More Than Fiends

by Maureen Child

Hmm. Besides every demon in town? Man, I hadn’t even thought of that. Was the word out? Did the bad guys know I was officially on the job?

  “Cassie? You still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were quiet so long…. Take that long to add up your enemy list?”

  “Nope,” I said, going for the dig, “there’s just you.”

  A pause, then, “I’m not your enemy.”

  “Then what are you, Logan?”

  “Guess that’s what I’m trying to figure out,” he admitted.

  “Well, good for you. When you get your answer, be sure to share.”

  He chuckled. Apparently my snotty little comments weren’t exactly putting him off. “Oh, I will. But first I’d like to know who you’re planning to have sex with.”

  “That’s not gonna happen, so why’d you call?” Not friendly, but, damn it, why did I have to be friendly with a man who had really screwed up my life just by moving back to town?

  “Cassie, we need to talk.”

  I groaned, rolled my eyes and immediately turned to the pantry. “Logan,” I said, “we already talked.”

  “Not enough.”

  “Trust me, it was plenty,” I said and started pulling boxes out of the pantry, rummaging past Thea’s shredded wheat and dried soybean (what was she thinking during that brief but hideous healthy binge?) snacks. I needed sugar. Preferably chocolate, but anything would do.

  God, why had I been such a pig and eaten both of the last two Pop Tarts that morning?

  “I think we should have dinner,” Logan said, and I stopped dead.

  A dating drought for freaking years and then two invitations inside an hour? Shaking my head, I pushed my right hand through all the nonessential crap—flour, salad dressing, microwave popcorn—Finally. I grabbed the bag of chocolate chips and studied it for about ten seconds, considering whether I really needed to lose those five pounds by Saturday or not.

  Screw it. I ripped the corner of the bag off with my teeth while Logan kept talking in my ear.

  “Cassie, it’s been a long time. I think we should talk about what’s going on with us.”

  I chugged chips, got a good mouthful and chewed while I tried to come up with a good answer. Sugar flooded my system, bringing a calm I really needed.

  “There is no us.”

  “There could be.”

  Briefly, I remembered that morning, Logan leaning in, his fingers smoothing over my skin. I sucked in air like a near-drowning victim and told myself to get a grip. Logan was not my boyfriend anymore. I wasn’t the teenager who’d slept with his picture under her pillow anymore. (Hey, give me a break. I was sixteen, okay?) And I wasn’t waiting around for some man to give me a happily-ever-after.

  These days I made my own HEAs.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Logan,” I said around a mouthful of really stale chocolate chips. A little gritty, but good in a crisis.

  “Cassie, we’ve got history. And I’d like to know if maybe we could have a future, too.”

  WHAT???

  I choked on the chips, swallowed, then took another mouthful and bumped Sugar away with one knee. “It’s poison, you idiot.”

  “Poison? Who’re you talking to?”

  “Sugar. She wants my chips.”

  “You have poisoned chips?”

  My eyes rolled so far up in my head, I saw the roots of my hair. “Never mind. Logan, it’s nice that you moved back, nice that you’ve met Thea and nice that you want to go to dinner, but—”

  “Nice?” he interrupted, and I had to give him points. Apparently he remembered that to have a conversation with me, you had to be prepared to talk right over me.

  “I’m not being nice,” he said. “I’m trying to connect with you.”

  Connect? God, he’d been in LA too long.

  “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not really connectible.”

  “With me, you mean.”

  “Well…yes.”

  “We were good together.”

  “Ah yes,” I said, popping chocolate chips into my mouth and biting down hard enough to straighten my back teeth. “We were great together. I was sixteen, and by the time you went back to school, I was pregnant. Wow. Good times.”

  “I didn’t know about the baby. Remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. I remember Musty, too.”

  “Misty.”

  “Whatever.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Hello? That’s my point, Logan. We’ve got nothing in common now.”

  “Yeah we do,” he said, his voice dropping a notch or two. “You think I’m hot.”

  I leaned in and thunked my forehead on the pantry. Once. Twice. I’d like to argue with him, but how the hell could I? He was right.

  “I think you’re pretty hot, too, you know.”

  Pretty hot? Gee, thanks. Wait a minute while I find my smelling salts so I can wake myself up from my faint.

  “Logan, this isn’t gonna happen.” Okay, I admit it. I was tempted. Who wouldn’t be? Logan looked damn good—and I believe I’ve mentioned a time or two that I was sadly lacking in the whole orgasm thing here lately. Well, more than lately. But, damn it, I couldn’t go out on a date with my daughter’s father! She was already pissed at me. That would just cap it off.

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “I’m back in town now, Cassie, and I’m just getting started on you.”

  He hung up before I could, the bastard. So I did the only thing I could do.

  I ate the rest of the chips.

  First thing in the morning, I was up, dressed and hovering over the coffeemaker, waiting impatiently for that first, magical cup. Carmen and Rosario had already stopped by to pick up some of the new “window cleaner.” Hey, sure it works on demons, but it’s a great little glass cleaner, too, and waste not, want not—as Carmen would say, given half a chance.

  Just as the cup I’d substituted for the coffeepot in desperation was half-filled, a knock on the door had me spinning around warily. Thea was still brushing her hair, so she wouldn’t be answering the door, God knew. I grabbed my pitifully small amount of coffee, slammed the pot back into place and headed through the living room.

  I opened the door and didn’t bother to hide my groan.

  “Jesus,” Logan said, drawing his head back as if he was appalled. “You look like shit in the morning.”

  “Uh-huh. Thanks for stopping by. Go away.”

  He was way more awake than me, because he slipped into the house before I could shut the door. Then he handed me one of the cardboard coffee cups he was carrying. “Thought you could use this, and I see I was right.”

  I sniffed blindly, then sighed. “A latte?”

  “You don’t like ’em?”

  “Please.” I stumbled back toward the kitchen, set my own on the counter and cupped my hands around the gift of the gods. I took a sip, felt life begin to stir inside, then lifted my gaze to Logan.

  Nobody should look that good first thing in the morning. As if he knew what I was thinking, he smiled.

  “Just stopped by to pick up Thea.”

  Without even asking. Oh yeah, I thought. We’re really connecting now.

  “So, this is going to be an everyday thing?” I asked.

  He shrugged, took a drink of his coffee and said, “I like taking her to school. She talks to me. I’m getting to know her, I think.”

  “Logan,” I said after another invigorating sip of latte—God, the man really knew how to get on my good side, “you can’t just walk into her life and expect everything to work out the way you want it to.”

  He leaned one hip against the counter and watched me thoughtfully for a long minute. “I know. But I’ve already lost fifteen years with her, Cassie. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

  Okay, fine, I’m a softie. My heart wrinkled up in sympathy for him. “I get that. I really do. But you have to let her decide w
hen to let you in.”

  “I am,” he insisted and gave me a smile. “I’m just enjoying being a dad. I think I could be good at this.”

  “Oh sure,” I said, laughing at his silly naïveté. “Wait until she turns on you like a snake. Then we’ll talk.”

  “Thea?” He said her name like he would never believe anything but that his little girl was a princess. “She’s a great kid.”

  “True. She’s also a teenager,” I warned, though I could see it wasn’t getting through. “And a girl. The double threat.” He frowned, but I was on a roll and kept right on talking. It was only fair to clue him in that being a parent wasn’t all hugs and flowers. “Don’t get me wrong, Thea’s a great kid, but teenagers can kill you.”

  “Cassie, you’re not gonna scare me off.”

  “Not trying to,” I assured him. “But consider yourself warned.”

  “Mom?” Thea shouted from her bedroom.

  Ah, there was the delicate princess now. “What?”

  “Are you ready?” Her voice was getting closer, as were her heavy footsteps. The new boots she had insisted on buying had soles four inches thick. I didn’t think she actually bent her foot to walk at all. It was more of a step-slide maneuver. “We’ve got to go now—” She broke off as she stepped into the kitchen and saw Logan standing there, smiling at her.

  “Your dad is going to drive you again, okay?”

  Thea ducked her head, and her long black hair swung down to hide her expression. But not before I saw the pleased smile on her face. Awww.

  “See you later, Cassie,” Logan said and headed out right behind his daughter.

  I couldn’t really tell by his tone, but the words sort of sounded like now he was warning me.

  By the end of the day I’d had about enough of all of the people in my life.

  And, I got a migraine while cleaning the house of one of my regulars. Nice woman, but she talked my ear off, following me from room to room, shouting to be heard over the vacuum. By the time I got out of there, I needed a handful of aspirin and sugar, so I drove to Sun and Shadow bakery, stood in line between the last of the summer tourists for what felt like forever, only to discover the fathead in front of me had bought the last cinnamon roll.

  “Sorry, Cass,” Donna Cullen said from behind the counter. “That guy in the plaid shorts just about cleaned me out.”

  I cut him a dagger look, but he was already waddling out the door. Plaid was bad enough, but plaid big enough to cover a butt that size was really appalling.

  Donna and I had gone to high school together, and her family has owned the Sun and Shadow bakery for fifty years. They made incredible cakes and those great little butter cookies with the dollop of chocolate in the middle, and their artisan breads were incredible.

  But I went there for the cinnamon rolls. The size of hub-caps, they were drowning in that thick, white icing, and I could practically hear my arteries clogging shut with every bite. Just the way I liked it.

  “Want a glazed doughnut instead?”

  Sad, sad life. “I’ll take two.”

  I ate them both on the way home, then raced through the front door, balancing a bag of groceries (out of Pop Tarts, remember?), when I heard the phone ringing. Like Pavlov’s dogs, a bell rings and I’m off and running. I couldn’t stand a ringing phone. Had to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Cassidy, this is Daniela Baker.”

  CRAP. The customer who followed me all over her house, wanting to chat over a screaming vacuum.

  “Yes?” I should have gotten another doughnut. If she wanted me to come back and redo something she didn’t quite like, I was going to need another one.

  “I just wanted to tell you that you did a fabulous job!”

  Well. Wasn’t expecting that. Usually Mrs. Baker had at least one complaint.

  “Thanks. Good to hear.” I kicked the front door closed, walked into the living room, set the grocery bag on the coffee table and dropped into the closest chair.

  “It’s amazing,” she was saying. “I don’t know what you did today but—”

  She knew exactly what I’d done. Hadn’t she haunted my every step?

  “—my ghost is gone.”

  “What?”

  “My ghost. Herbert. He’s gone.”

  “You have a ghost named Herbert?” I sat up straight. First demons, now ghosts? What the hell was happening?

  “Oh my, yes,” she said. “Herbert’s been here forever. I believe he died in the twenties, and he’s a very rude spirit, if truth be told.”

  “I…” didn’t have a clue what to say to that.

  “He’s very obnoxious, really. Slamming doors and making my bathwater cold. He plays the piano at all hours of the night—awful music, loud and crashing.”

  “You don’t have a piano,” I pointed out.

  “No, dear. Herbert does.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And he hates having the house cleaned. I think the sound of the vacuum irritates him.”

  Or it’s you, I thought, shouting to be heard over the vacuum.

  “Every time you leave, he plays with the lights and turns off my TV right in the middle of my soaps. Except for today.”

  “That’s good?”

  “That’s wonderful. Why, the house has never been this quiet. I have the whole house to myself, and I’m going to take a hot bath to celebrate!”

  “Good for you,” I said, because what the hell else could I possibly say?

  “Now, just in case Herbert isn’t actually gone gone, be sure to do whatever it was you did today, the next time you come. All right?”

  She hung up, and I just stared at the phone.

  The only thing I’d done differently was use the demon mixture on the windows and mirrors in the house. So not only did the handy-dandy little brew identify demons, it chased away ghosts?

  Score another point in the weird column.

  Chapter Nine

  “He WALKS me to my class,” Thea complained. “Mother, nobody’s parent walks them to class. I’m in HIGH SCHOOL, for God’s sake.”

  I heard the capital letters in Thea’s voice and silently cheered. Seemed I wasn’t the only one in Thea’s doghouse. She wasn’t very fond of either me or Logan.

  We’d had dinner, Thea had worked up the bid for Magic Nights, and now we were in our usual places on the couch, with the TV blasting background noises while Thea went on a first-class rant.

  “He actually went in and spoke to the PRINCIPAL. He wanted to see my GRADES.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to be the reasonable parent. The calm, quiet, collected parent who knows her worth and doesn’t have to berate the daddy-come-lately in her life to feel better about herself. Sliding the bowl of popcorn closer to her on the couch, I said, “Maybe he just wants to be involved in—”

  “I cannot believe you’re taking his side in this,” Thea said, and her eyes narrowed into slits.

  “I’m not taking any sides. I’m trying to be calm and reasonable about—”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have started speaking to you again.”

  “Thea…”

  “You lied to me about him.”

  “Yes,” I said and took the popcorn back. If I was going to be punished, I wanted a snack.

  “And now you’re sticking up for him against me.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You are and it’s just not right, MOTHER.”

  “Please stop talking in capital letters.”

  Her eyes widened. Her jaw dropped, then snapped shut. “Fine. I’ll just stop talking altogether.”

  “Thea, you can’t keep punishing me for this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re a smart girl. Because you know I love you. Because we’ve been a team your whole life. You can’t break up the team.”

  “I’m not the one breaking anything up, Mom,” Thea said and stiffened her spine until I was sure I’d hear a vertebra crack. There is absolutely nothing more drama
tic than a teenager with a right to be pissy.

  Sugar lifted her head, scooted it across my lap and stuck her nose into the popcorn bowl. I sighed. There isn’t much I won’t eat, but I refuse to share a bowl with my dog. “Thea, honey, it’s going to get better.”

  Did I sound believable? I sure hoped so, because at the moment, I wasn’t convinced myself.

  “I’m practically grown,” Thea said. “I don’t need a daddy.”

  Briefly I thought of my own daddy and felt tears rise up suddenly. He’d been gone five years now, and there were times, like this one, that I really missed him. Reaching out to take her hand, I gave it a squeeze. “Don’t knock having a daddy.”

  Instantly, my darling daughter knew what I was thinking about, and she squeezed my fingers before letting go. “Grandpa was different, Mom,” Thea said, her voice as soft as the look in her eyes.

  For one brief, shining moment, the tension between us was forgotten, and we were as we had always been. We’d grown up together, Thea and I. Being a mom at sixteen hadn’t been easy, but from the moment I held her, I knew that keeping her had been the right thing to do. We were closer than just mother and daughter. We were friends, too.

  Or had been. Until my lies finally caught up to me and shattered Thea’s trust in me.

  Yes, I knew this situation was my own fault, whether I wanted to admit it or not. The problem was, I didn’t have a clue how to fix it.

  I edged back on the couch, curled my legs up under me and looked at Thea. God, she was just so beautiful. And she was growing up so damn fast. When had that happened? When had enough years slipped past that just looking at her I could see the woman she was fast becoming?

  “Honey,” I said, struggling to find the right words, “sometimes even when you do what you think is the right thing, it turns out to be all wrong.”

  “Lying to me, you mean.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “What else have you lied to me about, Mom?”

  “Nothing.” Well, except for the Santa and Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy things, but those didn’t count. Those were traditional lies, told by lying parents to generations of trusting children.

  Thea shook her head, tossed her hair back behind her shoulder and heaved a dramatic sigh. “See, Mom…that’s the problem. How can I believe you?”