Fed up

weren’t motivated the way I was: I was the one who’d seen Francie suffer the effects of the poison, and I was the one who couldn’t get that image out of my head. So, instead of scaring Adrianna about her baby’s health and instead of asking Josh ridiculous questions about Digger’s cardiac status, I needed to cool down and apply my powers of rational thought. For example, Josh had said that the person from the department of health had asked about herbs. Was there some reason to suppose that the digitalis had been added to the herbs that Josh had used? Or was there some other connection between digitalis and herbs? I’d scanned only a few of the Web pages that my Google search had produced. I’d return to the task when I got home. In the meantime, I decided, I’d do my best to avoid discussing Francie’s murder with my parents. Their house was going to be my safe harbor. My happy place.
    My parents’ white Spanish stucco house did look happy— or at least improbable and whimsical, belonging as it did in Santa Barbara, California, rather than where it actually was, in Newton, Massachusetts. I let myself in the front door and found my mother and a young man huddled over the dining room table. My mother, Bethany Carter, was decked out in virtually every piece of hideous jewelry she owned, and she owned a lot. I could never reconcile my mother’s good horticultural taste with her astoundingly awful taste in almost everything else. Despite the vile adornments, my mother was a pretty woman, and not the tiniest wrinkle had appeared on her face, so I had high hopes for aging well. She’d recently cut her hair into a wash-and-wear style that fell in soft waves around her face and had colored it a chestnut brown to erase the four gray hairs that had dared to grow on her head.
    Hearing me enter, she popped her head up. “Chloe, come meet Emilio. Emilio, this is my daughter, Chloe.”
    Whoa. Happy place, indeed! Emilio was hot. Not just good-looking or handsome but downright hot: sexy, rippling biceps, broad chest, dark skin, and a strikingly gorgeous face. Think Mario Lopez meets John Stamos. All coherent thoughts flew out of my brain, and I stood there thunderstruck and mute as I fought off the mental video I’d inadvertently created of a tan, sweaty, half-naked Emilio playing beach volleyball to the Top Gun soundtrack.
    Miraculously, my knees did not buckle out from under me as I stepped forward to shake Emilio’s hand. “Hi, I’m Chloe,” I said breathlessly. “Oh, my mother already said that. It’s nice to meet me. You! I mean you! I already know me. Myself. I know myself, of course. Ha-ha!” I laughed idiotically. “Should we talk about rain barrels?”
    When Emilio the God smiled, dimples appeared. As if this guy needed any more alluring physical traits! “It’s really nice to meet you, Chloe.” Although my mother had told me that Emilio was Colombian, he sounded totally American. If he’d had a Spanish accent, I’d have been totally gaga. “I heard you’ve drummed up a lot of business this summer,” he continued. “I’m ready to get going on this with you.”
    “Yes, I’m ready to get going on you, too.” Oops. “On the projects!” I said quickly. “I’m ready to get going on the rain barrels!” One hot guy, and I fell to pieces. Get it together, Chloe! I already had a good-looking boyfriend. But there was no denying that Emilio was more than drool-worthy.
    Okay, I just wouldn’t look at him.
    “So,” I started as I sat down next to Emilio and across from my mother, “Anna Roberts is our first client. She’s going to have three rain barrels installed, and she’d like them to be enclosed in a rounded rock wall to match the existing rock walls she has in her yard.” I handed Emilio the photos I’d taken of the house and grounds. I relied heavily on my digital camera for these projects, because my drawing skills were limited to stick figures, and sloppy ones at that. “Do you think you can come up with some sort of top to go with this? Maybe a wooden one that would coordinate with her deck? And something environmentally friendly, of course.” Emilio nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. I could do bamboo, for instance. That’s a great wood to use because it’s an easily renewable natural resource. There are also really beautiful materials made from recycled plastics that I could use. I can show Mrs. Roberts a few options and let her decide.”
    “Perfect.”
    My