Heroes are My Weakness (43 page)

Barbara grabbed the dashboard. A shower of sparks exploded into the sky. They jolted up the drive. Booker parked the truck well back from the fire. Annie threw herself out and began to run.

The fire was ravenous, devouring the wooden shingles in snarling gulps, its hot claws greedy for more. The piles of newspapers and magazines stored in the attic had been the perfect tinder, and the roof was nearly gone, the skeleton of a chimney already visible. Annie saw Jaycie huddled near the top of the drive, Livia at her side. She raced toward them.

“It happened so fast,” Jaycie exclaimed. “It was like an explosion hit the house. I couldn’t open the door. Something fell and blocked it.”

“Where’s Theo?” Annie cried.

“He broke a window to get us out.”

“Where is he now?”

“He—he ran back into the house. I yelled. Told him not to go.”

Annie’s stomach pitched. There was nothing inside important enough for him to risk his life. Unless Hannibal was there. Theo would never abandon anything that was in his care, not even a cat.

Annie started toward the house, but Jaycie grabbed the sleeve of her foul weather jacket and held on tight. “You’re not going in there!”

Jaycie was right. The house was too big, and she had no idea where he’d gone. She had to wait. Pray.

Jaycie picked up Livia. Annie was dimly aware of more trucks arriving, and of Booker telling someone there was no saving the house.

“I want Theo,” Livia wailed.

Annie heard the shrill whinny of a terrified horse. She’d forgotten about Dancer. But as she turned toward the stable, she saw Booker and Darren McKinley already going inside.

“They’ll get him,” Barbara said, rushing up next to her.

“Theo’s in the house,” Jaycie told her.

Barbara curled her hand over her mouth.

The air was hot and full of smoke. Another beam fell, sending up a meteor of sparks. Annie watched numbly from the drive, her fear growing by the second, a filmstrip playing in her head of Thornfield Hall burning. Of Jane Eyre coming back to find a blind Edward Rochester.

Blind would be good. Annie could deal with blind. But not dead. Never dead.

Something brushed against her ankles. She looked down and saw Hannibal. She snatched up the cat, her fear escalating. Even now, Theo could be dodging the flames searching for him, not knowing the cat was already safe.

Booker and Darren struggled to get Dancer out of the stable. They’d wrapped something around his head to mask his eyes, but the panicked horse smelled the smoke and fought them.

Another piece of roof caved in. Any moment now, the house could collapse. Annie waited. Prayed. Held the cat so tight it howled in protest and wiggled out of her arms. She should have told Theo she loved him. Told him and damned the consequences. Life was too precious. Love was too precious. Now he would never know how well he’d been loved—not with smothering demands or insane threats, but enough to be set free.

A figure emerged from the house. Hunched. Amorphous. She raced forward. It was Theo carrying something in each hand and gasping for air. A window exploded behind him. She reached his side, tried to support him. Whatever he was carrying struck her in the legs. She tried to take it away from him, but he wouldn’t let go.

The men came to his side, pushing her out of the way and dragging him to clean air. Only then could she see what he’d brought from the burning house. What he’d gone back inside to rescue. Not the cat at all. Two red suitcases. He’d gone back to retrieve her puppets.

Annie could barely absorb it. Theo had gone back into that inferno to rescue her silly, beloved puppets. She wanted to scream at him, kiss him until neither of them could breathe, make him promise never to do anything so foolish again. But he’d broken away from the men to get to his horse.

“My fairy house!” Livia screamed. “I want to see my fairy house.”

Jaycie tried to quiet her, but it had all been too much for the four-year-old, and she was past reasoning. Annie couldn’t do anything for Theo right now, but maybe she could help with this. “Did you forget?” She touched Livia’s flushed cheek and drew her face close. “It’s nighttime, and the fairies might be there. You know they don’t want people to see them.”

Livia’s small chest shook as she sobbed. “I want to see them.”

So many things we want that we can’t have
. The fire hadn’t gotten as far as the fairy house, but the area had been badly trampled. “I know, sweetheart, but they don’t want to see you.”

“Can you—” She hiccuped. “Can you bring me in the morning?” Annie hesitated too long, and Livia started to cry. “I want to see the fairy house!”

Annie glanced at Jaycie, who looked as exhausted as her daughter. “If the fire is out and it’s safe,” Annie said, “I’ll bring you in the morning.”

That satisfied her until her mother started making plans to spend the night in town. The wailing began again. “Annie said she’d take me to see the fairy house in the morning! I want to stay here!”

A hoarse male voice spoke from behind them. “Why don’t the three of you spend the night in the cottage?”

Annie swung around. Theo looked as though he’d emerged from hell, blue eyes blazing from a soot-blackened face, cat cradled in his hands. He held Hannibal out to her. “Take him with you, will you?”

Before she could say anything, he was gone again.

B
ARBARA DROVE
A
NNIE
, J
AYCIE, AND
Livia to the cottage. Annie deposited Hannibal inside, then went to retrieve the two red suitcases from the truck bed. Everything else that she’d stored at the house was gone: her clothes, Mariah’s scarves, and her Dreambook. But she had her puppets. And, pressed between heavy cardboard in the bottom of each of her suitcases, she had the Niven Garr drawings. Far more important, Theo was alive and safe.

An explosion of sparks lit up the night like the devil’s sideshow.

Harp House had fallen.

A
NNIE GAVE UP HER BED
at the cottage to Jaycie and Livia and slept on the couch herself, leaving the studio for Theo, but by early morning, he hadn’t returned. She went to the front window. Where Harp House had once lorded it over all of them, only plumes of smoke rose from the ruins.

Livia appeared in the pajamas she’d had on the night before and rubbed her eyes. “Let’s go see the fairy house.”

Annie had hoped the four-year-old would sleep in after last night, but the only person still in bed was Jaycie. She’d also hoped Livia would forget about the fairy house. She should have known better.

She gently explained that someone might have accidentally stepped on the house during the fire, but Livia wasn’t having it. “The fairies wouldn’t let that happen. Can we go see it now, Annie? Please!”

“Livia, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.”

Livia screwed up her face. “I want to see!”

By evening, Annie would be back on the mainland, and instead of leaving behind a child with happy memories of her, she’d be leaving behind a disappointed one. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “Get your coat.”

Annie had already dressed in a pair of Mariah’s too short pipe-stem trousers and a black pullover. She added the foul weather jacket that smelled of smoke and scribbled a note to Jaycie. As she herded Livia outside in her coat and pajamas, she remembered she hadn’t given her breakfast—not that much was left in the kitchen. But when she suggested they eat first, Livia refused, and Annie didn’t have the heart to argue.

Someone had parked Jaycie’s Suburban by the cottage. Annie fastened Livia in her car seat and drove off. Theo’s car was parked near the top of the cliff where it had been last night. She parked behind it and helped Livia out. Keeping a tight grip on the four-year-old’s hand, she walked with her the rest of the way to the top.

The gargoyles and the stone turret had survived, along with the stables and garage. But nothing was left of the house except four brick chimneys and a section of staircase. Beyond the ruins, she could see the ocean. The house no longer blocked the view.

It was ironic that Livia spotted Theo first, since Annie hadn’t been able to think of anyone else. Livia broke away and ran to him, the cuffs of her pajamas dragging. “Theo!”

He was filthy. Unshaven. He wore a too-small navy jacket one of the men must have lent him, and his jeans were ripped at the calf. Annie’s heart constricted. After all he’d been through—all he had to do—there he was, crouched in the mud, rebuilding Livia’s fairy house.

He gave the little girl a smile so weary it drooped. “The fire made the fairies mad. Look what they did.”

“Oh, no.” Livia planted her hands on her hips like a miniature adult. “They were very, very bad.”

Theo gazed at Annie. Dirt had settled into the creases around his eyes, and one of his ears was completely black. He’d risked his life to save her puppets. So like him. “You’ve been here all night,” she said softly. “Bearing witness to the fall of the House of Harp?”

“And trying to keep the sparks from the stable.”

Now that he was safe, her compulsion to reveal her feelings for him gave way to reality. Nothing had changed. She wouldn’t sacrifice his well-being simply to unburden herself. “Is Dancer all right?” she asked.

He nodded. “He’s back in his stall. How’s our cat?”

Her throat caught. “Our cat is just fine. Better than you.”

Livia studied what he’d done. “You’re making a path. The fairies are gonna like that.”

He’d made the new house lower and wider, and instead of the stone pathway, he’d been pressing pieces of the smoothed beach glass in a half-moon around the entrance. He handed some of the glass to Livia. “See what you can do while I talk to Annie.”

Livia hunkered down. Annie had to clench her hands to keep from brushing them over Theo’s face. “You’re an idiot,” she said with a tenderness she couldn’t hide. “Puppets are replaceable. You’re not.”

“I know what they mean to you,” he said.

“Not as much as you do.”

His head cocked.

“I’ll watch Livia,” she said quickly. “Go to the cottage and get some sleep.”

“I’ll sleep later.” He gazed at the ruins of the house and then back at her. “You’re really leaving today?”

She nodded.

“Now who’s the idiot?” he said.

“There’s a difference between running into a burning house and leaving for the mainland,” she pointed out.

“Both have a big downside.”

“I don’t think leaving has a downside for me.”

“Maybe not for you. But it sure has one for me.”

He was exhausted. Of course he cared about her leaving. But caring wasn’t the same as loving, and she wouldn’t mistake his fatigue for a sudden unlocking of his heart. “Unless you start hooking up with more crazy women, you’ll be fine,” she said.

His smile, weary but genuine, took her aback. “It should bother me hearing you talk about them that way.”

“But it doesn’t?”

“Truth is truth. Time for me to man up.”

“It has nothing to do with manning up,” she said. “It has to do with accepting the fact that you can’t save everybody you care about.”

“Fortunately for me, you don’t need saving.”

“Darned right I don’t.”

He rubbed the back of his hand over his jaw. “I have a job for you. A paying job.”

She didn’t like where this was headed, so she tried to deflect him. “I knew I was good in bed, but I didn’t know I was that good.”

He sighed. “Have some compassion, Antoinette. I’m too tired to keep up with you right now.”

She managed to roll her eyes. “Like you ever could.”

“This is work you can do from the city.”

He was going to offer her a pity job, and she couldn’t bear it. “I’ve heard about Skype sex, but it doesn’t appeal to me.”

“I want you to illustrate a book I’m working on.”

“Sorry. Even if I were an illustrator, which I’m not, I don’t have any practice drawing disemboweled humans.” Oh, she was on a roll, all right. Rolling right over her heart.

He sighed. “I’ve barely slept in a week, and I can’t remember the last time I ate. My chest hurts. My eyes feel like sandpaper. I have a blistered hand. And all you want to do is make jokes.”

“Your hand? Let me see it.” She reached for it only to have him slip it behind his back.

“I’ll take care of my hand, but first, I want you to listen to me.”

He wasn’t going to let it go. “No need. I already have more work than I can take on.”

“Annie, just once could you not give me a hard time?”

“Maybe someday, but not today.”

“Annie, you’re making Theo sad.” Neither of them realized Livia had been paying attention to them. She peered around Theo’s legs. “I think you should tell him your free secret.”

“I don’t!” She gave Livia a death glare. “And you’d better not, either.”

Livia peered up at Theo. “Then you better tell her
your
free secret.”

He stiffened. “Annie doesn’t want to hear my free secret.”

“You have a free secret?” Annie asked.

“Yes, he does.” Livia puffed up with four-year-old self-importance. “And I know it.”

Now Theo was the one giving Livia the death glare. “Find some pinecones. A lot of them.” He jabbed his hand toward the trees behind the gazebo. “Over there.”

Annie could only stand so much. “Later,” she said. “We need to get back to the cottage and see if your mom’s awake.”

Livia’s face turned into a thundercloud. “I don’t want to go!”

“Don’t give Annie a hard time,” he said. “I’ll finish the fairy house. You can see it later.”

The fire had disrupted Livia’s world. She hadn’t had enough sleep, and she was as cranky as only an overstimulated four-year-old could be. “I’m not going!” she cried. “And if you don’t let me stay, I’ll tell your free secrets!”

Annie grabbed her arm. “You can’t tell a free secret!”

“You absolutely can’t!” Theo exclaimed.

“I can!” Livia retorted. “If they’re both the same!”

Chapter Twenty-five

T
HEO COULDN
’
T GET HIS BRAIN
to work. He stood there like one of the Harp House gargoyles, his feet frozen to the ground, as Annie somehow managed to get the recalcitrant four-year-old to the car. He watched dumbly as she drove away.