Heroes Are My Weakness(18)

He looped the scarf around his neck, holding the ends in his fists. Her tongue was frozen. Once again, she had to call on Scamp for courage. “You’re the one who’s not supposed to be here.” She hoped he didn’t hear the squeak in her normally reliable voice. “How am I supposed to snoop if you don’t leave when you say you’re going to?”

“You’re kidding, right?” He pulled on the ends of the scarf.

“It’s— It’s really your fault.” She needed to come up with something quickly. “I wouldn’t have come in here if you’d given me your password when I asked.”

“Fortunately, I’m not following you.”

“A lot of people tape it to their computers.” She gripped her hands behind her back.

“I don’t.”

Hold your ground, Scamp ordered. Make him understand he’s dealing with a woman now, not a grossly insecure fifteen-year-old.

She’d aced her improv classes, and she gave it her best. “Don’t you think that’s a little moronic?”

“Moronic?”

“Bad word choice,” she said hastily. “But . . . Say you forget the password. Do you really want to have to call your satellite company?” She coughed and sucked in some air. “You know what that experience is like. You’ll be on the phone for hours listening to a recording telling you how important your call is. Or that their menu has changed, and you’re supposed to listen carefully. I mean, isn’t changing the menu their problem, not yours? After a few minutes of that, I usually feel like killing myself. Do you really want to go through that kind of hell when a simple Post-it note solves the whole problem?”

“Or a simple e-mail,” he said with the sarcasm her ramble deserved. “Dirigo.”

“What?”

Dropping his hands from the scarf, he wandered to the nearest window, where a telescope was pointed toward the ocean. “You convinced me. The password is Dirigo.”

“What kind of password is that?”

“The state motto of Maine. It means ‘I direct.’ It also means you’ve lost your excuse to snoop.”

Nothing much she could say to that. She edged backward toward the door.

He lifted the telescope from its tripod and carried it to another window. “Do you really think I don’t know you’re doing Jaycie’s work for her?”

She should have realized he’d figure that out. “What do you care, as long as the work gets done?”

“Because I don’t want you around.”

“Got it. You’d rather fire Jaycie.”

“I don’t need anybody here.”

“Sure you do. Who’s going to answer the door while you’re asleep in your casket?”

He ignored her, peering through the eyepiece of the telescope instead and adjusting it. She felt a prickling at the back of her neck. The window he’d moved to was the one that looked down on the cottage.

That’s what you get for challenging a scoundrel, Leo sneered.

“I have a new telescope,” he said. “When the light’s just right, it’s amazing how much I can see.” He shifted the telescope ever so slightly. “I hope that furniture you moved wasn’t too heavy for you.”

The chill traveled all the way to her toes.

“Don’t forget to change the sheets in my bedroom,” he said without turning. “There’s nothing better than the feel of clean sheets against bare skin.”

She wouldn’t let him see how much he still frightened her. She made herself turn away slowly and head for the stairs. She had every reason to tell Jaycie she couldn’t do this anymore. Every reason except an absolute certainty that she couldn’t live with herself if she let her fear of Theo Harp force her into abandoning the girl who’d once saved her life.

She worked as quickly as she could. She dusted the living room furniture, vacuumed the rug, scoured the kitchen, and then, her stomach pitching with foreboding, she moved to his bedroom. She found clean linens, but stripping the old sheets from his bed was too personal, too intimate. She set her jaw and did it anyway.

As she reached for a dust rag, she heard the attic door close above her followed by the click of a lock and the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. She told herself not to turn around, but she did anyway.

He stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the doorjamb. His gaze moved from her untidy hair to her breasts—barely visible beneath her heavy sweater—then glided over her hips, lingered, moved on. There was something calculating about his inspection. Something invasive and disturbing. Finally, he turned away.

And that’s when it happened.

An unearthly sound—half moan, half growl, and totally chilling—seeped into the room.

He stopped in his tracks. She twisted her head to look up toward the attic. “What’s that?”

His brow knit. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to offer an explanation, but no words came out. Moments later he was gone.

The door slammed below. She set her jaw.

Bastard. Serves you right.


THEO’S BREATH FOGGED THE AIR as he unlatched the door to the stable, the place where he’d always go when he needed to think. He’d thought he’d anticipated everything, but he hadn’t anticipated that she’d be back, and he wouldn’t tolerate it.