Heroes Are My Weakness: A Novel

Chapter Four

HE LOOKED AS THOUGH HE’D been blown in by a fierce nor’easter. However, the most alarming part of his sudden appearance wasn’t his thunderous expression but the terrified little girl tucked under his arm, her small mouth open in a chilling silent scream.

“Livia!” Jaycie lurched toward her daughter, lost her balance, and fell awkwardly to the stone floor, taking her crutches with her.

Annie jumped up from the table and sprang toward him, moving automatically, too horrified by what was unfolding to wait for Jaycie to recover. “What do you think you’re doing?”

His dark brows knit in outrage. “What am I doing? She was in the stable!”

“Give her to me!” Annie pulled Livia away from him, but the child was just as frightened of her. Jaycie had managed to push herself into a sitting position. Annie deposited Livia in Jaycie’s lap, then instinctively positioned herself between them and Theo. “Stay where you are,” she warned him.

Hey! I’m the hero, Peter protested. Protecting people is my job.

“She was in my stable!” Theo exclaimed.

His presence filled the cavernous kitchen, taking up all the air. Gulping for a thread of oxygen, Annie planted her feet. “Could you please use your inside voice?”

Jaycie gasped. Theo’s volume didn’t change. “She wasn’t just standing in the doorway. She was in the stall with Dancer. In the stall. That horse is skittish. Do you have any idea what could have happened to her in there? And I told you to stay away. Why are you here?”

She ordered herself not to let him browbeat her—not this time around—but she couldn’t match him in ferocity. “How did she get in the stall?”

His eyes flashed accusation. “How do I know? Maybe it wasn’t latched.”

“In other words, you forgot to latch it.” Her legs had begun to shake. “Maybe you were thinking too hard about taking your horse out in another blizzard?”

She’d managed to deflect his attention from Jaycie and Livia. Unfortunately, all his focus was now on her. He flexed his hands, as if he were getting ready to swing a punch. “What the hell are you doing here?”

The puppets saved her. “Language,” she said, using Dilly’s disapproving voice but, fortunately, remembering to move her lips as she said it.

“Why are you in my house?” He enunciated each syllable in the same unpleasant manner as Leo.

She couldn’t let him know she’d been helping Jaycie. “There’s no WiFi at the cottage, and I need it.”

“Find it somewhere else.”

If you don’t stand up to him, Scamp said, he’ll win all over again.

Annie lifted her chin. “I’d appreciate it if you’d give me the password.”

He stared at her as if she’d crawled out of a sewer. “I told you to stay away.”

“Did you? I don’t remember.” She had to cover up for Jaycie. “Jaycie told me I couldn’t be here,” she lied, “but I ignored her.” She needed to make sure he understood. “I’m not as nice as I used to be.”

Jaycie made a small noise instead of keeping quiet as she should have, which sent Theo’s attention back to her. “You know what our deal is, Jaycie.”

Jaycie curled Livia against her breasts. “I tried to keep Livia out of your way, but . . .”

“This isn’t going to work,” he said flatly. “We’ll have to come up with another arrangement.” And with that lofty proclamation, he turned to leave, as if there was no more to say.

Let him go! Crumpet urged.

But Annie couldn’t, and she dashed in front of him. “What bad movie did you step out of? Look at her!” She pointed her finger toward Jaycie, hoping he wouldn’t notice that it wasn’t altogether steady. “You’re really thinking about throwing a penniless widow and her child out into the snow? Has your heart completely turned to stone? Never mind. Rhetorical question.”

He regarded her with the annoyed expression of someone being buzzed by a pesky mosquito. “What part of this is your business?”

She hated confrontation, but Scamp didn’t, so she channeled her alter ego. “The part of me that’s a compassionate human being. Stop me if ‘compassionate’ is a word you don’t understand.” His imperial blue eyes darkened. “Livia won’t be going into the stable again because you’re going to remember to lock the door. And your housekeeper has been doing a great job, despite her broken foot. You’ve been getting your meals, haven’t you? Look at this kitchen. It’s spotless.” An exaggeration, so she zeroed in on what she suspected was his weak spot. “If you fire Jaycie, Cynthia will hire someone else. Just think. Another stranger invading your privacy. Poking around Harp House. Watching you. Disturbing your work. Even trying to have a conversation with you. Is that what you want?”

Even as she drew a wheezy breath, she read her victory in the slight tightening of his eyelids, the vague downward tilt at the corners of his too-beautiful mouth.

He glanced toward Jaycie, who was still sitting on the floor with Livia cradled in her arms. “I’m going out for a couple of hours,” he said brusquely. “Clean up the turret while I’m gone. Leave the third floor alone.”

He stormed out the door with nearly as much force as when he’d come in.

Livia had her thumb in her mouth. Jaycie kissed both of her cheeks before setting her aside and pulling herself up with her crutches. “I can’t believe you talked to him like that.”

Annie couldn’t believe it either.


THE TURRET HAD TWO ENTRANCES: one from the outside and another from the second floor of the house. Jaycie’s difficulty managing steps meant Annie was the one who had to do the job.

The turret was built on a higher foundation than the rest of Harp House, so its first floor was on the same level as Harp House’s second floor, and the door at the end of the house’s upstairs hallway opened directly into the turret’s main living area. Nothing seemed to have changed since the days when the twins’ grandmother had stayed here. The angular, beige walls served as a backdrop for overstuffed furnishings from the 1980s, pieces that were worn in places and sun-faded from the row of windows facing the ocean.

A worn Persian rug covered most of the wooden parquet floor, and a beige couch with big rolled arms and fringed pillows sat beneath a pair of amateur landscape oil paintings. A set of big wooden floor candlesticks holding tall, chunky white candles with unlit wicks and dusty tops stood beneath a pendulum clock whose hands had stopped at eleven and four. This was the only part of Harp House that didn’t seem to have regressed two hundred years, but it was just as gloomy.

She made her way into the small galley kitchen where the dumbwaiter occupied the end wall. Instead of a pile of dirty dishes, the crockery that had been sent up from the main kitchen with Theo’s meals was clean and sitting in a blue plastic dish drainer. She pulled a bottle of spray cleaner from under the sink, but she didn’t immediately use it. Jaycie only cooked dinner for him. What did the Lord of the Underworld eat the rest of the time? She set down the bottle and opened the closest cupboards.

No eye of newt or toe of frog. No sautéed eyeballs or French-fried fingernails. Instead she found boxes of shredded wheat, Cheerios, and Wheaties. Nothing overly sweet. Nothing fun. But then again, no preserved human body parts.

This might be her only chance to explore, so she continued her snooping. Some uninteresting canned goods. A six-pack of high-end carbonated mineral water, a large bag of premium coffee beans, and a bottle of good Scotch. A few pieces of fruit sat out on the counter, and as she gazed at them, her Wicked Queen voice cackled in her head. Have an apple, my pretty . . .

She turned away and went to the refrigerator, where she found bloodred tomato juice, a block of hard cheese, oily black olives, and unopened containers of some disgusting paté. She shuddered. Not surprising that he liked organ meats.