Heroes Are My Weakness: A Novel

THE NEXT THING HE KNEW, she was cursing like crazy.

“You bastard! Son of a bitch!” She shoved him off her, yanking up her jeans and coming to her feet at the same time. “Oh, God, I hate myself. I hate you!” She was doing some kind of weird demon dance as she jerked on her zipper. Flapping her elbows. Stomping the floor. He got up, zipped his own jeans as her tirade continued. “I’m an idiot! Somebody should put me down. I swear to God! Just like a dumb, sick animal. The stupidest, dumbest . . .”

He ordered himself not to say a word.

She turned on him—red-faced and furious. “I’m not this easy! I’m not!”

“Kind of easy,” he said before he could stop himself.

She grabbed a pillow from the couch and swung it at him. He was used to a woman’s rages, and this was so small-time, he didn’t bother to duck.

She stomped the floor again. Beyond pissed, her arms waving, curls hopping. “I know exactly what’s going to happen next! The second I turn my back, I’ll be facedown in the marsh. Or locked inside the dumbwaiter. Or drowning in that cave!” She gasped for air. “I don’t trust you! I don’t like you. And now you— You—”

“Had the best time I’ve had in longer than I can remember?” He’d never been a wiseass, but there was something about Annie that drew out his worst. Or maybe it was his best.

She glared at him. “You came inside me!”

His amusement vanished. He’d never been careless, and now he was the one who felt stupid. It put him on the defensive. “I wasn’t exactly planning on this happening.”

“You should have! Even now, one of your little swimmers could be doing a backstroke right to my—egg!”

The way she said it was funnier than hell, but he had no desire to laugh. He rubbed the back of his fist over his jaw. “You’re . . . on the pill, right?”

“It’s a little late to ask!” She turned and stomped away. “And, no, I’m not!”

An icy vise clamped around his rib cage. He could barely move. He heard her in the bedroom, and then in the bathroom. He needed to clean up himself, but all he could think about was what he’d done and the terrible price he might pay for what he could only think of as the most unsatisfying sexual encounter of his life.

When she finally emerged, she was wearing her navy robe, Santa pajamas, and a pair of sweat socks. Her face was scrubbed clean, her hair pulled up with a tie that left damp tendrils corkscrewing here and there. Mercifully, she seemed calmer. “I had pneumonia,” she said. “My pill schedule got screwed up.”

A cold trickle slid down his spine. “When did you have your last period?”

She sneered at him. “What are you? My gynecologist? Go to hell.”

“Annie . . .”

She spun on him. “Look. I know this is as much my fault as yours, but right now I’m too furious to take my share of the responsibility.”

“Damn right, it’s your fault, too! You and your kissing game.”

“Which you flunked.”

“Of course I flunked it. Do you think I’m made of ice?”

“You! What about me? And since when do you think it’s all right to have sex without a condom?”

“I don’t, damn it. But I’m not used to carrying them around in my pocket.”

“You should! Look at you. You shouldn’t go anywhere without a dozen of them!” She shook her head, closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she was mercifully calmer. “Just go,” she said. “I can’t stand looking at you a moment longer.”

His wife had delivered nearly those exact words a dozen times, but while Kenley had looked feral, Annie merely looked tired.

“I can’t go, Annie,” he said carefully. “I thought you’d have figured that out by now.”

“Of course you can. And that’s what you’re going to do. Now.”

“Do you really think I’ll leave you here alone at night after somebody tried to shoot you?”

She stared at him. He waited for her to start the foot stomping again or throw another pillow, but she didn’t. “I don’t want you here.”

“I know.”

She crossed her arms and curled her hands around her elbows. “Do what you like. I’m too upset to argue. And sleep in the studio because I’m not sharing. Understand?” A moment later she was gone, her bedroom door shut firmly behind her.

He used the bathroom, and when he came out, faced the dinner mess. Since he’d done the cooking, he shouldn’t have to clean up, but he didn’t mind. Unlike real life, cleaning a kitchen was a task with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Just like a book.


ANNIE BARELY AVOIDED TRIPPING OVER Hannibal as she got out of bed in the morning. In addition to everything else, it seemed she’d acquired a part-time cat. She’d fallen asleep last night counting and recounting the days since her last period. She should be safe, but “should” was far from a guarantee. For all she knew, she could right now be incubating the devil’s spawn. And if that happened . . . She couldn’t bear thinking about it.

She’d thought she’d freed herself from the power these handsome, brooding fake heroes had over her. But no. All Theo had to do was show a little interest, and there she was, eyes closed, legs spread, like the dumbest heroine ever written. It was so stupid. However hopeless the quest might be, she wanted a forever love. She wanted children and the conventional family life she’d never known, but she’d never find that with these damaged, aloof men. Yet here she was, slipping right back into her old pattern, except so much worse. She’d been caught in Theo Harp’s web—not because he’d diabolically cast it around her, but because she’d run into it with her arms outstretched.

She had to get to the attic before he did, and as soon as she heard him in the bathroom, she pulled the stepladder from the storage closet and carried it into the studio. He’d already made the bed, and her puppets were still arranged on the shelf under the window. Once she had the ladder into position in the closet, she climbed up and pushed open the trap. She gingerly poked her head into the cold attic space, then shone around the flashlight she’d brought with her, but she could see only construction beams and insulation.

One more dead end.

She heard the water stop in the bathroom and headed for the kitchen to make a quick bowl of cereal, then carried it back to her bedroom to eat. She didn’t like hiding out in her own home, but she couldn’t bear the idea of seeing him right now.

Only after he left the cottage did she remember the paper Livia had put in her backpack. She removed the roll and carried it over to the table, where she smoothed it out. Livia had used her black marker to draw a trio of stick figures, two large and one very small. The smallest figure, drawn off to the side of the page, had ruler-straight hair. Beneath it, Livia had printed her own name in crooked capital letters. The other two figures weren’t labeled. One lay prone with a red flower shirt decoration, the other stood with arms outstretched. At the bottom of the paper, Livia had laboriously printed out crooked letters: