Heroes are My Weakness by Susan Elizabeth Phillips Read Free Book Online Page B

Harp House and Moonraker Cottage, Theo, Regan, and Jaycie had already set off without her. The next day she’d shown up an hour earlier only to have them not appear at all.
    One afternoon Theo told Annie she should go see an old lobster boat wreck not far down the shoreline. Annie discovered too late that the wreck had become a nesting spot for the island’s gulls. They’d dive-bombed her, batting her with their wings, and one had struck her on the head in a scene straight out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Annie had been wary of birds ever since.
    The litany of his misdeeds had been unending: dead fish in her bed, rough play in the swimming pool, abandoning her in the dark on the beach one night. Annie shook off the memories. Fortunately, she’d never be fifteen again.
    She began to cough, and as she stopped to catch her breath, she realized it was her first coughing spasm of the morning. Maybe she was finally getting better. She imagined herself sitting at a warm desk in a warm office, a warm computer in front of her, as she worked away at a job that would bore her to tears but would bring a steady paycheck.
    But what about us? Crumpet whined.
    Annie needs a real job, sensible Dilly said. She can’t be a vent forever.
    Scamp piped up with her own words of advice. You should have made porn puppets. You could have charged a lot more for the shows.
    The porn puppets were an idea Annie had entertained when she was running the worst of her fever.
    She finally reached the top of the cliff. As she passed the stable, she heard a horse whinny. She quickly cut into the trees just in time to see Theo emerge through the stable doors. Annie was cold even in her down coat, but he wore only a charcoal sweater, jeans, and riding boots.
    He stopped walking. She was behind him, but the tree cover was sparse, and she prayed he wouldn’t turn around.
    A gust of wind stirred up a ghostly dervish in the snow. He crossed his arms over his chest, grabbed the bottom of his sweater, and pulled it over his head. He wore nothing underneath.
    She gazed at him in astonishment. He stood there bare-chested, the wind tearing at his thick dark hair as he defied the Maine winter. He didn’t move. She might have been watching one of the old television soaps famous for using any excuse to get their heroes out of their shirts. Except it was bitterly cold, Theo Harp was no hero, and the only explanation for what he’d done was insanity.
    He knotted his hands into fists at his sides, lifted his chin, and gazed at the house. How could someone so beautiful be so cruel? The hard planes of his back . . . The muscularity of his broad shoulders . . . The way he stood against the sky . . . It was all so strange. He seemed less a mortal and more a part of the landscape—a primitive creature who didn’t need the simple human comforts of warmth, food . . . love.
    She shivered inside her down coat and watched him disappear through the turret door, his sweater still dangling at his side.
    J AYCIE WAS TOUCHINGLY GLAD TO see her. “I can’t believe you came back,” she said as Annie hung up her backpack and pulled off her boots.
    Annie put on her happiest face. “If I stayed away, I’d miss all the fun.” She glanced around the kitchen. Despite its gloom, it looked marginally better than it had yesterday, but it was still awful.
    Jaycie lumbered from the stove toward the table, gnawing on her bottom lip. “Theo’s going to fire me,” she whispered. “I know he is. Since he stays in the turret all the time, he doesn’t think anybody needs to be in the house. If it weren’t for Cynthia . . .” She gripped the crutches so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “This morning he spotted Lisa McKinley here. She’s been meeting the mail boat for me. I didn’t think he knew about it, but I was wrong. He hates having people around.”
    Then how does he expect to find his next murder victim? Scamp inquired. Unless it’s Jaycie . . .
    I’ll take care