Blue Dahlia

morning.
    She was going to be insanely pleasant, cooperative, and flexible. Until he saw things her way.
    She cruised the neighborhood that skirted the city proper. Charming old houses, closer to each other than to the road. Lovely sloping lawns. Gorgeous old trees. Oak and maple that would leaf and shade, dogwood and Brad-ford pear that would celebrate spring with blooms. Of course, it wouldn’t be the south without plenty of magnolias along with enormous azaleas and rhododendrons.
    She tried to picture herself there, with her boys, living in one of those gracious homes, with her lovely yard to tend. Yes, she could see that, could see them happy in such a place, cozy with the neighbors, organizing dinner parties, play dates, cookouts.
    Out of her price range, though. Even with the money she’d saved, the capital from the sale of the house in Michigan, she doubted she could afford real estate here. Besides, it would mean changing schools again for the boys, and she would have to spend time commuting to work.
    Still, it made a sweet, if brief, fantasy.
    She spotted Logan’s truck and a second pickup outside a two-story brick house.
    She could see immediately it wasn’t as well kept as most of its neighbors. The front lawn was patchy. The foundation plantings desperately needed shaping, and what had been flower beds looked either overgrown or stone dead.
    She heard the buzz of chain saws and country music playing too loud as she walked around the side of the house. Ivy was growing madly here, crawling its way up the brick. Should be stripped off, she thought. That maple needs to come down, before it falls down, and that fence line’s covered with brambles, overrun with honeysuckle.
    In the back, she spotted Logan, harnessed halfway up a dead oak. Wielding the chain saw, he speared through branches. It was cool, but the sun and the labor had a dew of sweat on his face, and a line of it darkening the back of his shirt.
    Okay, so he was sexy. Any well-built man doing manual labor looked sexy. Add some sort of dangerous tool to the mix, and the image went straight to the lust bars and played a primal tune.
    But sexy, she reminded herself, wasn’t the point.
    His work and their working dynamics were the point. She stood well out of the way while he worked, and scanned the rest of the backyard.
    The space might have been lovely once, but now it was neglected, weedy, overgrown with trash trees and dying shrubs. A sagging garden shed tilted in the far corner of a fence smothered in vines.
    Nearly a quarter of an acre, she estimated as she watched a huge black man drag lopped branches toward a short, skinny white man working a splitter. Nearby a burly-looking mulcher waited its turn to chew up the rest.
    The beauty here wasn’t lost, Stella decided. It was just buried.
    It needed vision to bring it to life again.
    Since the black man caught her eye, Stella wandered over to the ground crew.
    “Help you, Miss?”
    She extended her hand and a smile. “I’m Stella Rothchild, Ms. Harper’s manager.”
    “ ’Meetcha. I’m Sam, this here is Dick.”
    The little guy had the fresh, freckled face of a twelve-year-old, with a scraggly goatee that looked as if it might have grown there by mistake. “Heard about you.” He sent an eyebrow-wiggling grin toward her coworker.
    “Really?” She kept her tone friendly, though her teeth came together tight in the smile. “I thought it would be helpful if I dropped by a couple of the jobs, looked at the work.” She scanned the yard again, deliberately keeping her gaze below Logan’s perch in the tree. “You’ve certainly got yours cut out for you with this.”
    “Got a mess of clearing to do,” Sam agreed. Covered with work gloves, his enormous hands settled on his hips. “Seen worse, though.”
    “Is there a projection on man-hours?”
    “Pro jec tion.” Dick sniggered and elbowed Sam.
    From his great height, Sam sent down a pitying look.
    “You want to know about the plans and, uh, projections,” he said, “you need to talk to the boss. He’s got all that worked up.”
    “All right, then. Thanks. I’ll let you get back to work.”
    Walking away, Stella took the little camera out of her bag and began to take what she thought of as “before” pictures.
     
    HE KNEW SHE WAS THERE. STANDING DOWN THERE all pressed and tidy with her wild hair pulled back and shaded glasses hiding her big blue eyes.
    He’d wondered when she would come nag him on a job, as it appeared