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

that the chandelier had somehow beamed itself from her missing camera to the dining room. “I know how this looks, but I really don’t know how it happened,” she was in the process of restating when… Pete! crossed her mind. He’d seen her pictures and swatches, knew they both were in her purse, which he’d had access to the night they painted.
    He’d indicated that he’d found her sketchpad.
    Why was she not surprised? As usual, all roads to chaos led back to him.
    “You’re such a liar,” Eleanor rushed to fill Olivia’s pause. “You’ve been trying to impose your ideas on my design from day one. You took advantage of my illness to go behind my back and sabotage my design. And it wouldn’t be so bad if what you’d changed bore even the slightest of semblance to a decent design. But, this?” She motioned angrily around the room, her face growing redder by the moment. “This is an atrocity!”
    “All right, Eleanor,” Marty stepped in. “Calm down before you bust a vocal cord or give yourself a stroke.” He teed his hands like a referee calling a timeout. Then he turned to Olivia. “Just so I understand you correctly, you’re claiming that, even though we have this sketch book with your name on it containing quite detailed drawings of the design we are now surrounded by, you have no idea, whatsoever, how this happened? That you didn’t substitute your design for Eleanor’s and give it to Pete? Nor did you collude with him?”
    Now Olivia was angry. They assumed she’d sabotaged Eleanor when, unbeknownst to them, she was the one who’d been blindsided. And she was not about to take the fall for Pete’s crimes. “Yes,” she insisted. “As hard as it is to believe, that’s what I’m saying. I drew these renderings, collected samples, took a few snapshots, but I never…”
    “Oh, my stars,” a breathy voice called out from across the room. “This is absolutely breathtaking.”
    All heads turned to see the astonished faces of Mr. and Mrs. Calhoun as they took measured steps over the front threshold, eyes gobsmacked and taking in their new digs.
    Marty met them midway to the kitchen, arms outstretched to form a blockade. “I’m sorry, Ms. Calhoun, Mr. Calhoun, but your aren’t allowed to be here until tomorrow for the reveal.”
    Mr. Calhoun sidestepped Marty and pulled his wife deeper into the house and through to the kitchen. “We got a message, telling us you wanted us down here,” he said, running a hand over the polished marble of the counter top. “That we should come right away.”
    Mrs. Calhoun pointed to the island. “Look, honey. They moved the sink to the center of the kitchen like I’ve always wanted,” she shrieked with excitement.
    Eleanor stepped forward, a staid look on her face. “You never said—”
    “And the backsplash is perfect,” Mrs. Calhoun gasped, her hands flying to her cheeks. “I was so worried when I saw the original design that I was going to hate that metal tile. It seemed too cold.” She spun around and held her arms out. “And would you just look at the fireplace with those shelves? So perfect! I knew once I found out our new designer was a Southerner I didn’t have a thing to worry about.” She turned to Olivia with a kindred smile. “It’s like you could see right into my thoughts, make them real,” she said, tears pooling in her eyes. But then, as if someone had unexpectedly switch her gears, her mouth rounded into a perfect O . “I bet you fixed the master bath too,” she called out as she grabbed her husband’s arm and tore up the kitchen staircase.
    Eleanor bit down on her bottom lip and sent Olivia a look menacing enough to turn a person to stone. “If there’s a new master en suite up there, I’ll have your job,” she didn’t threaten as much as promise. “Even with that godforsaken fireplace still here, with fixtures and new furnishings, we didn’t have the budget for a bathroom reno.”
    A series of squeals blew down the