My Phony Valentine

Also by Courtney Walsh NANTUCKET If For Any Reason Is it Any Wonder A Match Made at Christmas What Matters Most HARBOR POINTE Just Look Up Just Let Go Just One Kiss Just Like Home LOVES PARK, COLORADO Paper Hearts Change of Heart SWEETHAVEN A Sweethaven Summer A Sweethaven Homecoming A Sweethaven Christmas A Sweethaven Romance (a novella) STAND-ALONE NOVELS Things Left Unsaid Hometown Girl A Cross-Country Christmas Merry Ex-Mas For Adam. My Forever Valentine. Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 The {Rumor} Mill Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 The {Rumor} Mill Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 The {Rumor} Mill Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 The {Rumor} Mill Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 The {Rumor} Mill Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Hart Sisters Group Chat Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Epilogue A Love Letter Acknowledgments About the Author Chapter One Chapter One Poppy I don’t know why I did what I did. I mean, I know why I did it—I just can’t believe I did it. It was a knee-jerk reaction. A rash decision. An instinctive reflex, not unlike that decision you face when you’re waist-deep in the cold water of the swimming pool, and you have to tense up and plunge yourself under the water. Or when you’re twelve and you’re in the circle and the bottle you’ve just spun lands on that boy you’ve been doodling about in your notebook for a month. I just. . .went for it. And now I’m arm in arm with a complete stranger. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Twelve and a Half Minutes Earlier Some voices just have that knack of making the muscles in your neck cramp when you hear them. Like dragging a rake across a chalkboard. I don’t have to turn around to know who’s behind me in the line at the coffee shop. What are the odds? “Poppy Hart, is that you?” Actually, considering how small of a town Loveland is, the odds are pretty good that if I leave the house I’m going to see someone I know. But why does that someone have to be Margot Richards? I do a slow turn and force myself to be nice. “Sure is, Margot.” Even her name in my mouth tastes like week-old milk. “It sure is!” she repeats back, as if she didn’t hear me at all. “Poppy Hart. You look—” she gives me a familiar once-over, as if searching her Rudeness Rolodex for the perfect insult—“healthy.” Margot Richards, everyone. I shake my head slightly. “Uh. . .Thanks?” She continues, unabashed. “Amazing your little restaurant is still running after everything that happened with that boyfriend of yours,” she says, emphasizing boyfriend as if it’s bolded in a National Enquirer headline. “Wait. Was it. . .boyfriend? Business partner?” She waves a hand in the air. “I never was sure of the relationship.” She smiles one of those I’m being friendly but really insulting you kind of smiles. “But then, apparently neither was he,” adding a “right?” with a head tilt. People don’t really speak like this in real life, do they? As if their rear ends were planted squarely at the top of their neck and talking out of the hole that’s there? “It doesn’t really matter,” I say, desperately wanting to run down to the river and jump in, or, at the very least, push Margot in. Her laugh is humorless. “Doesn’t it?” “I just meant—” “Oh, I know what you meant, Poppy.” Another dismissive wave. “I was sorry for you though. Such a pity to waste so much time on someone who turned out to be such a disappointment.” I turn away, but then double-take. “Are you talking about him or me?” She just smiles back. I glance at the line. It’s moving as fast as a sloth on Benadryl. “And The Mill,” Margot says. “Ugh. That article?” She places a hand over where a normal person’s heart would be, as if there wasn’t just a gaping black soul-sucking cavity there. “I really felt for you.” “Yeah. That was. . .” I stiffen. “That was some post.” I shift my weight to stop from kicking her. “I doubt anyone really visits that site anyway.” I know absolutely everyone in town visits that site anyway. It’s the website that Loveland locals had been getting their daily dose of town chin-wagging from ever since the Gossip Girl wannabe site popped up online. I thought someone like me was exempt from rumors. And I was, until Avi blew up my life. “Oh, Poppy.” Margot lays it on thick with a sardonic laugh. “Everyone reads The Mill. You know that.” I just stare at her, and she nods over my shoulder toward the line, which has moved three millimeters. I turn, take a step forward, and face the front, but Margot isn’t done humiliating me. It’s her favorite pastime. “It is so funny seeing you here. I haven’t seen you around town for so long.” “I work down the block,” I say. She ignores me. “You know, I just ran into your mom at the store the other day. She mentioned she’s worried she’s never going to have grandkids at the rate you and your sisters are going. I guess some people bloom late.” I turn to her just in time to see another pointed look from my feet to my face. “And some people never bloom at all.” Most people outgrow their bullying once they graduate high school, but it turns out that’s not true for boxed-wine sociopaths like Margot. Some people are mean no matter how old they are. Oh, look. She’s still talking. “Though, with everything that happened. . .I can see