Heroes are My Weakness (5 page)

The woman was pretty, with a long swish of blond hair parted at one side and a curvy build that even jeans and a baggy sweatshirt couldn’t hide. She leaned awkwardly into a pair of crutches. “Livia!”

There was something familiar about the woman. Annie stepped out of the shadows. “Jaycie?”

The woman wobbled against her crutches. “Annie?”

Jaycie Mills and her father had lived in Moonraker Cottage before Elliott had bought it. Annie hadn’t seen her in years, but you didn’t forget the person who’d once saved your life.

A flash of pink shot past as the little girl—Livia—ran toward the kitchen door, her snow-caked red sneakers flying. Jaycie wobbled on her crutches. “Livia, I didn’t give you permission to go outside.” Again, she spoke in that odd hiss-whisper. “We’ve talked about this before.”

Livia gazed up at her but didn’t say a word.

“Go take your shoes off.”

Livia disappeared, and Jaycie looked at Annie. “I heard you were back on the island, but I didn’t expect to see you up here.”

Annie moved closer but stayed in the shadow of the trees. “I can’t get cell reception at the cottage, and I needed to make some calls.”

As a child, Jaycie had been as blond as Theo Harp and his twin sister were dark, and that hadn’t changed. Although she was no longer the skinny rail she’d been as a young teen, her pretty features had the same softly blurred quality, as if she existed behind a breath-fogged lens. But why was she here?

Jaycie must have read her mind. “I’m the housekeeper here now.”

Annie couldn’t think of a more depressing job. Jaycie made an awkward gesture behind her, toward the kitchen. “Come in.”

Annie couldn’t go in, and she had the perfect excuse. “I’ve been ordered to stay away by Lord Theo.” His name stuck to her lips like rancid oil.

Jaycie had always been more earnest than the rest of them, and she didn’t react to Annie’s jibe. Being the daughter of a drunken lobsterman had accustomed her to adult responsibilities, and even though she’d been the youngest of the four of them—a year younger than Annie and two years younger than the Harp twins—she’d seemed the most mature. “The only time Theo comes downstairs is in the middle of the night,” she said. “He won’t even know you’re here.”

Apparently Jaycie didn’t realize Theo was making more than nighttime excursions downstairs. “I really can’t.”

“Please,” she said. “It would be nice to have a grown-up to talk to for a change.”

Her invitation sounded more like a plea. Annie owed her everything, and as much as she yearned to refuse, walking away would have been wrong. She pulled herself together, then moved quickly across the open expanse of the backyard in case Theo happened to be looking outside. As she mounted the gargoyle-guarded steps, she had to remind herself that his days of terrorizing her were over.

Jaycie stood just inside the open back door. She saw Annie looking at the purple hippopotamus poking incongruously from beneath one of her armpits and the pink teddy bear poking from the other. “They’re my daughter’s.”

Livia was Jaycie’s daughter, then. Not Theo’s.

“The crutches hurt my armpits,” Jaycie explained as she stepped back to let Annie into the mudroom. “Tying these on top for cushioning helps.”

“And makes for interesting conversation.”

Jaycie merely nodded, her gravity at odds with the stuffed animals.

Despite what Jaycie had done for Annie that long-ago summer, they’d never been close. During Annie’s two brief visits to the island after her mother’s divorce, she’d sought Jaycie out, but her rescuer’s reserve had made the encounters awkward.

Annie scuffed her boots on the mat just inside the door. “How did you hurt yourself?”

“I slipped on the ice two weeks ago. Don’t bother with your boots,” she said as Annie bent down to pull them off. “The floor is so dirty, a little snow won’t make any difference.” She moved awkwardly from the mudroom into the kitchen.

Annie took her boots off anyway, only to regret it as the chill from the stone floor seeped through her socks. She coughed and blew her nose. The kitchen was even darker than she remembered, right down to the soot on the fireplace. More pots had piled up in the sink since she’d been here two days earlier, the trash was overflowing, and the floor needed sweeping. The whole place made her uneasy.

Livia had disappeared, and Jaycie collapsed into a straight-back wooden chair at the long table in the center of the kitchen. “I know everything is a mess,” she said, “but since my accident, it’s been hell trying to get my work done.”

There was a tension about her that Annie didn’t remember, not just in her chewed fingernails, but also in her quick, nervous hand movements.

“Your foot looks painful,” Annie said.

“It couldn’t have come at a worse time. A lot of people seem to get around on crutches just fine, but obviously I’m not one of them.” She used her hands to lift her leg and prop her foot on the neighboring chair. “Theo didn’t want me here anyway, and now that things are falling apart . . .” She lifted her hands, then seemed to forget where they were going and dropped them back in her lap. “Have a seat. I’d offer to make coffee, but it’s too much work.”

“I don’t need anything.” As Annie sat catty-corner to Jaycie, Livia came back into the kitchen, hugging a bedraggled pink-and-white-striped kitten. Her coat and shoes were gone, and her purple corduroy slacks were wet at the cuffs. Jaycie noticed but seemed resigned.

Annie smiled at the child. “How old are you, Livia?”

“Four.” Jaycie answered for her daughter. “Livia, the floor is cold. Get your slippers.”

The child disappeared again, still without saying a word.

Annie wanted to ask about Livia, but it felt like prying, so she asked about the kitchen instead. “What happened here? Everything has changed so much.”

“Isn’t it awful? Elliott’s wife, Cynthia, is obsessed with everything British, even though she was born in North Dakota. She got it into her head to turn the place into a nineteenth-century manor house and somehow convinced Elliott to spend a fortune on the renovations, including this kitchen. All that money for something this ugly. And they weren’t even here last summer.”

“It does seem crazy.” Annie propped her heels on the chair rung to get them off the stone floor.

“My friend Lisa— You don’t know her. She was off island that summer. Lisa loves what Cynthia did, but then she doesn’t have to work here.” Jaycie gazed down at her bitten fingernails. “I was so excited when Lisa recommended me to Cynthia for the housekeeper’s job after Will left. Work’s impossible to find here in the winter.” The chair creaked as she tried to find a more comfortable position. “But now that I’ve broken my foot, Theo’s going to fire me.”

Annie set her jaw. “Typical of Theo Harp to kick somebody when she’s helpless.”

“He seems different now. I don’t know.” Her wistful expression reminded Annie of something she’d nearly forgotten—the way Jaycie had watched Theo that summer, as if he were her entire world. “I guess I hoped we’d see each other more. Talk or something.”

So Jaycie still had feelings for him. Annie remembered being jealous of Jaycie’s soft blond prettiness, even though Theo hadn’t paid much attention to her. Annie tried to be tactful. “Maybe you should consider yourself lucky. Theo isn’t exactly a solid romantic prospect.”

“I guess. He’s gotten kind of strange. Nobody comes here, and he hardly ever goes into town. He roams around the house all night, and during the day, he’s either out riding or up in the turret writing. That’s where he stays, not in the main house. Maybe all writers are strange. I go for days without seeing him.”

“I was here two days ago, and I ran into him right away.”

“You did? That must have been when Livia and I were sick, or I would have seen you. We slept most of the day.”

Annie recalled the small face in the second-floor window. Maybe Jaycie had slept, but Livia had roamed. “Theo’s living in the turret where his grandmother used to stay?”

Jaycie nodded and adjusted her foot on the chair. “It has its own kitchen. Before I broke my foot, I kept it stocked. Now I can’t maneuver the steps so I have to send everything up in the dumbwaiter.”

Annie remembered that dumbwaiter all too well. Theo had stuffed her inside it one day and stuck her between the floors. She glanced at the round face of the old clock on the wall. How much longer before she could leave?

Jaycie pulled a cell from her pocket—another high-tech smartphone—and set it on the table. “He texts me when he needs something, but since I broke my foot, I can’t do much. He didn’t want me here in the first place, but Cynthia insisted. Now I’ve given him an excuse to get rid of me.”

Annie would have liked to say something hopeful, but Jaycie had to know enough about Theo to realize he’d do exactly what he wanted.

Jaycie picked at a glittery My Little Pony sticker that had adhered to the rough-hewn servant’s table. “Livia is everything to me. All I have left.” She didn’t say it in a self-pitying way, more as a statement of fact. “If I lose this job, there aren’t any others.” She rose awkwardly from the table. “Sorry to dump on you. I spend too much time with only a four-year-old to talk to.”

A four-year-old who didn’t seem to speak.

Jaycie hobbled toward a very large, old-fashioned icebox. “I need to get dinner started.”

Annie rose. “Let me help.” Despite her fatigue, it would feel good to do something for someone else.

“No, it’s okay.” She pulled at the latch on the icebox and opened the door, revealing the interior of a very modern refrigerator. She stared at the contents. “While I was growing up, all I wanted to do was get away. Then I married a lobsterman and got stuck here.”

“Anybody I knew?”

“He was older, so probably not. Ned Grayson. The best-looking man on the island. For a while, that made me forget about how much I hated it here.” She snatched a bowl covered in plastic wrap from the refrigerator. “He died last summer.”

“I’m sorry.”

She gave a rueful laugh. “Don’t be. Turned out, he had a mean temper and big fists that he wasn’t afraid of using. Mainly on me.”

“Oh, Jaycie . . .” Her air of vulnerability made it doubly obscene to imagine her being abused.

Jaycie tucked the bowl under her free arm, wedging it tightly against her body. “It’s ironic. I thought my broken bones were behind me when he died.” She pushed the refrigerator door closed with her hip only to lose her balance at the last minute. Her crutches fell to the floor, along with the bowl. It shattered, sending glass and chili flying.

“Shit!”
Harsh, angry tears clouded her eyes. Chili splattered the stone floor, the cupboard, her jeans and sneakers. Shards of glass were everywhere.

Annie rushed to her side. “Get cleaned up. I’ll take care of this.”

Jaycie sagged against the icebox and stared at the mess. “I can’t depend on other people. I have to take care of myself.”

“Not right now, you don’t.” Annie spoke as firmly as she could. “Tell me where I can find a bucket.”

She stayed for the rest of the afternoon. No matter how tired she was, she wouldn’t leave Jaycie like this. She cleaned up the chili mess and managed the dishes in the sink, doing her best to muffle her cough when Jaycie was nearby. All the while, she kept an eye out for Theo Harp. Knowing he was so close unnerved her, but she wouldn’t let Jaycie see that. Before she left, she did something she’d never imagined. She fixed his dinner.

She gazed into the bowl of doctored tomato soup, leftover hamburger, instant white rice, and frozen corn. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen any rat poison lying around,” she said as Jaycie hobbled across the kitchen. “Never mind. This meal is already disgusting enough.”

“He won’t notice. He doesn’t care about food.”

All he cared about was hurting people.

She carried the dinner tray down the back hallway. As she placed it in the dumbwaiter, she remembered the terror of being trapped inside that tight enclosure. Everything had been pitch-black. She was squeezed into a ball, her knees squashed to her chest. Theo had been sentenced to spend two days in his room for that, and only Annie had noticed that Regan, his twin, had sneaked in to keep him company.

Regan had been as sweet and shy as Theo was mean and selfish. But unless Regan was playing her oboe or writing poetry in her purple notebook, brother and sister had been inseparable. Annie suspected she and Regan would have become real friends if Theo hadn’t made sure that didn’t happen.

Jaycie’s eyes filled when it came time for Annie to leave. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

Annie hid her fatigue. “You already did. Eighteen years ago.” She hesitated, knowing what she should do, not wanting to, but finally making the only choice she could live with. “I’ll come back tomorrow for a little bit to help out.”

Jaycie’s eyes flew open. “You don’t have to do that!”

“It’ll be good for me,” she lied. “Keep me from brooding.” A new thought came to her. “Does the house have WiFi?” When Jaycie nodded, she managed a smile. “Perfect. I’ll bring my laptop. You’ll be helping me. There’s some research I have to do.”

Jaycie grabbed a tissue and pressed it to her eyes. “Thank you. It means a lot.”

Jaycie disappeared to find Livia, and Annie went to get her coat. Despite her exhaustion, she was glad to have done something to help repay her old debt. She began to pull on her gloves, then hesitated. She couldn’t stop thinking about that dumbwaiter.

Go on,
Scamp whispered.
You know you want to.

Don’t you think that’s a little immature?
Dilly replied.

Definitely,
Scamp said.

Annie remembered her younger self, so desperate to make Theo like her. She crept through the kitchen. Moving as quietly as she could, she stepped into the back hallway and down the narrow passage to the end. She stared at the door of the dumbwaiter. Edgar Allan Poe had a monopoly on “Nevermore,” and “Rosebud” was hardly terrifying. “You will die in seven days” seemed too specific. But she’d watched a lot of television when she was sick, including
Apocalypse Now
. . .