Heroes Are My Weakness(10)

I’ll pay your bills, Peter declared. I’ll save you.

A noise distracted her. She looked around and saw a child crouched under the low branches of a big red spruce. She appeared to be three or four years old, too young to be outside by herself. She wore only a puffy pink jacket and purple corduroy pants—no mittens, no boots, no hat pulled down over her stick-straight light brown hair.

Annie remembered the face in the window. This must be Theo’s child.

The idea of Theo as a father horrified her. The poor little girl. She wasn’t dressed warmly enough, and she didn’t seem to be supervised. Considering what Annie knew of Theo’s past, those might be the least of his parenting sins.

The child realized Annie had seen her and backed into the branches. Annie crouched down. “Hey there. I didn’t mean to scare you. I was making some phone calls.”

The child simply stared at her, but Annie had encountered more than her share of shy little ones. “I’m Annie. Antoinette, really, but no one calls me that. Who are you?”

The child didn’t answer.

“Are you a snow fairy? Or maybe a snow bunny?”

Still no response.

“I’ll bet you’re a squirrel. But I don’t see any nuts around. Maybe you’re a squirrel who eats cookies?”

Usually even the shyest child responded to this kind of silliness, but the little girl didn’t react. She wasn’t deaf—she’d turned her head at a birdcall—but as Annie studied those big, watchful eyes, she knew something wasn’t right.

“Livia . . .” It was a woman’s voice, muffled, as if she didn’t want anyone inside the house to hear. “Livia, where are you? Come here right now.”

Annie’s curiosity got the better of her, and she edged around to the front of the gazebo.

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.