Heroes Are My Weakness(48)

Horny bastard.

He gave Dancer one last pat. “You’re luckier than you know, pal. Living without a set of balls makes life a lot less complicated.”


ANNIE SPENT A FEW HOURS researching the oldest of the art books she’d found in the bookcase, but none of them turned out to be rare, not the David Hockney volume, or the Niven Garr collection, or Julian Schnabel’s book. When she’d had enough frustration, she helped Jaycie clean.

Jaycie had been quieter than usual all day. She looked tired, and as they moved into Elliott’s office, Annie ordered her to sit down. Jaycie propped her crutches against the arm of the leather couch and sagged into the sofa. “Theo sent a text telling me to make sure you take the Range Rover back to the cottage tonight.”

Annie hadn’t told Jaycie about getting shot at, and she didn’t intend to. Her purpose was to make Jaycie’s life easier, not add to her worries.

Jaycie tucked a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “He also told me not to send up dinner tonight. That’s the third time this week.”

Annie moved the vacuum to the front windows and said carefully, “I haven’t invited him, Jaycie. But Theo does what he wants.”

“He likes you. I don’t understand it. You say terrible things about him.”

Annie tried to explain. “He doesn’t like me. What he likes is giving me a hard time. There’s a big difference.”

“I don’t think so.” Jaycie pulled herself back up and fumbled with her crutches. “I’d better go see what Livia is up to.”

Annie gazed after her in dismay. She was hurting the last person in the world she wanted to upset. Life on an almost deserted island was getting more complicated by the day.


THAT EVENING, JUST BEFORE SHE went to get her coat, Annie saw Livia pull a footstool across the kitchen floor, climb up on it, and push a rolled tube of drawing paper into Annie’s backpack. She intended to investigate as soon as she got to the cottage, but the first thing she saw when she opened the door was Leo sprawled on the couch with a drinking straw tied around his arm like a drug user’s tourniquet. Dilly lounged at the other end, a tiny paper cylinder rolled like a cigarette dangling from her hand, her legs crossed like a man’s, ankle over knee.

Annie yanked off her hat. “Will you leave my puppets alone?!”

Theo wandered out from the kitchen, a lavender dish towel tucked in the waistband of his jeans. “Until now, I didn’t know I had such bad impulse control.”

Annie hated the thrum of pleasure she felt at the sight of him. Still, what woman with a heartbeat wouldn’t enjoy feasting her eyes on a man like him, lavender tea towel and all? She punished him for his ridiculous good looks by getting snooty. “Dilly would never smoke. She specializes in preventing substance abuse.”

“Admirable.”

“And you’re supposed to be out of here by the time I get home.”

“Am I?” He looked vague, a matinee idol prone to memory lapses. Hannibal wandered out from the kitchen and draped himself over Theo’s shoe.

She gazed at the cat. “What’s your familiar doing here?”

“I need him while I work.”

“To help cast spells?”

“Writers have this thing for cats. You couldn’t possibly understand.” He stared down his perfectly sculpted nose at her, his expression so deliberately condescending that she knew he was trying to rile her. Instead she rescued her puppets from their newfound vices and took them back to the studio.

The boxes were no longer on the bed but set along the wall underneath the taxi mural, which her research had proven to be worthless, like so much else. She’d begun going through the boxes’ contents, inventorying everything inside, but the only interesting items she’d found so far were the cottage guest book and her Dreambook, the name she’d given the scrapbook she’d kept when she was a young teen. She’d filled its pages with her drawings, Playbills from shows she’d seen, photos of her favorite actresses, and reviews she’d written herself of her own imaginary Broadway triumphs. It was depressing to see how far short her adult life had fallen from the fantasies of that young girl, and she put it away.

The smell of something delicious wafted in from the kitchen. After dragging a comb through her hair and dabbing on a little lip gloss because she was pathetic, she returned to the living room, where she found Theo lounging on the couch in the same place he’d positioned Leo earlier. Even from across the room, she could see he was holding one of her drawings. “I’d forgotten you were such a good artist,” he said.

Seeing him examining something she’d done to entertain herself made her uncomfortable. “I’m not any good. I do it for fun.”

“You’re selling yourself way short.” He looked at the drawing again. “I like this kid. He’s got character.”

It was a sketch she’d done of a studious young boy with straight, dark hair and a cowlick sprouting like a fountain from the crown of his head. Bony ankles showed beneath the cuffs of his jeans, as if he might be going through one of those preteen growth spurts. Square-rimmed glasses sat on a lightly freckled nose. His shirt was buttoned wrong, and he wore an adult watch that was too big for his wrist. Definitely not great art, but he had potential as a future puppet.

Theo tilted the paper, looking at it from another angle. “How old do you think he is?”