Heroes Are My Weakness(19)

The interior smelled of hay, manure, dust, and cold. In past years his father had kept as many as four horses here, animals boarded at the island stable when the family wasn’t on Peregrine. Now Theo’s black gelding was the only horse.

Dancer gave a soft whinny and poked his head over the stall. Theo had never imagined he’d have to see her again, yet here she was. In his house. In his life. Bringing the past with her. He rubbed Dancer’s muzzle. “It’s just you and me, boy,” he said. “You and me . . . and whatever new devils have shown up to haunt us.”

The horse tossed its head. Theo opened the stall door. He couldn’t let this go on. He had to get rid of her.





Chapter Five


BEING ALONE IN THE COTTAGE at night had spooked Annie from the beginning, but that night was the worst yet. The windows had no curtains, and Theo could be watching her at any time through his telescope. She left the lights off, stumbled around in the dark, and pulled the covers over her head when she went to bed. But the dark only stirred her memories of the way everything had changed.

It had happened not long after the dumbwaiter incident. Regan was either at a riding lesson or locked in her room writing poetry. Annie had been perched on the rocks at the beach, daydreaming about being a beautiful, talented actress starring in a major motion picture when Theo had come along. He’d settled next to her, his long legs emerging from a pair of khaki shorts a little too big for him. A hermit crab had scampered through a tidal pool at their feet. He’d gazed out toward the break where the waves began to curl. “I’m sorry about some of the stuff that’s happened, Annie. Things have been weird.”

Sap that she was, she’d instantly forgiven him.

From then on, whenever Regan was occupied, Theo and Annie had hung out. He showed her some of his favorite spots on the island. He began confiding in her, at first hesitantly but gradually being more forthcoming. He told her how much he hated his boarding school and how he was writing short stories that he wouldn’t show anyone. They talked about their favorite books. She convinced herself she was the only girl he’d ever confided in. She showed him some of the drawings she now did in secret so Mariah couldn’t critique them. Finally, he’d kissed her. Her. Annie Hewitt, a gangly scarecrow of a fifteen-year-old with a too long face, too big eyes, and too curly hair.

After that, every moment that Regan was away found them together, usually inside the cave at low tide making out in the wet sand. He touched her breast through her swimsuit, and she thought she’d die of happiness. When he’d pushed the top down, she’d been embarrassed because her breasts weren’t bigger, and she’d tried to cover them with her hands. He moved her hands away and stroked each nipple with his fingers.

She was in ecstasy.

Soon they were touching each other everywhere. He unzipped her shorts and pushed his hand in her underpants. No boy had ever touched her there. His finger went inside her. She was bursting with hormones. Instantly orgasmic.

She touched him, too, and the first time she felt the wetness on her hand, she thought she’d hurt him. She was in love.

But then things changed. For no reason, he began to avoid her. He started putting her down in front of his sister and Jaycie. “Annie, don’t be such a dork. You act like a kid.”

Annie tried to talk to him alone, find out why he was being like this, but he avoided her. She found half a dozen of her precious paperback gothic novels on the bottom of the swimming pool.

One sunny July afternoon, they’d been crossing the marsh footbridge, with Annie slightly ahead of the twins and Jaycie trailing. Annie had been trying to impress Theo with how sophisticated she was by talking about her life in Manhattan. “I’ve been using the subway since I was ten, and—”

“Stop bragging,” Theo had said. And then his hand had slammed into her back.

She’d flown off the footbridge and hit the murky water facedown, her hands and forearms sinking into the muck, ooze sucking at her legs. As she tried to pull herself out, rotting strands of eel-like cordgrass and clots of blue-green algae clung to her hair, her clothes. She spat out the mud, tried to rub her eyes but couldn’t, and started to cry.

Regan and Jaycie were as horrified as Annie, and in the end, it had taken both of them to pull her from the marsh. Annie had badly skinned one knee and lost the leather sandals she’d bought with her own money. Tears slid through the muck on her cheeks as she stood on the bridge like a creature from a horror movie. “Why did you do that?”

Theo had regarded her stonily. “I don’t like braggers.”

Regan’s eyes had filled with tears. “Don’t tell, Annie! Please don’t tell. Theo will get in so much trouble. He won’t ever do anything like that again. Promise her, Theo.”

Theo had stalked away, not promising anything.

Annie hadn’t told. Not then. Not until much later.


THE NEXT MORNING, SHE WANDERED through the cottage trying to wake herself up after a fitful night’s sleep before she made the dreaded trek to Harp House. She ended up in the studio, safely out of range of Theo’s telescope. Mariah had expanded the back of the cottage to make this a spacious, well-lit workspace. The paint spatters on the bare wooden floor testified to the parade of artists who’d worked here over the years. A bright red bedspread peeked out from beneath half a dozen cardboard boxes stacked on the bed shoved into the corner. Next to the bed was a pair of cane-seated wooden chairs painted yellow.