Read Online Home Matters (A Ripple Effect Romance Novella, Book 1) by Julie N. Ford - Free Book Online Page A

opted for a change in topic. “This color is all wrong.” Her eyes fell to the floor where her messenger bag and sketchpad lay. “I mean, gray’s a pretty color and all, it’s just not right for this…”—she slid Pete an ironic look—“‘space.’”
    Amusement twined around hurt to produce a smile he mostly held back. Instead, he studied the room an extended moment. “Yeah, well, if you ask me, with the way these walls catch the late afternoon’s ‘natural light’,”—he looked to her with a sly eye—“a warm ochre would be best for this… ‘living space.’”
    A smile forced its way onto her lips. She couldn’t help herself. In the dying afternoon light, his rugged features, mess of tousled hair, and playful gaze had her feeling all gooey inside. “Hmm, that’s exactly what I was thinking.” She turned back to the wall to hide the pleasure tickling her insides and shifted topics again. “It breaks my heart, what Eleanor’s doing with this design.”
    “Really?” He raised a sarcastic brow. “You don’t say.”
    Olivia set the roller down on the pan and planted her fists on her hips. “Well, I’m right, you know,” she asserted. “Proper Southerners like the Calhouns don’t want monochromatic and straight lines. It’s cold.” She wrapped her chest with her arms and visibly shivered. “The South is more French Provincial meets country chic. This home should say, ‘Sit down. Stay a while. Have another glass of tea.’” She threw him a stoic glance. “Not, ‘Who ordered the autopsy?’”
    This time Pete didn’t hold back his smile either. In fact, he outright laughed. “You really are one of a kind Miss Pembroke,” he said.
    And with that, her frustration with him—her situation in general—became light and sudsy, popping from her throat in the form of a hearty laugh.
    After a few seconds, Pete’s laughter quieted, falling to a resigned look. It seemed as though his thoughts were pulling apart, then reconnecting in a different order—a darkened bulb unexpectedly bursting forth with light.
    He silently watched her before asking, “Hey, you want some pizza?”
    The calorically lethal combination of grease, dairy and carbs shouldered its way through the paint fumes to entice her nose, tease the void in her gut left by the kale cleanse she and William had started together yesterday. She resisted. “I don’t eat pizza,” she said and meant to turn back to her painting. Only, her body resisted, her stomach begging for sustenance.
    Pete’s gaze assessed her from boot to tunic. “Come on, one slice won’t hurt you.” He back-stepped to the plastic sheet, and pulled it open for her to enter. “Besides, beauty has nothing to do with maintaining a size two.”
    “Size four,” she corrected, but only in her head. And for reasons she wouldn’t admit, but that had everything to do with his flattery, she followed him into the next room.
    On the other side of the plastic, two of Pete’s crewmembers, Brandon and Tom along with Sean, had situated a few crates in a horseshoe around a grouping of stacked flooring boxes they were using as a supper table. Quietly chewing, they each had a slice of pizza in one hand, eyes trained on the pages of a celebrity gossip paper they each held in the other.
    Sean looked up, his concerted expression quickly washing to, uh-oh . “Look everyone, it’s Bull’s-eye.” He folded the paper and tucked it behind his back. “What the he—” he started to say, a smile stiff on his lips, “h-heck are you doing here?”
    Brandon made a show of searching Olivia with his eyes. His beard and ponytail bespoke Duck Dynasty . “She’s not packin’, is she?” He glanced down at the nail sticking out from the toe of his steel-toed boot. Another one of Olivia’s casualties. He’d said he was leaving it there as, “a cautionary tale to the danger of operating a power tool without a license.”
    Pete grabbed a couple of crates and situated them to close