Heroes Are My Weakness(56)

“Annie!” The front door banged open.

She spun around and charged out of the studio. “You creep! You ugly, insensitive jerk!”

He stormed into the living room like a lion after a wildebeest. “Have you lost your mind?”

Unwanted tears sprang to her eyes. “Did you think that was funny? You haven’t changed at all.”

“Why didn’t you wait? Do you want to get shot at again?”

She bared her teeth. “Is that a threat?”

“Threat? Are you so naive that you think it can’t happen again?”

“If it happens again, I swear to God I will kill you!”

That stopped them both. She’d never imagined herself capable of such ferocity, but she’d been attacked at the most elemental level. However self-centered Crumpet might be, she was part of Annie, and Annie was her guardian.

“If what happens again?” he asked in a quieter voice.

“At first, all those positions you put my puppets in were funny.” She thrust her hand in the direction of the studio. “But this is cruel.”

“Cruel?” He strode past her. She turned to see him peer into her bedroom and then advance toward the studio. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

She went after him, then stopped in the studio doorway to watch as he reached up and pulled the piece of rope down. He slipped the noose off Crumpet’s head, carried her to Annie, and handed the puppet over. “I’m getting a locksmith out here as soon as I can,” he said grimly.

Her gaze followed him as he moved to the corner of the room. She clutched Crumpet tighter as she saw what she’d missed. Instead of being on the shelf under the windows, her other puppets were stuffed inside the wastebasket, heads and limbs dangling over the sides.

“Don’t.” She rushed to them. Sinking down on her heels with Crumpet on her lap, she took them out one by one. She straightened their clothes and their hair. When she was done, she looked up at Theo, searching his face, his eyes, seeing nothing she hadn’t seen before.

His mouth tightened. “You should have waited at the house for the car. I wasn’t gone long. Don’t walk down here by yourself again.” He stalked from the studio.

This was what he’d been so angry about when he’d charged in.

She arranged Dilly, Leo, and Peter on the shelf.

Thank you, Peter whispered. I’m not as brave as I thought.

She wasn’t quite ready to abandon Crumpet, and she carried her into the living room where Theo was taking off his coat. “I don’t have money for a locksmith,” she said quietly.

“I do,” he retorted, “and I’m having a new lock installed. Nobody is going to poke around in my stuff when I’m not here.”

Was he really that self-absorbed, or was this his way of letting her save face?

She slipped Crumpet on her arm. The familiar feeling of the puppet’s frilly dress calmed her. She raised her arm, not thinking anything through. “Thank you for saving me,” Crumpet said in her breathy, coquette’s voice.

Theo cocked his head, but Annie addressed the puppet instead of him. “Is that all you have to say, Crumpet?”

Crumpet took Theo in from head to toe. “You are smokin’.”

“Crumpet!” Annie scolded. “Where are your manners?”

Crumpet blinked her long lashes at Theo and cooed, “You are smokin’ . . . sir.”

“That’s enough, Crumpet!” Annie exclaimed.

The puppet tossed her curls, clearly in a huff. “What do you want me to say?”

Annie spoke patiently. “I want you to say you’re sorry.”

Crumpet grew petulant. “What do I have to be sorry for?”

“You know very well.”

Crumpet leaned toward Annie’s ear, speaking in a faux whisper. “I’d rather ask him who does his hair. You know what a disaster my last visit was.”

“Only because you insulted the shampoo girl,” Annie reminded her.

Crumpet’s nose went up in the air. “She thought she was prettier than I.”

“Prettier than ‘me.’?”

“She was prettier than you,” Crumpet said triumphantly.

Annie sighed. “Stop stalling and say what you need to.”

“Oh, all right.” Crumpet gave a begrudging humph. And then, even more begrudgingly, “I’m sorry I thought you were the one who hung me from the ceiling.”

“Me?” Theo was actually addressing the puppet.

“In my defense . . .” Crumpet sniffed. “You do have a history. I still haven’t recovered from the way you made Peter look up my skirt.”

“You loved that, and you know it,” Annie told her.

Theo shook his head, as if he were clearing out cobwebs. “How do you know I’m not the one who hung you up?”

Annie finally spoke directly to him. “Did you?”

This time he remembered to look at Annie. “It’s like your friend here said . . . I have a history.”

“And I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d come home and found Crumpet and Dilly going at it in my bed.” She pulled the puppet from her hand. “But not this.”

“You still have too much faith in people.” His mouth twisted unpleasantly. “It hasn’t even been a month, and you’ve already forgotten who the villain is in your fairy tale.”