Heroes are My Weakness (19 page)

“I like you very much.”

He said it with a straight face, but she wasn’t buying. “Bull.”

One of those dark arched eyebrows inched upward. “You don’t believe me?”

“I do not.”

“Okay, then.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You’re kind of a mess. But . . .” His voice turned soft and husky. “You’re a woman, and that’s what I need. It’s been a long time.”

He was playing games. She could see it in his eyes, but that didn’t prevent the hot kick of her senses. The sensation was unwelcome and unsettling, but understandable. He was a dark-haired, blue-eyed sexual fantasy come to life right from her books, and she was a tall, thin, thirty-three-year-old woman with a peculiar face, berserker hair, and a fatal attraction to men who weren’t as noble as they seemed. She fought his black magic with a crucifix of sarcasm. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? I’ll take my clothes off right now.”

He was all inky silk and plush black velvet. “Too cold out here. We need a warm bed.”

“Not really.”
Shut up! Just shut the hell up!
“I’m plenty hot enough. At least that’s what I’ve been told.” She tossed her hair, grabbed her backpack, and swept past him.

This time he let her go.

W
ITH SOMETHING HALFWAY BETWEEN A
grin and a grimace, Theo watched the stable door slam shut. He shouldn’t have baited her, even if she was in on the game. But those big eyes kept sucking him in, making him want to play games. Have a little dirty fun. There was also something about the way she smelled, not of the ruthlessly expensive perfumes he’d grown so used to, but basic bar soap and fruity drugstore shampoo.

Dancer nudged him in the shoulder. “I know, fella. She got me good. And it’s my own fault.” His horse poked him in the jaw in agreement.

Theo put away the tack and filled Dancer’s bucket with fresh water. Last night, when he’d tried to get into the laptop Annie had left at the house, he couldn’t break her password. For now, her secrets were her own, but he couldn’t let that go on much longer.

He needed to stop messing with her. Besides, baiting her the way he’d just done seemed to throw him off balance more than it bothered her. The last thing he wanted on his mind right now was a naked woman, let alone a naked Annie Hewitt.

Having her on Peregrine again was like being shoved back into a nightmare, so why did he look forward to being with her? Maybe because he found a certain bizarre safety in her company. She didn’t possess any of the polished beauty he was always drawn to. Unlike Kenley, Annie had a quirky amusement park of a face. Annie was also smart as a whip, and although she wasn’t needy, she didn’t present herself as being indomitable, either.

Those were her good points. As for the bad . . .

Annie regarded life as a puppet show. She had no experience with soul-crushing nights or despair so thick it clung to everything you touched. Annie might deny it, but she still believed in happy endings. That was the illusion trapping him into wanting to be with her.

He grabbed his jacket. He needed to start thinking about the next scene he couldn’t seem to write instead of the naked body lurking underneath Annie’s heavy sweaters and bulky coat. She wore too damned many clothes. If it were summer, he’d see her in a bathing suit, and his writer’s imagination would be satisfied enough so that he could move on to more productive thoughts. Instead he kept conjuring up images of the skinny teenage body he barely remembered and curiosity about what it looked like now.

Horny bastard.

He gave Dancer one last pat. “You’re luckier than you know, pal. Living without a set of balls makes life a lot less complicated.”

A
NNIE SPENT A FEW HOURS
researching the oldest of the art books she’d found in the bookcase, but none of them turned out to be rare, not the David Hockney volume, or the Niven Garr collection, or Julian Schnabel’s book. When she’d had enough frustration, she helped Jaycie clean.

Jaycie had been quieter than usual all day. She looked tired, and as they moved into Elliott’s office, Annie ordered her to sit down. Jaycie propped her crutches against the arm of the leather couch and sagged into the sofa. “Theo sent a text telling me to make sure you take the Range Rover back to the cottage tonight.”

Annie hadn’t told Jaycie about getting shot at, and she didn’t intend to. Her purpose was to make Jaycie’s life easier, not add to her worries.

Jaycie tucked a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “He also told me not to send up dinner tonight. That’s the third time this week.”

Annie moved the vacuum to the front windows and said carefully, “I haven’t invited him, Jaycie. But Theo does what he wants.”

“He likes you. I don’t understand it. You say terrible things about him.”

Annie tried to explain. “He doesn’t like me. What he likes is giving me a hard time. There’s a big difference.”

“I don’t think so.” Jaycie pulled herself back up and fumbled with her crutches. “I’d better go see what Livia is up to.”

Annie gazed after her in dismay. She was hurting the last person in the world she wanted to upset. Life on an almost deserted island was getting more complicated by the day.

T
HAT EVENING, JUST BEFORE SHE
went to get her coat, Annie saw Livia pull a footstool across the kitchen floor, climb up on it, and push a rolled tube of drawing paper into Annie’s backpack. She intended to investigate as soon as she got to the cottage, but the first thing she saw when she opened the door was Leo sprawled on the couch with a drinking straw tied around his arm like a drug user’s tourniquet. Dilly lounged at the other end, a tiny paper cylinder rolled like a cigarette dangling from her hand, her legs crossed like a man’s, ankle over knee.

Annie yanked off her hat. “Will you leave my puppets
alone
?!”

Theo wandered out from the kitchen, a lavender dish towel tucked in the waistband of his jeans. “Until now, I didn’t know I had such bad impulse control.”

Annie hated the thrum of pleasure she felt at the sight of him. Still, what woman with a heartbeat wouldn’t enjoy feasting her eyes on a man like him, lavender tea towel and all? She punished him for his ridiculous good looks by getting snooty. “Dilly would never smoke. She specializes in preventing substance abuse.”

“Admirable.”

“And you’re supposed to be out of here by the time I get home.”

“Am I?” He looked vague, a matinee idol prone to memory lapses. Hannibal wandered out from the kitchen and draped himself over Theo’s shoe.

She gazed at the cat. “What’s your familiar doing here?”

“I need him while I work.”

“To help cast spells?”

“Writers have this thing for cats. You couldn’t possibly understand.” He stared down his perfectly sculpted nose at her, his expression so deliberately condescending that she knew he was trying to rile her. Instead she rescued her puppets from their newfound vices and took them back to the studio.

The boxes were no longer on the bed but set along the wall underneath the taxi mural, which her research had proven to be worthless, like so much else. She’d begun going through the boxes’ contents, inventorying everything inside, but the only interesting items she’d found so far were the cottage guest book and her Dreambook, the name she’d given the scrapbook she’d kept when she was a young teen. She’d filled its pages with her drawings,
Playbill
s from shows she’d seen, photos of her favorite actresses, and reviews she’d written herself of her own imaginary Broadway triumphs. It was depressing to see how far short her adult life had fallen from the fantasies of that young girl, and she put it away.

The smell of something delicious wafted in from the kitchen. After dragging a comb through her hair and dabbing on a little lip gloss because she was pathetic, she returned to the living room, where she found Theo lounging on the couch in the same place he’d positioned Leo earlier. Even from across the room, she could see he was holding one of her drawings. “I’d forgotten you were such a good artist,” he said.

Seeing him examining something she’d done to entertain herself made her uncomfortable. “I’m not any good. I do it for fun.”

“You’re selling yourself way short.” He looked at the drawing again. “I like this kid. He’s got character.”

It was a sketch she’d done of a studious young boy with straight, dark hair and a cowlick sprouting like a fountain from the crown of his head. Bony ankles showed beneath the cuffs of his jeans, as if he might be going through one of those preteen growth spurts. Square-rimmed glasses sat on a lightly freckled nose. His shirt was buttoned wrong, and he wore an adult watch that was too big for his wrist. Definitely not great art, but he had potential as a future puppet.

Theo tilted the paper, looking at it from another angle. “How old do you think he is?”

“No idea.”

“Twelve, maybe. Struggling with puberty.”

“If you say so.”

As he set the drawing down, she realized he’d poured himself a glass of wine. She began to protest, but he gestured toward the open bottle on the Louis XIV chest. “I brought it down from the house. And you can’t have any until you answer a few questions.”

Something she really didn’t want to do. “What are we having for dinner?”

“
I’m
having meat loaf. And not just any meat loaf. One with a little pancetta tucked inside, two special cheeses, and a glaze with a mystery ingredient that might be Guinness. Interested?”

Even thinking about it made her mouth water. “I might be.”

“Good. But you’re going to have to talk first. That means time’s run out, and you’re up against the wall. Decide right now whether or not you’re going to trust me.”

How was she supposed to do that? He couldn’t have shot at her, not from where he’d been. But that didn’t mean he was trustworthy, not with his history. She took her time settling in the airplane seat armchair and tucked her legs under her. “Too bad the critics hated your book. I can only imagine what those brutal reviews did to your self-confidence.”

He took a sip of wine, as indolent as a playboy relaxing on the Costa del Sol. “Shattered it. Are you sure you didn’t read the book?”

Time to pay him back for his earlier condescension. “I prefer loftier literature.”

“Yes, I saw some of that loftier literature in your bedroom. Definitely intimidating to a hack like me.”

She frowned. “What were you doing in my bedroom?”

“Searching it. More successfully than when I tried to get into your computer. One of these days you’re going to have to give me your password. It’s only fair.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Then I’ll have to keep prying until you level with me.” He pointed toward her with his wine goblet. “By the way, you need some new panties.”

Considering the snooping she’d done in the turret, she had a hard time summoning up as much righteous indignation as she should. “There is nothing wrong with my underpants.”

“Said by a woman who hasn’t gotten laid in a very long time.”

“I have so!”

“I don’t believe you.”

She experienced a contradictory desire to play games and be honest. “For your information, I’ve gotten down and dirty with a long line of loser boyfriends.” Not that long a line, but since he’d burst out laughing, she wasn’t going to clarify.

When he finally sobered, he gave his head a rueful shake. “I see you’re still selling yourself short. Why is that, by the way, and when are you going to grow out of it?”

The idea that he thought more of her than she sometimes thought of herself took her aback.

Trust him,
Scamp urged.

Don’t be a fool,
Dilly said.

Forget about him!
Peter exclaimed.
I shall save you!

Dude,
Leo sneered.
Stop being such a tool. She can save herself.

The reminder of the men who hadn’t stood by her might have been what tipped the scale in Theo’s direction. Even as she told herself that psychopaths had a special talent for earning the trust of their victims, she untucked her legs and told him the truth. “Right before Mariah died, she said she’d left something valuable for me at the cottage. A legacy. And once I found it, I’d have money.”

She had his full attention. He dropped his legs to the floor and sat up straight. “What kind of legacy?”

“I don’t know. She could barely breathe. She slipped into a coma right after and died before morning.”

“And you haven’t found what it is?”

“I’ve researched all the major art pieces, but she’d been selling off her collection for years, and nothing that’s left seems to be worth much. For a few glorious hours, I thought it might be the wine.”

“Writers stayed here. Musicians.”

Annie nodded. “If only she’d been more specific.”

“Mariah had a habit of making things hard for you. I never understood it.”

“Her way of expressing love,” she said without any bitterness. “I was too ordinary for her, too quiet.”

“The good old days,” he said drily.

“I think she was afraid for me because I was so different from her. Beige to her crimson.” Hannibal jumped into her lap, and she rubbed his head. “Mariah was worried I wouldn’t be able to cope with life. She thought criticism was the best way to toughen me up.”

“Twisted,” he said, “but it seems to have worked.”

Before she could ask him what he meant by that, he went on. “Did you look in the attic?”

“What attic?”

“That space above the ceiling?”

“That’s not an attic. It’s a—” But of course it was an attic. “There’s no way to get to it.”

“Sure there is. There’s an access trap in the studio closet.”

She’d seen that trap dozens of times. She’d just never thought about what it led to. She sprang out of the chair, displacing Hannibal. “I’m going to look right now.”

“Hold up. One wrong step, and you’ll fall through the ceiling. I’ll check it tomorrow.”

Not before she looked herself. She dropped back into the chair. “Can I have my wine now? And my meat loaf.”

He made his way toward the wine bottle. “Who else knows about this?”