Heroes Are My Weakness(95)

Except that she could never part with them.

The love radiating from Mariah’s face, her hand curled protectively across her belly, all of it so tender. These sketches were Annie’s true legacy. They were concrete evidence that Annie had been created in love. Maybe that’s what her mother had wanted her to see.


IN THE LAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, Annie had lost so much, but she’d also found her heritage. The cottage was no longer hers, her financial situation was as dire as ever, and she needed to find a place to live, but she had discovered the missing part of herself. She’d also betrayed a friend. The memory of Jaycie’s stricken expression wouldn’t go away. She had to go back and apologize.

Don’t be a sap, Peter said. You’re such a chump.

She tuned him out, and even though her body craved sleep, she made her second trek of the day to the top of the cliff. As she climbed she thought about what it meant to be both Mariah and Niven Garr’s daughter. But ultimately, the only person she knew how to be was herself.

Jaycie was in her apartment, sitting by the window, staring out into the side yard. The door was open, but Annie knocked on the frame. “Can I come in?”

Jaycie shrugged. Annie took that as permission. She shoved her hands in her coat pockets. “Jayc, I’m sorry. I truly am. There’s not anything I can do to take back what I said, but I’m asking you to forgive me. I don’t know who’s behind what’s been happening to me, but—”

“I thought we were friends!” Jaycie said, her hurt raw.

“We are.”

Jaycie pushed herself up from the chair and swept past Annie. “I have to check on Livia.”

Annie didn’t try to stop her. The damage she’d done to their relationship ran too deep for an easy repair. She returned to the kitchen, intending to stay there until Jaycie was ready to talk. Jaycie appeared almost immediately but brushed past her. Without even a glance in Annie’s direction, she opened the back door. “Livia! Livia, where are you?”

Annie was so accustomed to going after Livia herself that she made her way toward the door, but Jaycie had already stepped outside. “Livia Christine! Come back here right now!”

Annie followed Jaycie. “I’ll go around the front.”

“Don’t bother,” Jaycie snapped. “I’ll do it myself.”

Annie ignored her and checked the front porch. Livia wasn’t there. She went back to Jaycie. “Are you sure she’s not inside. She could be hiding anywhere in the house.”

Jaycie’s concern for her daughter temporarily eclipsed her anger at Annie. “I’ll go look.”

The stable door was securely locked. Annie didn’t find her in the woods behind the gazebo, and she circled to the front of the house again. The porch was still empty, but as she looked down at the beach, she spotted a splash of pink against the rocks. She rushed toward the steps. Even though Livia stood well back from the water’s edge, she shouldn’t be down there alone. “Livia!”

Livia looked up. Her pink jacket was unzipped, her hair falling straight around her face.

“Stay right where you are,” Annie ordered her as she neared the bottom. “I found her!” she yelled, not certain if Jaycie could hear.

Livia wore her mulish look. She held what appeared to be a piece of drawing paper in one hand and a teepee of crayons in the other. Earlier, Annie had asked her to draw a picture of the beach. Apparently the four-year-old had decided to do it on location. “Oh, Liv . . . You aren’t allowed to come down here alone.” She recalled the stories she’d heard about rogue waves sweeping grown men into the sea. “Let’s go find Mommy. She’s not going to be happy with you.”

As she reached for Livia’s hand, she saw a figure striding down the beach from the cottage. Tall, lean, and broad shouldered, wind rippling his dark hair. Her heart tripped all over itself with the love she felt for him, along with a fierce determination not to let her feelings show. She knew he cared for her, just as she knew he didn’t love her. But she loved him enough to make certain her feelings for him didn’t become one more guilty burden. For once in Theo Harp’s life, a woman was going to look out for his well-being instead of the other way around.

“Hey, Boo,” she said as he stopped next to her.

His eyebrow shot up in a dagger of annoyance. “Don’t even think of trying to play cute with me. I heard what happened. Are you crazy? What possessed you to take off like that?”

Love possessed me. She forced her rigid jaw muscles to relax. “It was the middle of the night, and I was barely awake. I thought you were hurt. Pardon me for being concerned.”

He ignored the barb. “Even if I’d been dying, the last thing you should have done is leave the island.”

“We’re friends, you ass. Are you telling me that, if you thought I’d been in a terrible accident, you wouldn’t have done the same thing?”

“Not if it meant losing the only place I had to live!”

So untrue. He would have done exactly the same thing for any of his friends. That was how he was made. “Go away,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you.” I want to kiss you. Smack you. Make love with you. But more than that, she wanted to save him from his own nature.

He threw up his hands. “All you had to do this winter was one simple thing. Stay in place. But could you do that? No.”