More Than Fiends by Maureen Child Read Free Book Online

hint of things to come?
    â€œWhat’s going on, Thea? Whose car is that? Who’s here?”
    She folded her arms across her chest, shot one hip higher than the other and cocked her head to look at me. “Well, he says he’s my father . You know…the dead one ?”

Chapter Four
    O h crap
    God, I really needed chocolate.
    â€œMom? What is going on?” Thea’s voice took on that nobody-has-a-worse-mom-than-me tone, and she whipped up one black eyebrow. Just like her dad used to do.
    Her dad.
    Oh yeah.
    Chocolate.
    I dropped the grocery bag onto the hood of my bright yellow VW, rustled inside for the Hershey’s Kisses and yanked the cellophane bag so hard that foil-covered caramel kisses flew everywhere. I grabbed up three, unwrapped them as fast as I could, and shoved them all into my mouth.
    A win-win situation as far as I could see. Couldn’t talk while chewing caramel—and, hey, chocolate was bound to make me feel better.
    Although, a quick glance into Thea’s deep blue eyes told me it might take a few more than three kisses to survive this one. Grabbing the first stall tactic I could think of, I concentrated on gathering up the chocolate off the hood of my car and then giving the little suckers lying in the street a wistful glance.
    â€œYou have to swallow sometime,” Thea warned.
    I gave her a smile that felt more like a grimace, and shrugged. I could probably chew forever—especially if the alternative was talking to Logan. Or talking to Thea about Logan.
    You know…looking back, maybe it would have been better to tell Thea the truth about her dad right from the beginning. About how he had had this nifty future with Snippy or Snuffy or whoever all laid out in front of him and how I had been doing the noble thing to never tell him that he had a daughter.
    But then, I’d have spent the last fifteen and a half years answering questions about him and maybe having to deal with him and Muffy or whoever, and who needed that? Besides, Logan had had his life, and we had had ours. By all rights, we never should have met up again.
    While I chewed and tried to peel caramel strips off my back teeth with my tongue, I considered that for a second or two and decided this whole mess was Logan’s fault. If he’d just stayed married to his society bimbo, everybody would have been happy.
    Instead…I looked past Thea and watched my past stroll out my front door to stand on my porch as if he actually had a right to be there. And even wanting to run over him and then kick his battered body to the curb like roadkill, I had to admit that he looked damn good.
    Better than he had the summer I met him, and we all know how that turned out. Okay, probably best not to think about that.
    His short, black hair was styled to give it that effortless, I-never-worry-about-my-hair look. His blue eyes were fixed on me and didn’t look friendly. He wore a black sport jacket over a white T-shirt tucked into faded jeans. As he brushed the edge of his jacket back and jammed one fist on his hip, I noticed the gun hooked to his belt.
    Gulp.
    Nah. Just kidding. Logan wasn’t homicidal.
    Probably.
    Back when we were kids, he’d always talked about being a cop. Hopefully, he’d become one and that explained the gun. Otherwise, I was in more trouble than I’d thought.
    â€œSo, he didn’t save any orphans from a fire, huh?” Thea asked.
    And so it begins, I thought, and shifted my gaze—okay, reluctantly—from Logan to my darling daughter. She looked not only pissed, but hurt. That’s when I really felt bad. It wasn’t like I’d lied to her only to make it easier on me.
    â€œMom?”
    â€œNo. No fire.”
    â€œAnd there was no flood.”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œSo you lied.”
    â€œSorta.”
    Thea blew out a breath. “Good to know I can always count on Mom to tell me the truth.”
    Okay now, is it just me, or did that