Stupid Magical Love (Stupid Love #1)

Chapter 1

There’s a saying in my little town just outside Mystic Meadows, Georgia: Bad luck begets more bad luck. And if you’re Rowe Wadley, you won’t just attract bad luck—you are bad luck.

Nasty, right? I mean, it must be pretty terrible to be this Rowe Wadley person.

“Today is going to be great,” I announce with gusto, to no one.

Well, “no one” unless you count Buster the Cat.

Buster the Cat is a plump red tabby whose main form of morning exercise is sitting on the bathroom sink and batting at the sticky notes I read my morning affirmations from.

I pull my dark hair over one shoulder and braid it while repeating the sentence penned on the wrinkled paper that’s attached to the mirror.

Months of shower steam have softened the note and eaten at the glue, causing it to peel away from the reflective surface.

I rub the top back down and glance at the next affirmation, one sticky note down from the first.

“‘I got this!’” Chest up. Head high. My gaze falls to the final note and the uplifting words on it. “‘Greatness is within me!’”

I smile. Wide. Feeling the greatness. I’m feeling so much greatness that my chest is going to explode. Or maybe my bra’s too tight.

“You hear that, Buster? Greatness is within me.”

The cat meows like he doesn’t believe a word.

“Don’t be such a Debbie Downer.” I boop his nose with my finger. “We’ve got this. You’re going to be my right-hand cat when Mom leaves today. I’ll be counting on you to help feed the pigs and collect money from the tourists.”

All the tourists I’ll somehow pull out of my butt, that is, since we literally don’t get a single one. Not like we used to.

But hey! I got this! “It’s just gonna be you and me.”

Buster the Cat meows again.

I mock-gasp at his perfectly normal feline tone.

“Don’t even pretend that you don’t love the pigs like I do.

I see how you look at them when you think no one’s paying attention.

You love their sweet little pink snouts and their tiny little hooves almost as much as you love Meow Mix with cream on top. ”

The cat stares at me as if he does not, in fact, adore livestock.

Don’t let him fool you. He’s a big ole puddy tat around them. “Your secret’s safe with me. No one will ever suspect how you really feel—undying love and all.”

He stretches and jumps down from his perch, terminating our morning talk. And just when I was getting warmed up.

As the cat exits the room, tail swishing, my gaze drifts to the window.

Outside, the faded-red barn sags like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The gray fence surrounding the place isn’t much better.

It looks like it’s made of splintered toothpicks instead of thick planks that are constantly having to be propped back up thanks to the rotting wood.

I sigh. Six months. I’ve got six months to get this place fixed up so that when Mom returns, she’ll see a whole new farm—one brimming with life instead of one dying the agonizingly slow death of a Victorian-era courtesan succumbing to tuberculosis.

This is gonna be fun.

I head downstairs, grabbing hold of the banister my grandfather hand-carved, and whip around in a half circle, sliding into the kitchen in my socked feet.

The smell of fresh coffee fills the room, which is covered in wallpaper that features blue-feathered roosters.

Matching porcelain cookie jars with removable rooster heads are sprinkled across the counter and built-in desk.

Not only that, but rooster place mats sit on the table beneath plates stamped with, you guessed it, more roosters.

The entire room suffers from a fowl explosion.

“Good morning,” my mom says, sweeping in beside me, wavy, gray hair billowing behind her like a cloud. She’s wearing her bright-orange kaftan. A moonstone necklace dangles from her neck, and shining silver rings twinkle on her fingers.

“Morning,” I say as she pours a cup of coffee. “Today’s the big day. You excited?”

With her back to me, she finishes pouring and shoves the carafe into place. “I’m not going.”

I must be hearing things. I tug on my ear and laugh. “That’s funny. I thought you said you’re not going.”

Mom turns around and stares at me, hard. “I’m not.”

The laugh stutters and dies in my throat. Then, to add insult to injury, a gob of my own saliva strangles me.

I finish choking and wheeze out, “What do you mean, you’re not going?

Mom, this is what you’ve been wanting for ages.

You and Bill are heading out on the road.

You’ve been dying to follow the Happy Clams around the country since before I was born.

I should know. You’ve told me this like a thousand times.

” She glances bashfully at her feet. “Mom, I love you. You need to do this for yourself. Besides, you’ve been planning this—your dream—for a year. ”

Her eyes flash up. “But who’s going to take care of you?”

“I don’t need to be taken care of,” I say defensively, slumping onto one of the frayed chairs that surround the farm table. “I need for you to go and do this. I mean, don’t you think you’ve been through enough?”

She gives me a pitying look as if I’m keeping a secret only she knows the truth about.

I ignore her expression. “Is this because of Dad? Is that what’s brought on this change of heart?”

“No, no.” She presses one hip against the counter. “No. It has nothing to do with Dad. I just . . . it’s just . . .” She releases a long exhale. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Oh, God. From the look on her face, it must be bad. “Are you sick?” My chest tightens so hard I can barely breathe. “You’re not sick, are you?”

“No.”

Air rushes from my lungs in relief. Thank the Lord. I can’t lose another parent. Losing one was enough to last me a lifetime. “Then what is it? Is it me?”

I bet that’s it. My mom still thinks I’m sixteen and smoking pot in the back of the pickup.

Why do parents never think you grow up? If anyone’s smoking pot now, it’s her.

For goodness’ sake, she’s leaving to follow her favorite jam band around the country.

If that doesn’t scream CBD-fueled midlife crisis, what does?

“Mom, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of the farm. I know you’re worried that I can’t handle it, but I’ve been in charge since Dad died. I’ll be fine,” I say staunchly. “I don’t need help.”

Besides that, I have plans. Things I’m going to do. Things she always says are too expensive, can’t be done—all of that. There’s always an excuse.

“I know you don’t need any help, hon. It’s not that. It’s . . .” Her gaze swivels around until it finds the rooster clock on the wall. “Oh, would you look at the time? There’s something important happening upstairs.”

She moves to go past me, but I grab the giant cuff of her kaftan. “You’re not getting away that easy. What is it? What’s going on?”

She presses the back of her hand to her forehead in resignation. “Well, you see—”

Just as she’s about to word-vomit all over me, the phone trills on the wall. When I release her to rise and grab it, Mom takes the opportunity to shuffle out of reach. “We’re not done with this conversation,” I say sternly.

She looks relieved as she slips out of the room. “Of course not. We’ll finish it . . . later.”

I scowl at the wall she disappeared behind and bring the slick-surfaced, puke-green phone to my ear. “Hello?”

Heavy breathing answers. What now? A phone-sex call? Isn’t it a bit early for that? It’s probably one of the Collins boys. Everybody knows all five of them are jonesing for girlfriends. But if those teenagers think they have a shot at twenty-seven-year-old me, their mama’s going to get an earful.

The person finally speaks in a thick Southern accent. “Rowe. Wadley.”

Right. I may have forgotten to mention that I’m Rowe Wadley—the bad luck in my town.

And my bad luck just got worse.

Because the sound of that voice makes the last slice of happiness die inside me. Unfortunately, this is not the Collins boys attempting to woo me with early-morning, bad-breath phone sex, and now I kinda wish it was.

I twirl the cord around my finger. “Why, Sally Ray, to what do I owe the displeasure of a call so early in the morning?”

“Cut the crap, Rowe. Your stupid pigs are on my property.”

“No, they’re not. I mended the fence yesterday.”

I glance out the window above the kitchen sink. The sun breaks through the trees, smearing cotton candy and blue raspberry across the horizon. Cardinals sing. The piggies graze in the yar—

Wait a minute.

The pigs are not grazing. They’re not even in sight.

They’re not rolling around on the scraggly grass that lives in bundles of tufts, nor are they stampeding past the tractor, which has hay creeping out around the tires.

There’s not a piggy in sight.

I groan. Great. Just great.

“You don’t see them, do you?” Sally says victoriously.

My jaw clenches. What a way to start the day—first Mom and now this. “I don’t appreciate you calling my pigs ‘stupid.’ They are highly intelligent.”

“Who gives a crap? If you don’t get your ass over here right now, I’m going to shoot ’em. One by one. Little piggy by little piggy.”

She wouldn’t! But then again, Sally very well would. “Don’t you touch one hair on their heads,” I fume.

“I got rights. They’re on my property, destroying it.”

There is a special place in hell for murderers and Sally Ray.

She is the blight on my potato, the absolute worst person in the world.

Imagine a small Southern woman with big hair and an even bigger attitude, and you’ve almost got Sally Ray.

Now add evil villain onto that, and you’ve got her pegged for sure.

My gaze skims the room, looking for my dad’s old boots. As if my thoughts were heard, an ivy vine shoots out from under the floorboards, scoops up the boots from where they sit on the other side of the room, and deposits them beside me.

I jam my feet into them and say to Sally, “If you hurt even one of my drove, I swear you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”