Heroes Are My Weakness

  “I admire you so much.” Jaycie got a faraway look in her eyes. “I’ve been locked up as tight as Livia—feeling sorry for myself, fantasizing about Theo instead of getting on with my life.”

  Annie knew all about that.

  “If you hadn’t come here . . . ” Jaycie shook her head, as if she were getting rid of cobwebs. “I’m not just thinking about Livia but about the way you’ve taken control of your life. I want a fresh start, and I’m finally going to do something about it.”

  Annie knew all about that, too.

  “What are you going to do about the cottage?” Jaycie said.

  Annie didn’t want to tell her what the grandmothers had done or admit that she’d fallen in love with Theo. “I’m moving out right away and leaving the island on the car ferry next week.” She hesitated. “Things with Theo have gotten . . . too complicated. I’ve had to end it.”

  “Oh, Annie, I’m sorry.” Jaycie displayed no schadenfreude, only genuine concern. She’d meant what she’d said about Theo being a fantasy and not her reality. “I was hoping you wouldn’t leave so soon. You know how much I’m going to miss you.”

  Annie gave her an impulsive hug. “Me, too.”

  Jaycie was stoic when Annie told her she needed to find someplace to stay until the car ferry arrived. “I can’t keep running into Theo at the cottage. I . . . need some private space.”

  She intended to talk to Barbara about finding someplace temporary. Annie could ask for a golden unicorn, and the grandmothers would come up with a way to find it for her. Anything to buy her silence.

  But as it turned out, Annie didn’t need Barbara. With a single phone call, Jaycie found Annie a home.

  LES CHILDERS’S LOBSTER BOAT, THE Lucky Charm, was temporarily moored at the fish house dock while its owner waited for a crucial engine part to arrive on the same ferry that would take Annie back to the mainland next week. Les took good care of the Lucky Charm, but it still smelled of bait, rope, and diesel fuel. Annie didn’t care. The boat had a small galley with a microwave and even a tiny shower. The cabin was dry, a heater provided a little warmth, and, most important, she wouldn’t have to see Theo. In case she hadn’t been clear enough yesterday, she’d left a note for him at the cottage.

  Dear Theo,

  I’ve moved into town for a few days to, among other things, adjust to the depressing (boo hoo) prospect of no longer having mind-blowing sex with you. I’m sure you can find me if you try hard enough, but I have stuff to do, and I’m asking you to leave me the hell alone. Be a pal, okay? I’ll handle the Witches of Peregrine Island, so stay away from them.

  A.

  The note struck exactly the breezy tone she wanted. There was nothing maudlin in it, nothing to make him suspect how long it had taken her to compose, and absolutely nothing to signal how deeply she’d fallen in love with him. She would e-mail him her final kiss-off from the city. You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve met the most amazing man. Blah . . . Blah . . . Blah . . . Curtain down. No encore.

  Between her emotional turmoil, the noisy squeak of ropes against the moorings, and the unfamiliar rocking of the lobster boat, she had trouble falling asleep. She wished she’d brought her puppets with her instead of leaving them with Jaycie at Harp House for safekeeping. Knowing they were nearby would have been comforting.

  Her blankets slipped off during the night, and she awakened at dawn shivering. She rolled out of the berth and pushed her feet into her sneakers. After she’d wrapped Mariah’s red wool cloak around her, she climbed up to the pilothouse and walked out onto the deck.

  Peach and lavender ribbons streamed in the sky above a pearl gray sea. Waves slapped the boat’s hull, and wind caught her cloak, trying to turn it into wings. She spotted something in the stern that hadn’t been there the night before. A yellow plastic picnic basket. Holding her hair away from her face, she went to investigate.

  The basket held a jug of orange juice, two hard-boiled eggs, a slab of still-warm cinnamon coffee cake, and an old-fashioned red thermos. She knew a bribe when she saw one. The grandmothers were trying to buy her silence with food.

  She unscrewed the thermos, releasing a cloud of steam. The freshly brewed coffee was strong and delicious. Sipping it made her miss Hannibal. She’d gotten used to the cat cozying up to her as she drank her morning coffee. Gotten used to Theo—

  Stop it!

  She stayed in the stern, watching the fishermen in their orange and yellow gear set out on their day’s run. The seaweed that grew from the dock’s pylons floated in the water like a mermaid’s hair. A pair of eider ducks swam toward the wharf. The sky grew lighter, a brilliant crystal blue, and the island she’d resented so much became beautiful.

  THE LUCKY CHARM WAS MOORED at the fish house dock, but Theo spotted Annie standing at the very end of the ferry wharf dressed in her red cloak and gazing out at the open water like a sea captain’s widow waiting for her dead husband to return. He’d left her alone all day yesterday, and that was long enough.

  She could have stayed at Harp House. Or at the cottage, for that matter—the island witches hadn’t been within a mile of it. But, no. Beneath all of Annie’s goodness lay an evil streak. She could couch it any way she wanted, but she’d moved onto Les Childers’s lobster boat to get away from him!

  He stalked down the wharf. A crazy part of him enjoyed his anger. For the first time in his life, he could be totally pissed off at a woman and know she wouldn’t collapse into a sniveling heap. Sure, he’d been relieved that things weren’t going to get complicated between them, but that had been an instinctive reaction, not reality. Their relationship hadn’t expired, as she’d put it. That kind of closeness didn’t simply go away. She’d made it clear this wasn’t some deep love affair, so what was the big deal? He got the fact that she wanted a family—more power to her—but what did that have to do with them? Sooner or later they’d have to keep their clothes on, but since she wasn’t going to find the father of her kids here on this island, she had no reason to end it now, not when it meant so much to both of them.

  Or maybe it was just him. He’d always been guarded, but that had gone away with Annie. He never knew what the hell she was going to say or do, only that she was tough instead of fragile—that he didn’t have to watch what he said or pretend to be someone he wasn’t. When he was with her, he felt as if . . . he’d found himself.

  She wasn’t wearing a hat, and her curls ran amok as usual. He went badass. “Enjoying your new house?”

  She hadn’t heard him approach, and she jumped. Good. Then she frowned, not happy to see him, and that hurt in a way that made him want to hurt her back. “How’s life on a lobster boat,” he said with something he hoped looked like a sneer. “Cozy as hell, I’ll bet.”

  “The views are good.”

  He wouldn’t let her flip him off like that. “Everybody on the island knows that you’re living on Les’s boat. It’s like you’re handing the cottage over to those women free and clear. I’ll bet they’re getting bruises from giving each other high fives.”

  Her small nose shot up in the air. “If you came here to yell at me, go away. As a matter of fact, even if you didn’t come here to yell at me, go away. I told you I had things to do, and I’m not going to be distracted by your”—she flicked her hand at him in a dismissive gesture—“ridiculous gorgeousness. Do you ever look as though you haven’t just stepped off the cover of a paperback novel?”

  He had no idea what she was talking about, only that it sounded like an insult. He fought the urge to tunnel his hands into her tangle of hair. “How’s the search for the love of your life going?” He gave her more of his makeshift sneer.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He wanted to pick her up and carry her back to the cottage where she belonged. Where they both belonged. “The reason you dumped me, remember? So you’d be free to find somebody to marry. Les Childers is single. So what if he’s seventy? His boat’s paid for. Why don’t you call him up?”


  She sighed, as if he were nothing more than an irritant. “Oh, Theo . . . Stop being a jerk.”

  He was being a jerk, but he couldn’t make himself back off. “I guess my definition of friendship is different from yours. In my life, friends don’t just pick up one day and call it quits.”

  She buried her hands inside the cloak. “Friends who make the mistake of sleeping together do.”

  It hadn’t been a mistake. Not for him, anyway. He stuck a thumb in the pocket of his jeans. “You’re making it too complicated.”

  She glanced out at the sea and then back at him. “I’ve been trying to do this nicely . . .”

  “Then stop!” he exclaimed. “Make me understand why, with no warning, you decided to take off. I want to hear this. Go ahead. Do it ugly.”

  And she did. In a way he should have expected. By telling the truth.

  “Theo, I wish you the best, but— I need to fall in love . . . and I can’t do that with you.”

  Why the hell not? For one horrified moment, he thought he’d spoken the words aloud.

  Her gaze was steady. Strong. She touched his arm and said with a kindness that made him want to grind his teeth, “You have too much baggage.”

  He shouldn’t have made her say it. He should have known—did know. He managed a brusque nod. “Got it.”

  That was all he needed to hear. The truth.

  He left her on the wharf. When he got back to the house, he saddled Dancer and pushed him hard. Afterward he spent a long time in the stable rubbing him down, grooming him, concentrating on brushing out briars and picking hooves. For so long, he’d felt as if he’d been frozen inside, but Annie had changed that. She’d been his lover, his cheerleader, and his shrink. She’d forced him to look at his inability to make Kenley happy in a new way—at Regan who’d killed herself to set him free. Somehow, Annie had managed to breach the borders of his darkness.

  His hands stilled on Dancer’s withers. He stood there thinking, replaying the last six weeks. His reverie was broken by the sound of Livia’s voice.

  “Theo!”

  He came out of the stable. Livia broke away from her mother and ran to him. As she slammed into his legs, he experienced an overwhelming urge to pick her up and hug her. So he did.

  She wasn’t having it. Planting both her hands against his chest, she pushed back and glared up at him. “The fairy house didn’t change!”

  Finally, a mistake he could fix. “Because I have a treasure to show you first.”

  “Treasure?”

  He’d spoken without thinking, but he knew right away what it had to be. “Beach jewels.”

  “Jewels?” Livia breathed wonder into the word.

  “Stay right here.” He headed upstairs to his old bedroom.

  The oversize jar that held Regan’s collection of beach glass was stored at the back of his closet, shoved there years ago because, like so much else in the house, it triggered bad memories. But as he pulled it out and carried it downstairs, the edges of his dark mood lifted for the first time all day. The sweet, generous side of Regan’s nature would have loved passing on her precious beach stones to Livia, one little girl to another.

  As he descended the stairs that his sister had raced up and down a dozen times a day, something brushed past him. Something warm. Invisible. He stopped where he was and shut his eyes, the glass jar cool in his hands, his sister’s face vivid in his mind.

  Regan smiling at him. A smile that said Be happy.

  JAYCIE LEFT LIVIA WITH THEO, and as the two of them added the beach glass to the fairy house, they talked, although it was mainly Livia who did the talking. All the words she’d been storing up in her head seemed to need to come out at once. He was amazed at how observant she was and how much she understood.

  “I told you my free secret.” She pressed the final piece of glass into the house’s new mossy roof. “Now it’s your turn to tell me.”

  BY NIGHTFALL, HE WAS BACK in his turret, a lonely prince waiting for a princess to climb the tower and free him. “You have too much baggage.”

  He tried to write but found himself staring across the room and thinking about Annie instead. He didn’t want to enter the twisted pathways of Quentin Pierce’s mind, and he couldn’t deny the truth any longer. Whatever nomadic ghouls fueled his imagination had fled, taking his career with them.

  He closed the computer file and leaned back in his desk chair. His gaze fell on the drawing he’d swiped from her. The studious kid with ragged hair and a freckled nose.

  Theo’s hands moved to the keyboard. Opened a new file. For a moment, he simply sat there, and then he began typing, the words flowing from him, words that had been trapped inside him for too long.

  Diggity Swift lived in a big apartment that looked down over Central Park. Diggity had allergies, so if too much pollen was in the air and he forgot his inhaler, he started to wheeze and then Fran, who took care of him while his parents worked, made him leave the park. He already felt like a freak. He was the smallest kid in seventh grade. Why did he have to have allergies, too?

  Fran said it was better to be smart than strong, but Diggity didn’t believe that was true. He thought it was a lot better being strong.

  One day after Fran made him come back home from the park, a strange thing happened. He went to his room to play his favorite video game, but as he touched the controller, an electric shock traveled up his arm and down through his chest into his legs, and the next thing he knew, everything went dark . . .

  Theo wrote on into the night.

  EACH MORNING WHEN ANNIE AWAKENED, she found another burnt offering on the aft deck of the Lucky Charm. The muffins, egg casserole, and homemade granola weren’t really charred, but they were burnt offerings nonetheless—rooted in guilt, petitioning for her silence, and—in the case of freshly squeezed orange juice—signaling sacrifice.

  Not everything was edible. A bottle of scented hand lotion appeared, then a zippered Peregrine Island sweatshirt with the price tag from Tildy’s gift store still attached. Occasionally, she caught a glimpse of the giver—Naomi delivering a bowl of chowder, Mrs. Nelson leaving the scented lotion. Even Marie left a pan of lemon bars.

  With a decent phone signal available, Annie had begun contacting her former dog-walking clients. She talked to her old boss at Coffee, Coffee about getting her job back and about crashing on the couch in the back room until her first house-sitting job started. But she still had too many hours to fill, and the aching sadness wouldn’t ease.

  Theo was furious with her, and he hadn’t come back. The pain of losing him was a circling vulture that refused to fly away. Pain, she reminded herself, that only she was feeling.

  She thought a lot about Niven Garr, but she could only handle so much rejection at a time. She wanted to locate his family, but she’d wait until she was off the island and the worst of her misery over Theo had eased.

  A couple of the younger women stopped by the boat, curious about why she’d left the cottage, so Annie knew the news about the transfer of ownership hadn’t leaked. She muttered something about needing to be close to town, and they seemed satisfied.

  Annie’s fourth morning on the boat, Lisa hopped on board and grabbed her in a hug. Since she’d always been cool, Annie couldn’t imagine where this sudden enthusiasm had come from until Lisa finally let her go. “I can’t believe you’ve made Livia talk. I saw her today. It’s like a miracle.”

  “It was a group effort,” Annie said, only to have Lisa hug her again and tell her she’d changed Jaycie’s life.

  Lisa wasn’t her only visitor. Annie was in the cabin washing some underwear when she heard footsteps on the deck. “Annie?”

  It was Barbara. Annie draped her wet bra over the fire extinguisher to dry, picked up her coat, and went on deck.

  Barbara stood in the pilothouse, holding a loaf of homemade sweet bread in plastic wrap. Her big blond bouffant hairdo had collapsed, and all that remained of her customary heavy makeup was a bloodred slash of lipstick that had b
led into the lines around her mouth. She set the bread next to the sonar equipment. “It’s been six days. You haven’t called the police. Not you or Theo. You haven’t told anyone.”

  “Not yet,” Annie said.

  “We’re trying to fix what we did. I want you to know that.” It was more a plea than a statement.

  “Bully for you.”

  Barbara tugged at a toggle button on her coat. “Naomi and I went to the mainland on Thursday to talk to a lawyer. He’s drawing up the paperwork to make the cottage yours forever.” She looked past Annie toward the fish house, no longer able to maintain eye contact. “All we ask is for you not to tell anyone.”

  Annie ordered herself to dig in. “You don’t have the right to ask for anything.”

  “I know, but . . .” Her eyes were bloodshot. “Most of us were born here. We’ve had our disagreements over the years, and not everybody likes every one of us, but . . . People respect us. That’s a precious thing.”

  “Not so precious that you weren’t willing to throw it away. And now you want Theo and me to stay quiet so I can get my cottage back.”

  The smeared red lipstick made her complexion ashen. “No. We’ll make sure you get it back, regardless. We’re just asking you to . . .”

  “To behave better than you did.”

  Barbara’s shoulders sagged. “That’s right. Better than all of us did.”

  Annie could only be a hard-ass for so long. She’d made her decision the moment Lisa’s two little red-haired girls had raced into their grandmother’s living room and flung themselves at her. “Call off your lawyer,” she said. “The cottage is yours.”

  Barbara gaped at her. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I mean it.” She couldn’t come back here. If she held on to the cottage, it would only be for spite. “The cottage belongs to the island. I don’t. It’s yours. Free and clear. Do what you want with it.”

  “But . . .”