I remember snapping at the first person I saw.

I eased my foot off the gas when a combine harvester appeared in front of us over the slope of a hill and brought our forward progress to about twenty miles an hour.

There was a heavy, irritated sigh from the person next to me, who probably wasn't used to farmers taking up road space. I waited for a black Chevy to pass in the opposite direction before I pulled around the harvester, and something unfamiliar rose up inside me, the insane desire to see what would happen if I tugged on her tail, so to speak.

“Frank,” I yelled as I slowed my truck to match his speed. My passenger gaped at me, when I leaned forward to see the farmer in the cab. He lifted a hand.

“Tucker, what’s the word?” he yelled over the rumble of the engine.

“Your wife feeling better?”

He nodded. “Much, thank you. Tell your momma thank you for the soup she brought over.”

My passenger pinched the bridge of her nose and took a few deep breaths.

“Will do. See you later.”

I pressed down on the gas and pulled in front of him, trying incredibly hard to keep the grin off my face when I noticed her foot jittering impatiently.

"Where you driving from?" I asked, risking a small sideways glance at her profile.

Her lips rolled inward, like she was trying to keep words stuffed inside. All it did, quite inexplicably, was make my smile stretch even wider. I'd never met anyone like this, so tightly wound, claws out like a weapon. And I'd definitely never met anyone who, apparently, hated me on sight. Made for quite a quiet truck, and yet, I couldn't dig up a shred of dislike for her.

Nothing about this made a single lick of sense.

"Thought you already had me pegged," she said under her breath, like the words came out against her will. "Foul-mouthed woman from New York or LA, right?"

I shrugged, making careful, deliberate movements given that her claws were sheathed enough that she was willing to speak to me. "I can manage some pretty terrible language when I've had a bad day too. I've got no plans to hold that against you."

"Gee thanks."

I'd tasted pickles less sour than she sounded.

I felt those golden-green eyes hit the side of my face like she'd punched me, and I shifted in my seat from the force of them.

"What's so funny?" she asked, turning slightly in my direction.

I sighed and gave her another quick look, even though she couldn't see my eyes from behind my sunglasses.

"Honest answer?"

Her full lips pursed tightly, and I knew that any amusement was mine and mine alone. I'd take that as a yes.

"Well, Angry Girl, I've never met someone who's just hated me right off the bat like you seem to. It's making me a bit curious about you is all."

"That nickname certainly doesn't help me feel gracious," she said in a deceptively sweet voice that had me chuckling.

"Fair enough." I flipped on my blinker and waited for a trailer to pass before I made the last turn toward town. I lifted my hand in greeting when the driver passed us. "But you've gotta admit that it's hard for me to call you something else when you won't tell me your name."

That made her lips pinch shut again.

Something about this girl had the back of my brain twitching and jumping. And that interest caused a whole different level of discomfort. I was in no place to be interested in anyone.

"It's fine," I said casually. "I'll figure it out eventually."

She snorted while she reached up and yanked her hair down from the knot it'd been twisted up into. Yeah, she reminded me a lot of Angel, all right. There was something feline about Angry Girl, in the way she arched her neck as she attempted something a bit neater and more contained with all that hair. The way her eyes tilted and took everything in, at her own pace and only when she deemed it necessary. Like the world was simply there, waiting patiently for her to take notice.

"Small town perks, eh?" she said.

"Oh, that's one on a long list. Like picking up stranded strangers without a second thought, bringing them where they need to go without expecting anything in return." I gave her a meaningful look.

I saw it, quick and then gone, the tiniest start of a smile. Then she glared again, like she suddenly remembered that I was public enemy number one.

Remembering something I’d shoved in my glove box, I murmured an “Excuse my reach,” and flipped it down.

I heard her suck in air at the sight of the granola bar as I grabbed it.

Her mouth hung open as I snapped the compartment shut. But instead of handing it to her, I lifted the probably-stale, older-than-I-wanted-to-eat snack up to my mouth.

With my teeth, I ripped open the side of the wrapper and took a giant bite. Her mouth fell open even farther as I chewed.

Maybe I’d lost my mind, but the way she stared daggers at me, chewing away at that oat and raisin granola bar that I wasn’t all that hungry for, was the most fun I’d had in a while.

“Oh,” I said around the last bite, then swallowed, and slid my sunglasses down the bridge of my nose so she could see my eyes, “where are my manners. You didn’t want that, did you?”

Angry Girl rubbed a hand over her mouth, like it could help her keep whatever foul words were stamped clear as day across her pretty face.

I swallowed a laugh.

We drove through downtown Green Valley, a stretch of road I knew by heart, lined with small shops and brick buildings, waving to a few people as we did. On the corner, waiting to cross the street, Scotia Simmons peered into the cab of my truck with narrowed eyes, and I grimaced.

All I could do was pray her cell phone battery was dead so that the news of my unfamiliar passenger wouldn't reach too many ears in the next hour. If it did, I'd hear about it from more than one person in my life, that was for sure. In fact, by the time I dropped her off at Fran and Robert’s, I'd bet my phone would already be ringing.

First from Magnolia, second only to my father, if there was anyone to beat her to it.

We drove the rest of the way to the Buchanan's place in silence, and I noticed the way she started fiddling with her fingers after she dropped her combat boot-clad feet down onto the floor. It was the first flinch of nerves I'd seen out of her, and that ratcheted my interest another notch or two.

"You from Francine or Robert's side of the family?" I asked.

She sighed. "I'm a Buchanan."

Finally, an answer given freely, without rancor or heat behind it. I nodded. "They're good people."

When the road curved and the Buchanan's house came into view, she sighed audibly in relief.

That brought another smile to my face. "Ready to be rid of me, Angry Girl?"

"Yup." Her knee started bouncing as I pulled into the long driveway.

Their house was large, with shiny black shutters against crisp white siding. Blue morning glories crawled up the side of the wrap-around porch, and brightly colored stalks of astilbe popped against the side of the house. Set at the back of the driveway was the renovated garage apartment where Levi used to live, though he had recently moved out to Seattle.

Connor and his wife, Sylvia, lived down the road in a small ranch house. One I’d helped them move into just before they got married, because I felt bad that I couldn’t make it to their wedding. Nice people, kind and true and welcoming, and as I puzzled over this entire interaction, it wasn’t very easy for me to place this woman into the mix.

Fran came out of the garage, a hand raised to block her view from the sun, and her face broke into a pleased smile when she saw my truck. It took a second for her to notice my passenger, but when she did, I saw her clap a hand to her chest in relief.

I'd barely slipped the gear into park when the woman next to me flung the door open, crossed the driveway with just a few strides of her long legs, and wrapped her aunt in a fierce hug.

"Oh, honey, you had me worried sick! I tried to call a couple of times and it wouldn’t go through," Fran exclaimed, pulling back to cup the sides of her niece's face. "What happened?"

As I climbed out of my truck and greeted Fran with a nod, Angry Girl finally softened into a different creature entirely. Hugging her aunt yanked all the fight out of her, and a massive smile stretched over her face.

Damn if she wasn't one of the prettiest things I'd ever seen, and that was saying something, because she was awfully pretty in anger, too. The thought was there, as quick as a flash of lightning, and had the same kind of potential for destruction, but it couldn't be stopped. I shoved it out of my head as fast as it had shown up. That was a storm that had no place in my life.

"My stupid car died," she sighed, hugging her aunt again. "And I had no cell service. I thought I was going to end up a headline in the newspaper. California transplant dies of hunger in the backwoods of Tennessee."

Fran laughed and wrapped an arm around her niece's waist, since Angry Girl was a few inches taller. "Oh, Grace, this would only happen to you, wouldn't it?"

Grace.

Those golden eyes flicked in my direction at the admission of her name, and I grinned.

"Now, Tucker Haywood, what got you involved in my beautiful niece's misfortune?" Fran asked.

I slipped my hands into my pockets and shrugged. "I just picked the right time to go for a drive, I guess. Found her on the side of the road by her car."

Fran shook her head. "Well, I don't know how to thank you, Tuck. Though I'm sure Grace already has."

The woman in question set her jaw and gave me a level, warning look.

DON’T YOU DARE, she warned, in all caps.

My grin spread, and I couldn't believe I felt this tempted to pull the tiger's tail, so to speak, after everything I’d already done.

"Of course she did," I said. "She has the manners of an angel."

She narrowed her eyes at me, color popping on her cheeks.

Fran glanced between us with a smile. "An angel, huh?" She nudged Grace. "Now that's a new one for you, sweetie."

"Do you need some help getting the car over to the Winston’s?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it. We'll give the garage a call after her daddy gets off work. He and Robert will get it settled. Thank you, Tuck."

Ahh, the last puzzle piece. Daughter of Glenn, Robert's brother, whose ex-wife and two kids moved off to California years ago. No wonder I didn't know who she was.

In the pocket of my jeans, my phone started buzzing. Not wanting to be rude, I reached in and silenced it. "Well, I'll leave you two to visit." I held Grace's eyes and nodded. "Grace, it sure was a pleasure to meet you."

She pulled in a deep breath, visibly fortifying herself. "Thank you for helping me," she said, and oh, I saw how much it pained her to pull those words out.

I nodded to both of them as I climbed back in my truck. "Welcome to Green Valley, Miss Buchanan."

Her glare made me laugh, and the two women started into the house as I shifted the truck into reverse. My phone started buzzing again, and I pulled it out of my pocket.

Magnolia.

I let out a slow breath before I answered it. "Hey there."

"So I just got the strangest phone call," her sweet voice said. "Daddy heard from Scotia who said you passed her going through town with a strange woman in your truck. She didn't have the faintest idea who it was."

"You checking up on me?" I was smiling, and she must have known it, because she let out a breathy laugh.

"No. Just curious."

"Just helping out Fran and Robert's niece. Her car broke down outside of town and she needed a ride."

"Poor thing. Well, I'm glad you could help. Are you coming over?"

I glanced in my rearview mirror, the house and the angry girl completely out of view.

"Yup. I'm on my way," I told my girlfriend.

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