Heroes are My Weakness (23 page)

In the game of life, the score was clear. Kenley Harp, 4. Annie Hewitt, 0. Not that she was jealous of a dead woman, but she yearned to be fiercely independent, too. And possessing extreme beauty along with a megabrain wouldn’t hurt either.

If it had been anyone other than Theo, Annie would have changed the subject, but their relationship existed so far outside the borders of normalcy that she could say what she wanted. “If your wife had all those qualities, why did she kill herself?”

He took his time answering—nudging Hannibal away from the overturned wastebasket, checking the latch on the window. Finally, he said, “Because she wanted to punish me for making her miserable.”

His indifference fit perfectly with everything she’d once believed about him, but no longer quite rang true. She spoke lightly, “You make me miserable, too, but I’m not going to kill myself.”

“Reassuring. But unlike Kenley, your independence isn’t a false facade.”

She was trying to absorb that when he staged his own attack.

“Enough of this bullshit. Take off your clothes.”

Chapter Thirteen

T
AKE OFF MY CLOTHES
?
You’re delusional.”

Theo stepped around the cat. “Am I? After last night, we don’t seem to have anything to lose. And you’ll be happy to know that your cottage is now fully stocked with condoms. Every room.”

He really was the devil. She looked around her bedroom. “You put condoms in here?”

He inclined his head. “The top drawer of your bedside table. Right next to your teddy bear.”

“That,” she said, “is a Beanie Baby collectible.”

“Apologies.” He was cool, easy, a man with nothing more complicated on his mind than seduction. “I also put them in the studio, the kitchen, the bathroom, and my pockets.” He let his eyes skim over her. “Although . . . Not everything I’m thinking about doing to you requires a condom.”

Her nerve endings sparked, and her imagination took off on a pornographic expedition just as he’d intended. She pulled herself back to reality. “You’re assuming an awful lot.”

“Like you said. There’s plenty of winter left.”

This was a bogus seduction, his pathetic attempt to put a stop to her questioning. Or maybe it wasn’t. She tightened the sash on her robe. “The thing about me is . . . Without some kind of emotional intimacy, I’m not interested.”

“Remind me of what kind of emotional intimacy we had last night . . . because you seemed very interested.”

“That whole episode was an alcohol-induced aberration.” Not completely true, and he didn’t look as though he was buying it, but it was true enough. Hannibal pawed at the trash basket again, threatening to turn it over, and she picked him up. “Knock it off and tell me why you came to Peregrine instead of going someplace more pleasant.”

His silky seductiveness vanished. “Stop prying. It has nothing to do with you.”

“If you want me to take off my clothes, it does.” She actually managed something close to a purr. Was she really trying to use sex as currency? She should be ashamed of herself, but since he wasn’t falling over laughing, she didn’t even flush. “Sex for honesty. That’s my offer.”

“You’re not serious.”

Not one bit.
She stroked the cat between his ears. “I don’t like secrecy. If you want to see me naked, you’ll have to give me something in exchange.”

He glowered at her. “I don’t want to see you naked that badly.”

“Your loss.” Where had she gotten this confidence? This feistiness? Here she stood in all her messy glory, wearing too-big men’s pajamas, a ratty old bathrobe, and—not to forget—possibly pregnant. Yet she was acting as if she’d just sashayed down a Victoria’s Secret runway. “Hold your cat while I take care of our dearly departed friend,” she said.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Suit yourself.” She lifted the cat until they were nose to nose. “Come on, Hannibal. Your daddy has another corpse to get rid of.”

She swept from the room, cat in her arms, satisfaction warming her heart. She hadn’t learned much, but she’d somehow managed to even the playing field. As she set the cat down, she mulled over what he’d said about her independence not being a false facade. What if he were right? What if she weren’t as much of a wreck as she believed herself to be?

It was a new idea, but she’d been so beaten down lately that she automatically rejected it. Except . . . If it really was true, she’d have to readjust her whole view of herself.

“Backbone, Antoinette. That’s what you’re lacking. A sturdy backbone.”

No, Mother,
she thought.
Just because I’m not you doesn’t mean I don’t have plenty of backbone. I had enough to give you everything you needed before you died, didn’t I?

And now she was paying the price.

The kitchen door opened and closed. A moment later he came into the living room. He spoke so softly she almost missed what he said. “I couldn’t write. I had to get away from everyone.”

She turned. Alert.

He stood by the bookcase, his hair a little tousled from his trip outside to dispose of the mouse. “I couldn’t stand all the pity coming from my friends and all the hatred coming from hers.” He gave a brutal laugh. “Her father told me I might as well have pushed those pills down her throat. And maybe he was right. Have you heard enough?”

As he turned away and headed for the studio, she went after him. “The thing is, if you wanted to get away, why didn’t you go someplace you didn’t hate? The French Riviera. The Virgin Islands. God knows, you can afford it. Instead you came here.”

“I love Peregrine. I just don’t love Harp House. Which made it the perfect place to start writing again. No distractions. At least not until you showed up.” He disappeared inside the studio.

That made sense, but something was missing. She followed him through the door. “A couple of weeks ago, I saw you coming out of the stable. It was bitter that day, but you took your sweater off. Why did you do that?”

He studied a scratch on the floor. She didn’t think he was going to answer. But then he did. “Because I wanted to
feel
something.”

One of the classic signs of a psychopath was an inability to experience normal emotions, but the pain etched into the lines of his face testified that he felt everything. An uneasiness came over her. She didn’t want to hear more, so she turned away. “I’ll leave you alone.”

“We were happy at first,” he said. “At least I thought so.”

She looked back at him.

He gazed toward the wall mural, but she had the sense he wasn’t seeing the painted taxi crashing through the storefront window. “After a while, she started calling me more frequently from work. I didn’t think anything of it, but before long, I was getting dozens of messages every day—every hour. Texts, phone calls, e-mails. She wanted to know where I was, what I was doing. If I didn’t reply right away, she’d fly into a rage and accuse me of being with other women. I was never unfaithful to her. Never.”

He finally looked at Annie. “She quit her job. Or maybe she was forced out. I’ve never been sure. Her behavior became more bizarre. She told her family and some of her friends that I was screwing around on her, that I’d threatened her. I finally got her to a shrink. He put her on medication, and things were better for a while until she stopped taking her pills because she said I was trying to poison her. I tried to get her family to help, but she was never at her worst with them, and they refused to believe anything was really wrong. She started attacking me physically—punching and scratching. I was afraid I was going to hurt her, and I moved out.” His hands fisted at his sides. “She killed herself a week later. How’s that for a real-life fairy tale?”

Annie was appalled, yet everything about him rejected pity, so she kept her cool. “Leave it to you to marry a psycho.”

He looked startled. Then his shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, well, takes one to know one, right?”

“So they say.” She glanced over at her puppets resting on the shelf, then back at him. “Remind me what part of this is your fault. Other than marrying her in the first place.”

His tension came back, along with his anger. “Come on, Annie. Don’t be naive. I knew exactly how sick she was. I should never have left her. If I’d stood up to her family and gotten her into a hospital where she belonged, she might still be alive.”

“It’s a little hard to get anyone committed these days who doesn’t want to be.”

“I could have found a way.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Hannibal brushed against her. “I had no idea you were such a sexist.”

His head jerked up. “What are you talking about?”

“Any rational woman married to a man who was abusing her the way your wife was abusing you would have gotten out, gone to a shelter, whatever it took to get away. But because you’re male, you were supposed to stick around? Is that how it is?”

He seemed momentarily confused. “You don’t understand.”

“Don’t I? If you’re determined to go on a guilt trip, do it for a real sin—like not making me dinner tonight.”

The faintest shadow of a smile softened his features. “What is it about you?”

“My taste in pajamas? I have no idea.”

“How about your decency?” Then, more severely, “And stupidity. Promise me you won’t make any more treks on foot. And when you’re driving, keep your eyes open.”

“Wide open.” She finally knew the truth about his marriage only to wish she didn’t. In the process of satisfying her curiosity, she’d allowed one more crack to form in the wall between them, one more brick to fall. “Good night,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Hey, we had a deal. Aren’t you supposed to take off your clothes now?”

“It would only be pity sex,” she said, in a mock confessional. “I won’t insult you like that.”

“Go ahead. Insult me.”

“You’re much too evolved. You’ll thank me later.”

“I seriously doubt that,” he muttered as she left him alone.

S
ATURDAY NIGHT WAS THE VILLAGE
’
S
monthly Lobster Boil, and Jaycie had asked Annie to take her. “It’s not so much for me,” she’d said. “But Livia hardly ever gets to be with other kids. And I’ll be able to introduce you to everyone you haven’t met.”

This was Jaycie’s first night off since she’d broken her foot. Her ready smiles as she baked the chocolate pecan sheet cake for the event indicated how much she was looking forward to it for her own sake, not just for Livia’s.

Jaycie’s run-down Chevy Suburban was parked in the garage. As with so many of the island’s road-weary vehicles, rust patches were eating through the body, hubcaps were missing, and there was no license plate, but it did have a properly attached car seat for Livia, so they were taking it.

Annie buckled Livia in, put the cake on the floor behind the passenger seat, then helped Jaycie get settled. The night was windy, but with no fresh snow and the worst of the icy patches gone, the road wasn’t as treacherous as it had been. Still, Annie was glad to be driving the Suburban instead of her own car.

She’d dressed up in the only skirt she’d brought with her, a slim-fitting dark green pencil skirt with a soft, three-inch wool flounce that brushed her knees. She’d paired the skirt with one of Mariah’s white, long-sleeved ballet tops, her own cranberry tights, and designer boots that laced to just above her ankles. She’d spotted them in the window of a resale shop last winter and bought them for next to nothing. With a good cleaning and fresh laces, they looked almost new.

As they turned out onto the road, Annie addressed Livia over her shoulder. “Scamp is sorry she couldn’t come with you tonight. She has a sore throat.”

Livia glowered and kicked the heels of her sneakers hard against her seat, making the brown velvet cat ears on her headband wobble. She didn’t need words to communicate how she felt about the puppet’s absence. “Maybe I can meet Scamp someday,” Jaycie said. She toyed with her coat zipper. “How’s Theo?”

Even in the dim light, her too-bright smile was painful. Annie hated seeing her like this. As pretty as she was, Jaycie didn’t have a chance with Theo. He was attracted to beautiful, brilliant, and crazy, three qualities neither Jaycie nor Annie possessed. For Annie, that was a bonus, but Jaycie wouldn’t see it the same way.

Annie skirted the truth. “He was in the studio working when I went to bed last night, and I barely saw him this morning.”

But she’d seen enough. The sight of him coming out of her bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, beads of water still glistening on his shoulders, had stopped her in her tracks. Exactly the kind of reaction to him that might have gotten her pregnant.

She swallowed her trepidation. “Someone broke into the cottage again yesterday when no one was there.” Conscious of Livia in the backseat, she didn’t say any more. “I’ll tell you later.”

Jaycie twisted her hands on her lap. “I haven’t been able to get hold of Laura Keen to talk to her about Danny. Maybe she’ll be here tonight.”

They pulled up at the brightly lit town hall. The flag on the flagpole was blowing straight up, and people were streaming inside holding plastic cupcake carriers, six-packs of beer, and liter bottles of soda. Jaycie seemed nervous, and Annie rescued the crutch she dropped as she climbed out of the car.

They battled the wind to get to the door. Livia clutched her pink stuffed kitten, and her thumb crept to her mouth. Maybe it was Annie’s imagination, but a momentary lull seemed to fall over the crowd as the three of them entered. Seconds passed, and then several of the older women came toward them—Barbara Rose, Judy Kester, and boat captain Naomi.

Barbara gave Jaycie a gentle hug, enveloping her in a cloud of floral perfume. “We were afraid you wouldn’t make it tonight.”

“You’ve been out of touch too long,” Naomi said.

Judy squatted down in front of Livia. “Look what a big girl you are,” she squealed, her red hair brighter than ever. “Can I have a hug?”

Definitely not. Livia ducked behind Annie for protection. Annie reached back and rubbed her shoulder. She loved that Livia viewed her as a safe haven.