She hadn’t told Christopher that part, but, of course, that’s what happened. You don’t get to show up at the front door of a world-famous author without getting the cops called on you. Yeah, Jack Masterson gave her tea and cookies and let her pet his raven, but he couldn’t keep her. Some wishes came true, and some wishes didn’t, and theI want to live on a magical island with my favorite author and be his sidekickwas one of the wishes that never came true.
After showing her the flying writing desk, Jack had excused himself, promising her a nice surprise. He returned with a young man in tow.
Lucy still remembered what he looked like. Impossible to forget those electric blue eyes scowling, the messy rock star hair, and, of course, his tattoos.
He had a full sleeve of tattoos on each arm. Colorful swirls of red and black and green and gold and blue. Not rainbows. Not stripes. Just colors. Like his body was a palette. He was more paint than man.
“Lucy Hart, meet Hugo Reese,” Jack had said. “Hugo Reese, this is Lucy Hart. Hugo’s a painter. He’s going to be the new illustrator for my books. And Lucy’s come to be my new sidekick. Would you mind showing her how to draw the Mastermind’s house? She’ll need to know that.”
Did she believe that? Did she fall for it? Did she genuinely believe that Jack Masterson was going to let her stay in his house? Be his sidekick? His daughter? His friend? She’d wanted to believe it, so she held out her shaking hand to Hugo Reese.
Hugo only looked at her hand, then at Jack Masterson. “Have yougone soft in the head, old man?” His accent was British. Not fancy British like a prince, more like punk rock British.
Jack Masterson tapped the top of his head. “Hard as a rock.”
Hugo rolled his eyes so dramatically that Lucy imagined he could see inside his own skull.
“Take your time,” Jack said. “I’ll be right back.”
They were alone then, she and Hugo Reese. He made her incredibly nervous and not because he was scowling, not because he was the new illustrator of the Clock Island books, but because he was the best-looking guy she’d ever met. Usually she didn’t pay too much attention to boys, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“Lucy Hart, eh?” he said.
She was suddenly very veryverynervous. There were cute boys at her school. But Hugo wasn’t a boy. He was a man. A really reallyreallyhandsome man.
“You ran away from home? To here? Do you know how incredibly stupid that is? You could have been killed. Did your parents drop you on your head?”
Lucy was taken aback by his anger. She’d expected him to be as nice as Jack.
“Maybe,” she said, on the verge of tears. “They don’t care about me, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Hugo looked away. “Sorry. My brother’s about your age. I’d have kittens if he ran away from home.”
Have kittens? She liked that expression. “But Jack said—”
“I don’t care what Jack said. You nearly gave him a heart attack showing up at his front door.”
Lucy giggled. Hugo glared.
“Sorry, sorry. Just…my last name’s Hart. I thought you were making a pun. Hart attack.” Lucy looked at the floor, then back at him again. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes softened. The storm of his anger had passed. She wasn’t used to getting chewed out by, well, anyone, much less sexy punk artist guys. It was actually kind of nice that he seemed to care about her safety so much.
“All right, sit down,” he said. “And pay attention. Drawing is a skill like driving or roller-skating. You aren’t born knowing how to do it. You have to learn it, and if you want to learn it, you can learn it. But if you don’t want to learn, don’t waste my time.”
Nobody ever told her that before, that things like art could be learned. She assumed she didn’t draw because she couldn’t draw, and here was an actual artist saying she could learn? Wild. Lucy sat down, paid attention, and did everything Hugo Reese told her to do. She screwed up. She started over. She tried and tried again. And thirty minutes later, she had a passable drawing of a spooky-looking house covered in ivy and weird windows like watching eyes.
Not just any house…the house on Clock Island.
When she was done with her drawing, Hugo Reese took a long look at it and said, “Not bad, Hart Attack. Keep it up.”
She hadn’t kept it up, but she never forgot that drawing lesson he gave her or how much she liked being called Hart Attack in that funny way by the best-looking guy she’d ever seen.
Safe to say, she was a little in love with him by the time the lesson was over. And it was over way too soon. Thirty minutes or so later, the office door opened again. She’d looked up, smiling, expecting to see Jack Masterson. Instead, it was a police officer in uniform followed by a woman who said she was a social worker. They were there to take her home.
“Here we go, toots. Boat’s waiting.”
Mikey’s voice dragged her out of the past and into the present.
