More Than Fiends

by Maureen Child

  His eyebrows lifted as he glanced from the figure on the paper to me. “You’re not cheap,” he said.

  “I said reasonable, not cheap. Besides, you get what you pay for, and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed in our work,” I countered, and in this one area of my life, I felt completely at ease talking facts. It was better we got this straight before we went any farther. “If you’re looking for a bargain, you can call Sheila Benson. She’s cheap, but so’s her work.”

  “Is that right?” he asked, and his really terrific mouth curved again.

  “Why would I lie?” I quipped, hitting my stride and going right on. “You can check her out as easily as you did me. And,” I added, “if you do go with Sheila, I’ll only charge you five percent more when you come running to me later, begging me to forgive you your lack of foresight.”

  He laughed. The booming sound echoed down the long hallway and then bounced back at me. His eyes were gleaming now, and there was no question. Definite interest there. Goody for me.

  “Ms. Burke…”

  “Cassidy.”

  He inclined his head like king to peasant. “Cassidy. I admire your style.”

  “Well, thanks. I like your place.”

  He shrugged. “People like fantasy.”

  “And who can blame ’em?” I asked. “Sure as hell beats reality most of the time.” Especially mine.

  “What’s your fantasy?” he asked, and his voice came so soft, from so close, I shivered.

  “You’re looming,” I said.

  “Are you intimidated?”

  “Nope, just saying.” Okay, maybe I was a little, but damned if I was going to tell him that.

  He backed up and leaned one shoulder against the wall. “Fair enough. But you didn’t answer the question. What’s your fantasy?”

  His eyes were really, really dark. I mean almost black. Hypnotic. I couldn’t look away. (Not that I wanted to, but that’s not the point.)

  “My fantasy?”

  “Everyone has one.”

  “Well, sure.”

  “And yours is?”

  “Private?”

  He smiled. One quick twist of his lips and, wahoo, an electric reaction sped through my bloodstream. Man, I really had to get out more.

  “In this place, secrets remain secret,” he said, and his voice, I swear to God, rumbled through the room. “Tell me.”

  My nipples got hard.

  Wow. If his voice could do that to me, imagine what an actual touch could accomplish. Was it getting hot in here?

  “Fantasy, huh?” I blurted and hoped to hell my ugly green jacket was covering up my nipples. “I do have a favorite.”

  “Yeeessss…”

  “A deaf, mute boy toy who cooks, cleans and can’t get enough sex.” Oh God, did I really say that?

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah, well, just off the top of my head.” And the product of many years of careful consideration.

  “You intrigue me,” he said, tipping his head to one side to study me. “You’re not what I expected.”

  Now, that could be good or bad. The way my day’d been going, I was betting on bad. Instantly, I went into defensive mode, which—if I’m going to be honest—is always pretty close to the surface. “What? You expected a maid uniform? Or maybe you thought I’d be wearing an apron and have a rag tied over my head? Just because I clean houses doesn’t mean—”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Oh.” To give me my due, the defensive thing disappears as quickly as it arrives. “Then, what?”

  “I didn’t expect you to be…pretty. Charming.”

  “Uh…” Fabulous, Cassidy. Way to think on your feet.

  “I’ve embarrassed you.”

  I laughed. “Oh, hell no. Takes a lot more than this to embarrass me. Just ask my daughter. She still hasn’t forgiven me for the clown costume I wore to throw the school carnival.”

  “Clown costume?”

  “Yeah, I went as a clown. Thea went as a neurosurgeon. She was eight. What does that say?” I stopped and held up one hand. “Never mind. Not sure I wanna know.”

  He started downstairs again and I went along, wondering if I’d managed to talk myself right out of this contract. God, I hoped not.

  “So, when can you have that bid to me?” he asked when we were once again in the entryway.

  “Friday morning.” Three whole days to get everything together and make a bid so fabulous he’d have to give me this job. Plenty of time.

  He held out his hand, and when I gave him mine, his fingers closed around it and squeezed gently. “I’m looking forward to hearing from you.”

  I was still mentally fanning myself an hour later as I drove down my block. Devlin Cole made quite the impression. But, honestly, the heady sensation of possibly steady employment had a lot to do with my elevated blood pressure. I’d even splurged, stopped at the market and picked up Thea’s and my favorite gorge-fest food: frozen pizza, Coney Island Waffle Cone ice cream and Hershey’s Kisses. A big night at the Burke house.

  The street was quiet. Here in La Sombra, things were usually quiet, except for, as mentioned earlier, the occasional breakout from the Nut Factory.

  I’d grown up right here on this block. In the same house I lived in now. And I was grateful for it. If my dad hadn’t left me the house when he died, Thea and I never could have afforded to buy one.

  California bungalows, each of them more than fifty years old, sat far back on large, tidy lawns. Huge trees leaned toward each other, their branches forming thick, green arches over the street. Classic rock and roll poured from the garage where the Marchetti boys were working on their always-dead Chevy, and a lawn mower grumbled in the background.

  I noticed the strange car parked in front of my house, and instantly, my good mood dissolved. I’d forgotten all about Leo and the crazy woman with her bottle o’ acid. Was this a lawyer here to sue me for the money I was about to earn?

  As I pulled into the driveway, already formulating arguments, plea bargains and, if necessary, completely undignified weeping and sobbing, Thea came down the front steps to meet me. Her long, black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her nearly threadbare (and brand-new) jeans hung low on her hips, and the hem of her blue T-shirt stopped a couple of inches above the belly button she wanted to get pierced. (I need hardly add, over my dead body).

  As far as rebellious teens went, Thea was pretty mild. She was basically such a good kid that the most she ever came up with to annoy me was being a smart-ass. And frankly, she’d learned that from me, so I couldn’t really complain much, could I?

  Now, despite the weirdness of my day, despite knowing that her long-lost father was back in town and about to screw everything up, I looked at Thea and smiled. I knew that as long as the two of us were together, we could weather any storm.

  Lawsuits, crazy old women, bouncing checks, newly discovered dads…none of it meant a damn. The Burke women could deal.

  I got out of the car and gave her a hug I needed more than she did and said, “Hey, baby girl. I think we’re gonna get the job.”

  She smiled at me briefly. “That’s great, Mom, but—”

  “Whose car is that?” I asked, jerking a thumb at the black SUV parked at the curb. “Is it a lawyer? Oh God. Did he say something about Leo? And the acid?”

  “Who’s Leo? What acid?”

  Whew. Dodged that bullet.

  “It’s not a lawyer, then.” I sighed and did an exaggerated slump of relief. “Thank God. You know, after the day I’ve had, I really didn’t need one more problem.”

  Handing Thea my purse, I turned and reached for the bag of groceries on the front seat. When I had it, I slammed the car door shut with one hip and said, “I got all the stuff for a great birthday dinner. Extra ice cream.”

  “Uh-huh.” She glanced back at the house, then turned back to me. “But first, there’s somebody here who wants to talk to you.”

  A tiny, tiny, tiny curl of dread unwound
in the pit of my stomach. For the first time I noticed that Thea wasn’t smiling. She hadn’t said happy birthday and hadn’t even made a grab for the Hershey’s Kisses she had to know were in the grocery bag. When my daughter didn’t lunge for chocolate, something was up.

  I looked back at the black car and bit down hard on my bottom lip. As I watched, a huge dollop of bird poop landed on the gleaming hood and splattered. A warning from the gods? A hint of things to come?

  “What’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

  Oh crap

  God, I really needed chocolate.

  “Mom? 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.

  “You 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.

  “So, 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.

  “Mom?”

  “No. No fire.”

  “And there was no flood.”

  “Nope.”

  “So you lied.”

  “Sorta.”

  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 seem a little harsh? Sure, I hadn’t told her the truth, but I’d given her a hero father, hadn’t I? Hadn’t made up something ugly, like he’d had too much Wild Turkey one night, stumbled into a gutter and drowned.

  Points for creativity, anyway.

  “We can talk about this later, okay?” Welcome to my world. Never talk about now what you can put off until later.

  “I don’t know if I’ll be speaking to you later,” Thea said, and poor thing actually thought that was a threat. But I knew better. She might have her dad’s eyes, but she got her gift of gab straight from me. There was simply no way she’d be able to stop talking to me. It’d kill her.

  Besides, how could she torture me if she didn’t speak?

  “I’ll risk it,” I said and picked up the grocery bag. The chill from the frozen pizza seeped into me as I headed for the front porch, but in all honesty, that chill could have been the direct result of the ice forming on Logan’s face.

  I tried to stall, slowing my steps down, but doing that only made me notice that the yard needed mowing and more of my flowers had died during the night. What can I say? Just call me the Grim Reaper of the nursery world. Every time I walk through the garden department at Wal-Mart, I actually hear the little flowers shrieking, Not me, not me! Don’t sell me to her!

  “Good to see you, Cassie,” Logan said through gritted teeth, which took all the charm out of that statement.

  “Right.” I waved a hand at the pistol at his waist. “That’s why you came armed?”

  He sighed and flicked the edge of his coat over the weapon. “I’m a cop.”

  Thought so.

  “Used to work for LAPD,” he said. “Now I work for La Sombra.”

  “So, you’re not just passing through?” I asked, feeling my last little bit of hope slide away.

  “I told you on the phone I’d moved back.”

  “Right.” I juggled the grocery bag in my arms and spoke up again, cutting through all the crap to get to the ooey gooey center: “Why are you here, Logan? Just stop by to ruin my day?”

  He pushed away from the porch post and glared down at me. “Ruin your day? You know, I think I’m being pretty reasonable about this.”

  Actually, he was. Hated to admit it, but if someone had kept Thea from me for sixteen years, I’d have been completely freaked.

  “Great,” I said, stepping past him to get into the house, where I could stick my head under a pillow and pretend everything was fabulous. Better living through oblivion. “Think you could be reasonable tomorrow? I’m just not up for this right now, Logan.”

  I didn’t need to see it to know Thea was rolling her eyes.

  “Not a chance, Cassie,” Logan said, and his voice was so tight it sounded as if it were scraping the air. “We need to talk about this now.”

  I kept walking. They were both right behind me, so I didn’t even slow down…. Would it be childish to head right out the back door and keep going? Probably.

  Sugar leaped to her feet at the crinkle of a grocery bag. I didn’t fool myself. It wasn’t mommy love she was looking for. It was Snausages.

  “Make yourself useful,” I muttered. “Attack.”

  She didn’t, of course. Instead, she greeted Logan in the traditional manner of dogs everywhere and stuck her cold, wet nose into his crotch with so much eagerness it would have brought a lesser man to his knees.

  “Ooof! What is this?” he demanded, shoving her big, hairy head to one side in a belated attempt to protect his favorite body part. “A pony?”

  I set the grocery bag down, glanced at a crestfallen Sugar, whose affection had bee
n rebuffed, then shifted my gaze back to the current thorn in my figurative paw. My darling daughter stood just behind the thorn, and the resemblance between them was amazing. There was just no way I could have denied their relationship even if I’d seen a chance at it. Which I didn’t.

  “You should have told me,” Logan said.

  “You should have told me,” Thea said.

  “I need more chocolate,” I said and turned for the bag of kisses again.

  “Damn it, Cassie,” Logan continued, and his voice got a little louder, as if I were deaf along with inconsiderate, rude, thoughtless and—Oh hell, you get the idea. “In fifteen years, you couldn’t tell me I had a daughter? What the hell were you thinking?”

  I pointed to my mouth and made a really conspicuous chewing motion.

  “Don’t you yell at my mother,” Thea said hotly, giving her newly discovered, dear old dad a shot to the arm.

  Sugar whimpered and tried to crawl into my lap. Not easy, since I was still standing, leaning against the kitchen counter. I tore open her treat bag, gave her a couple Snausages and turned my attention back to the daughter I was never more proud of.

  “You don’t know anything,” Thea continued, and her eyes flashed. “You haven’t been here. You don’t even know me. You can’t just walk in and start trying to take over or something. This is our house, and you can’t yell at my mother in our house.”

  Which cleared the way for him to yell at me anywhere else in La Sombra, but who was complaining?

  “I’m not yelling,” Logan shouted, then stopped to take a deep breath. “Thea, I just want to talk to your mother. Alone.”

  Glrrrkk…Never panic when chewing. I tried to swallow the last of the kisses, but they got stuck in the middle of my throat. I so wasn’t in the mood to talk to Logan, alone or otherwise. But clearly, he wasn’t going to let this go with a shrug and an “Isn’t this nice—I have a nearly grown daughter” thing, so since I couldn’t put it off, I might as well talk then as later.