Chapter Six

The grounds of the Stewarts’ bed-and-breakfast were a multiphase project Maddy had begun almost a year ago. She’d arrived to see to her stepsister’s belongings and she’d never left, though she’d spent only a couple of nights at the B and B herself. It had made her claustrophobic with its myriad of interconnecting rooms and hallways. There were multiple stairways and doors that, when opened, seemed to lead to nowhere but another narrow hallway. “Charming,” “quaint,” “interesting” and “eccentric” were all descriptions she’d heard applied to the sprawling erstwhile mansion.

She found it dark, creaky and disconcerting with no rhyme or reason to its jumbled floor plan.

Maddy had rented the simple craftsman cottage across town, but not before giving her card and portfolio to the bed and breakfast’s owners. The Stewarts had been her first clients in Scarlet Falls and she’d tackled their wild gardens with a ferocity spurred on by loss and uncertainty over Gracie’s disappearance. She’d battled weeds, overgrowth and neglect all over town. Her efforts hadn’t changed her stepsister’s fate. But they had helped her to hold on. She couldn’t control the life and death struggles of people around her, of loved ones, but she could at least influence the fate of every plant she worked with in her gardens. There was comfort in that—some measure of peace and empowerment.

Today, as winter dormancy approached on a sudden bite lurking in the late autumn breeze, Maddy raked deadfall and spread mulch over the more recent plantings to protect them from the first frost.

She was intent on the earth beneath her feet, studiously ignoring the distant black speck of the crow circling high overhead. It had become a constant companion, a shadow that followed her in sun or clouds so even though she was aware of it she never looked its way. Instead, she raked over the rich black soil and was thinking about what she would do for the Stewarts come spring when a pair of polished black oxfords stepped close to her boots.

Maddy looked up from the ground, up a long length of khaki-uniformed leg to a lean chest clothed in more khaki. Even before she’d seen “Deputy” on the bronze star her heart had slowed because the man beside her wasn’t Sheriff Constantine. He was around the same height, but Constantine had a muscular athletic build recently gone thinner. This deputy had a runner’s build, fit, angular and sharp.

She straightened and met the man’s neutral gaze. She’d spoken to him on the phone the day her stepsister’s body was discovered. She’d seen him at the crime scene and often since, but she especially observed him now because his notice of her negated his everyman, fade-into-the-background appearance. She’d learned his name was Mark Smith. The common last name hadn’t surprised her. It fit him perfectly.

“Ms. Clark,” Smith said instead of “hello.”

He couldn’t be as unfeeling and reserved as he appeared. He always seemed stiff, distant and switched off. Sheriff Constantine and some of his other deputies seemed to be much more in tune with the community. Then again, a certain amount of disconnect was probably necessary, especially if Smith was heavily involved in crime scene investigation.

“Be careful, you’ll spoil your shoes,” Maddy warned. Smith’s shiny oxfords looked like they’d just been taken from a box. She didn’t call him by his first name. She felt comfortable calling his sad-eyed colleague “Tom” but she didn’t feel comfortable with Smith at all.

His eyes were gray, a silvery gray that startled when you got past their blank expression. The gray stood out against black hair and a lightly tanned face with cheekbones that cut and lips that didn’t smile.

“I’ve seen you here often.… You’ve transformed the garden,” Smith noted. It didn’t sound appreciative. It was a mere observation. No more, no less.

Smith had placed his hands in his pockets, but his attitude wasn’t one of relaxation. While his face was unexpressive in the extreme, his body seemed tight and tense as if every discrete muscle was flexed.

Maddy moved to put her rake in the utility wagon nearby. She wished it were parked farther away. Something about Smith made her wary. Widening the gap between them helped, but only slightly because it could be narrowed in a flash by the man if he chose. He was obviously fit and muscular, if not bulky.

“One of the bigger jobs I’ve taken on in town,” Maddy said.

She wanted her work to be seen and enjoyed. Having Mark Smith watch her work with his shuttered eyes was a different prospect and one that left her nervous for reasons she couldn’t explain.

Smith still didn’t smile, but he did choose to narrow the gap. He stepped closer, following her to the cart. It was broad daylight. He was a sheriff’s deputy. He gave her no outward reason to cringe as he approached and yet some instinct shuddered beneath her skin telling her Mark Smith wasn’t as safe as he tried to seem.

“I like the challenge,” Maddy continued.

Smith was clean and neat compared to her dirt-smudged coveralls. He was shiny from his dark hair to his polished shoes. His uniform was immaculately starched and pressed. And maybe that was the problem. His appearance seemed too perfect, carefully constructed, as hers often was to hide the chaos she dealt with on the inside.

What did Mark Smith hide beneath his polish? A chaotic past or a tumultuous present?

“Are you ever afraid that you’ll take on too much?” Smith asked.

She met his gaze then with a sudden startled flick of her lids. He didn’t take his hands from his pockets. He didn’t smile or frown. His silvery eyes were as blank as before, but Maddy’s heartbeat quickened.

It was daylight but they stood sheltered from view by a large boxwood hedge that grew higher than their heads. The hedge led into a labyrinth maze she’d trimmed and pruned and reclaimed from weeds this summer. Up above them, the great house loomed. Many windows faced their way, but several oak trees hunched with dead leaves still caught high in their branches stood between them and the house.

Suddenly, Maddy knew she was alone with a stranger who wasn’t made less strange by the badge on his chest.

“I can handle myself,” Maddy said. Before she thought about whether it was an overreaction or not, she pulled a long handled shovel from the cart. Its stainless steel spade glinted in the afternoon sun. “I’ve had to for a long time.” She’d been taking care of herself since her mother died. She’d been completely independent at seventeen. She’d refused to be a victim then. She was even more equipped to avoid victimization now.

The move made Smith’s eyes widen, an almost imperceptible slip of emotion. Then, as he looked from the tool she wielded to her set jaw and back again, he smiled. It was a small smile. Like the glimmer of a crack in shatterproof glass.

“You can’t carry a shovel to the Harvest Gala,” Smith said. His eyes glinted much like steel in the sun, lighted by his humor but not warmed by it at all.

“Are you suggesting I’ll need one?” Maddy asked.

“Don’t go. Not a suggestion. Just advice. Don’t go.” Smith narrowed the gap between them even more and placed his hands over hers on the shovel’s handle. She could feel the strength in his fingers and arms backed by the strength and tension she’d suspected in his lean runner’s form. “I know you bought a dress and shoes. The works. Wear them in Boston. Wear them for someone besides William Constantine. Scarlet Falls is no place for dancing.”

Maddy didn’t try to pull the shovel from Smith’s grip. She was pretty sure that, even with the muscles she’d acquired from years of manual labor, Smith would win a tug of war between them. Emotions swirled in his eyes that she couldn’t identify. She’d learned one thing: Mark Smith was far from blank and empty.

Suddenly, while she was trying to read the darkness and depth in his eyes, Smith let her hands go. He backed away from her so quickly she almost fell forward. He smoothed his perfect hair as she caught herself. He put his hands back in his pockets and slowly walked away. His back belied his casual pose with a stretch of tension between his shoulders that seemed ready to part the seams of his shirt.

No, Mark Smith wasn’t disconnected at all.