Free The Sweetheart Hoax by Christy Hayes Page A

their things from the car and get settled, but he felt overwhelmed by the sights and smells of his home. The familiar squeaking of the screen and the cracking pop it voiced as it slammed shut. The smell of dinner in the kitchen and the slightly musty undercurrent even his mom’s best potpourri couldn’t mask. The faded braided rug under his feet and the wood in the fireplace waiting to be lit. He felt years older in the house that seemed to have shrunk around him, and yet as young and carefree as the child who’d once claimed it his own.
    “Phil?” His mother slapped him on the shoulder. “Go get the girl’s bags, honey. She looks ready to drop.”
    He looked over at Margot. She didn’t look ready to drop, she looked anxious and alone, twisting her hands together, her eyes wide with appeal that he snap out of his reverie and throw her a lifeline. “Mom, Margot loves sweet tea. Would you mind getting her a glass while I bring the bags in?”
    “Headed that way,” his mom said with a wave of her hand. As he stepped onto the porch, he heard his mother compliment Margot on her dress.
    He gathered Margot’s suitcase and makeup bag, along with his hanging bag and travel case, as quickly as he could. He didn’t want to leave his mom and Margot alone for too long without him there to run interference. As much fun as he’d had with Margot on the plane, they should have spent a lot more time syncing their stories. He was half way up the staircase to the second story when he heard his mother call, “I put fresh towels in the guest room, Phillip, and cleaned out some space in the closet. Put your bags in there and then come on down.”
    The guest room? Surely she meant for him to put Margot’s bags in the guest room. He wheeled her suitcase into the room with buttercup walls and the queen sized iron bed. The sheer curtains fluttered in the breeze and his mom had placed a finger vase of daisies on the nightstand. He could envision Margot there, her curls across the soft blue pillowcase, snug under the heavy white quilt his grandmother had made.
    He continued to his room on the same floor and stopped dead in his tracks at the threshold. “What the hell?”
    He dropped his bags on the wooden hallway bench and jogged down the steps. His mom and Margot sat at the round kitchen table, sipping tea from old Coke glasses. “Mom. Anything you want to tell me about my room?”
    She smiled up at him like the Cheshire cat. “You mean my new office? Do you like it?”
    “What do you need an office for and why did you have to use my room? What about Devon’s?”
    “Devon’s room is too dark and yours looks out over the meadow. It’s a happier view.”
    “A happier view,” he muttered under his breath. “Where’s all my stuff? And where do you expect me to sleep? In Devon’s room?”
    “Your stuff is in the barn. If you’d ever drive here, you could go through it and take what you want so we could get rid of the rest.”
    “Get rid of it?”
    “What is with you and your brother? Really, you should have seen the fit he pitched when we gave his bed to Goodwill.”
    “When you…what did you put in his room?”
    “Your daddy’s been exercising. I got him one of those stepping machines with the TV attached and some free weights.” She patted Phil’s stomach. “He’s lost fifteen pounds.”
    “Really? That’s great. I’ve been hounding him for years to do something about his potbelly.”
    “It’s more like an anthill now,” she said with a wink.
    He joined them at the table and reached for Margot’s glass. She tried to swat his hand away, but he snuck a quick sip first. He could have wept from the taste of his mother’s tea when suddenly everything she’d said hit him like a fist to the face. “You gave away Devon’s bed?” he asked.
    “Yes,” his mother said with a disapproving glance. “We needed room for the equipment.”
    “I know, but…where am I supposed to sleep? On the couch?”
    She bolted out