Nobody's Hero

This was her biggest job ever. She’d begun work on the project almost three years ago, a scant month after her husband had passed away. But if she wanted perfection, she’d have to see to it herself.

Typical. She set aside her clipboard and picked up a spade.

Connie was halfway through the job when a trio strolled out of the house onto the porch, which overlooked the sloping green lawn. “Connemara,” called Kay Sheffield. Her slender arm waved back and forth in the brisk ocean breeze. “Hello! Come meet my guests.”

Connie lifted a hand in acknowledgment of the summons while muttering “Oh, yay” to herself. She stabbed the spade into a half-dug hole and dusted her hands off on her pants. Time to schmooze. She’d wanted to step up her clientele, but hadn’t counted on how much of her workday would be spent catering to the social niceties of the jet set rather than to their gardens. She was far more talented at coaxing forsythia into bloom.

“What on earth were you doing?” Kay asked as Connie approached. Connie felt disheveled in the presence of the well-groomed Mrs. Sheffield. The woman spoke through her nose with clenched teeth, a silly affectation she’d apparently picked up from old Katharine Hepburn movies. “We have Graves for that.”

The gardener had been notably uncooperative toward Connie. She shrugged. “There’s a lot to do before the party.”

“I’m certain you can manage without getting your hands dirty.” Kay turned to her guests, a squat man and a leggy blonde. “Harold, Jillian, this is Connemara Bradford, our up-and-coming garden designer. Connemara, Harold and Jillian Crosby. He’s in real estate, she’s in Prada.” Kay tittered at her witticism.

“Hal,” said the man, extending his hand.

“Connie.” They shook briskly.

“No one calls me Jillian,” the wife announced in a bubbly soprano voice. “I’m just Jilly.” She, like Kay, was greyhound-lean, bottle-blond and clad in head-to-toe designer labels. The two women might have been twins, except that Kay Sheffield was coolly beautiful while Jilly had an unfortunately long nose that shadowed her narrow lips.

“How do you do?” she asked in a more formal manner.

Connie smiled. “Quite well, thank you. I’m excited to be back on Osprey Island.” While she’d made the trip several times from her home office in Bridgeport, Connecticut, most of her work for the Sheffield estate had been done at the desk and computer. A far cry from the early days of her business, when she’d designed suburban backyards, carting, digging and planting all on her own.

“This is my first visit.” Jilly’s buoyant personality bobbed back to the surface. She clasped her hands, the large rock on her ring finger almost clipping her chin. “The estate is just gorgeous. You’re so lucky, Kaylene.”

The pleasure on the other woman’s face turned to restraint. “I go by Kay now.”

Jilly’s lips puckered around an oops. “Me and my big mouth.” She winked at Connie. “We used to be Las Vegas showgirls together, but I’m not supposed to mention that.”

Kay’s expression was pained. “It’s no secret,” she admitted. “But you know Anders.” Her husband. “He doesn’t want to advertise my past.”

Hal squeezed his wife’s waist.

Connie decided she liked the Crosbys, even if they were an odd couple. “Would you like a tour of the maze?” she asked Jilly, who gave a flattering, “Ooh, yes!” at the prospect.

“Not yet,” Kay commanded. “I want to keep it a surprise until the party. The opening of the maze is the event of the island’s social season.” Her mouth twitched. “Not that the island has much of a season, according to my husband.”

“Then I’d better get back to work. Saturday’s coming up fast.” Connie nodded, stepping aside as Kay swept her guests back indoors.

The woman was right, of course. Osprey would never make the list of society hot spots. Most of the small island’s vacation homes were modest cottages, with only a handful of old-money mansions like Peregrine House scattered along the prime oceanfront acreage. The really fashionable people went to Martha’s Vineyard or Newport Beach or the Hamptons.

The Sheffield home was an immense gray-shingled structure of the classic Cape Cod style, perched atop a narrow peninsula on the southeastern side of the island. The panoramic view of waves crashing on the cliffs was spectacular, but had left Connie with limited grounds to develop into the grand garden scheme the owners had requested. She’d designed a formal garden that followed the natural contours, with the octagonal maze fitted into the large open area created by a circular drive. For the upcoming garden party, they would set up a tent on the remaining stretch of flat lawn near the cliffs.

Connie returned to the boxwoods. As soon as she finished, the garden plantings would be complete. She’d have only the final touches to see to, which was no small task. Her clipboard lists were rife with notations on details and reminders that needed to be checked off before Saturday.

While she dug, Connie’s thoughts turned to her daughter. Pippa was ten years old, an intelligent and inquisitive child who had grown too solitary and quiet since her father had passed away. Because Philip’s treatments had frequently kept him from working, he’d acted as Pippa’s primary caregiver during the day while Connie had been at school or work. His death from the leukemia two years ago had come after years of illness, no less difficult for being expected.

Connie was strong. The loss of her first and only true love still hurt badly, but she had finally reached the point where she could manage the sorrow. Pippa’s continuing grief was her main worry.

Her daughter needed a boost. She’d hoped that a week on Osprey Island would at least get the girl outdoors. But so far Pippa had been more alone than ever, absorbed with scribbling in her notebook and rereading the few Trixie Belden mysteries she’d been allowed to pack.

Pippa clung to her precious Trixies as though they were life rafts. Philip had read the stories to her, one or two chapters a night. The tomboy detective—with her eager exclamations of “Gleeps!” and “Jeepers!”—had remained a part of their nightly ritual until the very end.

No wonder Pippa wasn’t ready to let go of that strong link to her father. Connie didn’t expect her to. She only wanted to encourage her child to move ahead with her life.

Connie straightened and pushed back the wiry strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail. The sweater she’d put on that morning against the island chill had been tied around her waist for hours now. With the temperature heating up, the manual exertion had her sweating through her cotton blouse, as well. Determined to finish, she tamped the soil down around the boxwoods and went to find a hose to water them.

The gardener was nowhere to be seen. Graves had resented Connie’s presence from the start, especially after she’d brought in her own off-island workers to do the clearing and demolition of the old garden and its hardscape structures. He’d had it easy for years, doing only a minimum of upkeep to the grounds. Anders Sheffield hadn’t bothered with the family’s vacation estate until he’d married Kay, who’d soon begun to fancy herself becoming a proper New England grand dame. Thus the refurbishing had begun.

The current mistress of the manor didn’t strike Connie as the outdoor type. Kay had never displayed a great appreciation for horticulture, either, but that wasn’t Connie’s concern. Her only responsibility was to turn the grounds into a showplace.

Hose in hand, she turned away from the outdoor tap and paused to take in the panorama of trimmed hedges and lavishly blooming flower beds. Four more days and she could turn in her final bill, then take time off at last to concentrate on Pippa.

Voices drifted from the open windows of Peregrine House. “I don’t know why we have to go to all this trouble to impress your friends,” huffed Anders Sheffield. He was in his fifties, more than a decade older than Kay, with two grown sons from previous marriages. Each successive wife had been taller, blonder and more beautiful than the last. The next one would have to be a six-foot Swedish supermodel.

“What about all the boring business associates of yours that we invited?” Kay responded in a lethally quiet tone.

Ice cubes clinked. Connie checked her watch. Early yet for cocktails.

“I don’t need to impress them,” Anders sneered. “They hope to impress me.”

“Nothing impresses you. All the work I’ve done…” Kay’s voice trailed off as the couple moved out of the room.

All the work I’ve done, Connie said to herself. Her only regret was that her thriving business had taken her away from Pippa, when the girl needed her mother most.

MIDMORNING WAS TOO EARLY for lunch, but Sean had nothing else to do. He got out a can of ravioli and cranked the lid off with the handheld opener he’d found in a kitchen drawer. He took a plastic fork from a box and ate the pasta cold, straight out of the tin. Not cold, he decided after a deliberate culinary evaluation. Room temperature. Almost tasteless, too, but the effortless cleanup was worth the sacrifice.

He threw out the can, the ravioli only half-eaten. His appetite had been lousy for a while now.

The lid of the trash swung shut. So much for lunch. Now what? The day stretched before him, empty and endless, with nothing but his thoughts to fill in the silence.

A long walk, he decided. The physical therapist had said walking would be good for working his leg muscles back into shape, as long as he didn’t overdo it and reopen the wound.

“Not much chance of that,” he muttered, his hand going to the misshapen dent where a .32-caliber slug had torn through his thigh. The island was less than three miles long, from the southernmost ferry dock to Whitlock’s Arrow, a rocky outcropping that shot straight into the frothing surf of the Atlantic. He’d head north. The Potter cottage was halfway up the island, so a trip to Whitlock’s Arrow would be no more than a three-mile jaunt, round trip.

Not an exceptionally long walk, but a good start. By the end of his two weeks, he’d be scaling cliffs.

The sun wasn’t yet at its zenith, but it had grown hotter. Sean knotted a bandanna over his head, slid on a pair of sunglasses and took off down the lane. He followed the road north, moving at a clip that kept the occasional bikers or strollers from breaking his momentum with their cheery hellos.

The view was impressive, even though the drop to the ocean wasn’t as steep on the western side of the island. Waves surged over the rocks; grass and wildflowers nodded in the breeze. He breathed the air—thick with brine and the pungent smell of evergreens—into the bottom of his lungs as he walked along Shore Road, coming to realize how grateful he was to be a long way from the job he’d previously lived for.

Gulls spiraled above the rocks up ahead, dropping down, then alighting in a flapping cacophony. The laughter of a group of picnickers sent Sean off the lane and onto the dirt paths that wound around the heart of the island, leading in no discernible pattern to various woodland cottages.

The hush was immediate. Towering pines closed ranks overhead, their interlaced branches blocking out all but intermittent patches of the vivid blue sky. Even the crash of the surf subsided until it was only background noise. The rhythmic pulse of the island.

Sean slowed, testing his pulse. He was out of shape. Getting blasted at short range by a crazed ex-con tended to have that effect.

A flash of reddish brown at the edge of a small meadow caught his eye. Too slow for a deer. Too tall for a fox.