Page 13 of Curve Balls and Second Chances (Pickwick Pirate Queens #1)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

R ose didn’t sleep.

She lay flat on her back, sheets twisted at her ankles, the ceiling fan above spinning in the highest setting making crazy circles like it was mocking her restlessness.

The night air felt thick as molasses, June heat clinging stubborn even with the windows cracked open.

Every cicada in Pickwick Bend seemed to have joined in a chorus outside her window, buzzing loud enough to make her teeth ache.

But it wasn’t the noise keeping her up.

It was his words.

I didn’t think I was worth fighting for.

The sentence kept looping through her chest, an ache that settled deep, like a bruise she hadn’t noticed until someone pressed on it. She hated how it still hurt. Hated more that it still mattered.

Around two, she rolled over, hugging her pillow, but her body felt electric, restless, like her skin didn’t fit right.

At three, she sat up, stared at the sliver of moonlight spilling across the hardwood floor, and considered calling him just to scream.

By four, she gave up, shoved the pillow aside, and sat in the quiet darkness, knees pulled up, head in her hands.

When dawn finally bled pink streamers across the sky, she was raw from exhaustion. Her eyes burned, her head pounded, and her heart felt split clean in two.

By the time the sun crested over the trees, she needed air.

She didn’t even wait for the coffee pot to sputter.

She slipped into running shorts and a T -shirt, shoved her tangled hair under a ballcap, grabbed her keys, and let her truck rattle down the winding backroad that curved through pines and maples.

The one place she knew she’d get the truth, plain and sharp as a nail, was at Aunt Jean’s .

A great aunt on her daddy’s side. A Campbell by birth and a McAlister by marriage.

A woman who believed in speaking the truth no matter that it might hurt in the telling.

Herself or anyone else. Not an easy woman to live with, but one to have your back always if she loved you.

Jean’s shotgun house sat on the far side of town, painted sunflower yellow like she dared the sun itself to outshine her.

The porch sagged a little in the middle, but it was covered in pots of herbs, brightly colored clay gnomes, and wild morning glories twisting up the railing like they owned the place.

Wind chimes dangled everywhere—copper, glass, seashells—and together they clattered and sang, sounding like ghosts arguing in a storm.

Jean was eighty if she was a day, but still strong enough to haul her own firewood, mow her own grass, and whip any man at cards. She had skin like creased parchment, eyes sharp as broken glass, and a voice that could hush a room full of rowdy men at the Moose Lodge .

Jean opened the door before Rose could knock, apron still tied around her waist. “ You look like you’ve been up all night makin’ bad decisions.”

Rose tried for a smile, but it faltered.

Jean didn’t press. Just stepped aside and waved her in. “ Come on. Coffee’s hot.”

Inside, the little shotgun house smelled like chicory coffee, fried bacon, and the faint medicinal bite of salve Jean kept for her knees.

Every surface was crowded—family photos in frames, jars of dried herbs, stacks of church bulletins.

It was chaos, but the kind of chaos that felt lived in, not messy.

Jean poured coffee into mismatched mugs, shoved a honey biscuit across the table, and sat herself down. “ Talk .”

Rose didn’t sugarcoat it. She told her everything - about Declan showing up shiny as a new penny, about the dinner that felt too easy, about the wooden box on her porch with the Polaroid and the note that cracked her chest open, about Acen’s confession on the ball field.

She spilled it all while Jean sipped her coffee steadily, not blinking, not interrupting, just listening like she was collecting puzzle pieces she already knew the shape of.

When Rose finally stopped, her throat dry and her chest hollow, Jean leaned back, crossed her wiry arms, and said flat as stone: “ You’re mad he left.”

“Yes.”

Jean didn’t soften. She never did. “ Here’s the thing about old wounds, Rosie girl. They don’t stop bleedin’ just because you slap a smile on ’em. You gotta clean ’em out. You gotta dig down to the bone sometimes.”

Rose blinked. “ And what if I dig and all I find is more pain?”

Jean’s sharp eyes went soft. “ Then you know you cared enough for it to hurt. That’s not weakness. That’s love.”

The words settled heavy between them. Rose stared at the honey biscuit she hadn’t touched. Her stomach was tied up too tight to eat.

“But what about Declan ?” she asked finally, voice small.

Jean grinned and leaned forward. “ Declan’s a damn fine biscuit. Golden , warm, probably good for you. But Acen ?” She tapped her finger on the table. “ He’s the one who burned your tongue when you were too eager to bite.”

Rose groaned, burying her face in her hands. “ Why do you always talk in metaphors?”

Jean snorted. “ Because you’re a McAllister . Y’all don’t listen unless it sounds poetic.”

Rose laughed despite herself, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. She swiped them away quickly, embarrassed at how close to breaking she felt. “ You think I should forgive him?”

“I think,” Jean said, leveling her gaze, “you ought to decide whether you’re still in love with him. And if you are - stop pretendin’ you’re not. That’s just foolish.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It hummed with all the things Rose wanted to say but couldn’t.

She thought of Declan’s easy smile, the way he showed up without shadows trailing him. A man who offered stability, maybe even a future without complication.

Then she thought of Acen . The ache of him. The way just standing near him felt like stepping into sunlight and fire all at once. The man who’d broken her heart - but who’d also been the first person she ever truly gave it to.

Her throat tightened. “ What if I choose wrong?”

Jean reached across the table, her weathered hand covering Rose’s . “ Then you’ll survive. Just like I did when your uncle Earl ran off with that hair stylist from Corinth . Thought my world ended. It didn’t. It cracked wide open, and I built somethin’ new.”

Rose blinked. “ You never told me that story.”

Jean smirked. “ Because it wasn’t about him. It was about me.”

The wind outside shifted, rattling the chimes like laughter and warning all at once. Rose let the sound fill the silence.

Finally, Jean gave her hand a squeeze. “ Stop runnin’ from the hurt, Rosie girl. It’ll follow you no matter where you go. The only way through it is to stand still and face it.”

Rose nodded, though the lump in her throat made it hard to breathe.

Jean leaned back, finishing her coffee. “ Now eat that biscuit before I box your ears. You look half-starved.”

Rose laughed again, shaky but real this time, and picked it up.

The honey clung to her fingers, sticky and sweet, and as she bit into the warm, crumbly bread, she thought of Acen’s note again. I never forgot. Not for a single day.

And she wondered, not for the first time, if maybe she hadn’t either.