Heroes Are My Weakness(21)
She should have realized he’d figure that out. “What do you care, as long as the work gets done?”
“Because I don’t want you around.”
“Got it. You’d rather fire Jaycie.”
“I don’t need anybody here.”
“Sure you do. Who’s going to answer the door while you’re asleep in your casket?”
He ignored her, peering through the eyepiece of the telescope instead and adjusting it. She felt a prickling at the back of her neck. The window he’d moved to was the one that looked down on the cottage.
That’s what you get for challenging a scoundrel, Leo sneered.
“I have a new telescope,” he said. “When the light’s just right, it’s amazing how much I can see.” He shifted the telescope ever so slightly. “I hope that furniture you moved wasn’t too heavy for you.”
The chill traveled all the way to her toes.
“Don’t forget to change the sheets in my bedroom,” he said without turning. “There’s nothing better than the feel of clean sheets against bare skin.”
She wouldn’t let him see how much he still frightened her. She made herself turn away slowly and head for the stairs. She had every reason to tell Jaycie she couldn’t do this anymore. Every reason except an absolute certainty that she couldn’t live with herself if she let her fear of Theo Harp force her into abandoning the girl who’d once saved her life.
She worked as quickly as she could. She dusted the living room furniture, vacuumed the rug, scoured the kitchen, and then, her stomach pitching with foreboding, she moved to his bedroom. She found clean linens, but stripping the old sheets from his bed was too personal, too intimate. She set her jaw and did it anyway.
As she reached for a dust rag, she heard the attic door close above her followed by the click of a lock and the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. She told herself not to turn around, but she did anyway.
He stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the doorjamb. His gaze moved from her untidy hair to her breasts—barely visible beneath her heavy sweater—then glided over her hips, lingered, moved on. There was something calculating about his inspection. Something invasive and disturbing. Finally, he turned away.
And that’s when it happened.
An unearthly sound—half moan, half growl, and totally chilling—seeped into the room.
He stopped in his tracks. She twisted her head to look up toward the attic. “What’s that?”
His brow knit. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to offer an explanation, but no words came out. Moments later he was gone.
The door slammed below. She set her jaw.
Bastard. Serves you right.
THEO’S BREATH FOGGED THE AIR as he unlatched the door to the stable, the place where he’d always go when he needed to think. He’d thought he’d anticipated everything, but he hadn’t anticipated that she’d be back, and he wouldn’t tolerate it.
The interior smelled of hay, manure, dust, and cold. In past years his father had kept as many as four horses here, animals boarded at the island stable when the family wasn’t on Peregrine. Now Theo’s black gelding was the only horse.
Dancer gave a soft whinny and poked his head over the stall. Theo had never imagined he’d have to see her again, yet here she was. In his house. In his life. Bringing the past with her. He rubbed Dancer’s muzzle. “It’s just you and me, boy,” he said. “You and me . . . and whatever new devils have shown up to haunt us.”
The horse tossed its head. Theo opened the stall door. He couldn’t let this go on. He had to get rid of her.
Chapter Five
BEING ALONE IN THE COTTAGE at night had spooked Annie from the beginning, but that night was the worst yet. The windows had no curtains, and Theo could be watching her at any time through his telescope. She left the lights off, stumbled around in the dark, and pulled the covers over her head when she went to bed. But the dark only stirred her memories of the way everything had changed.
It had happened not long after the dumbwaiter incident. Regan was either at a riding lesson or locked in her room writing poetry. Annie had been perched on the rocks at the beach, daydreaming about being a beautiful, talented actress starring in a major motion picture when Theo had come along. He’d settled next to her, his long legs emerging from a pair of khaki shorts a little too big for him. A hermit crab had scampered through a tidal pool at their feet. He’d gazed out toward the break where the waves began to curl. “I’m sorry about some of the stuff that’s happened, Annie. Things have been weird.”
Sap that she was, she’d instantly forgiven him.