More Than Fiends by Maureen Child

feel that old flash of attraction flaring up again. Another empty grab. “And there’s the whole stealing-my-candy thing.”
    He tossed the candy onto the table, and Sugar followed its movement like she was at a tennis match.
    Shaking his head, Logan grumbled, “I would have been here a lot sooner if I’d known.”
    â€œI know that.”
    â€œYou should have told me.”
    â€œI tried.”
    â€œReally?” he snapped and fixed his gaze on me as if he was pinning me to a board to be examined later. “When was that? ’Cause I think I would have remembered.”
    There was one stray kiss on the counter, and I went for it blindly. My fingers played with the foil-covered candy and then tugged out the stupid little white paper that had absolutely no reason to exist. “I went to your college graduation. Remember that?”
    â€œYeah, so?”
    â€œSo, I was going to tell you right then, until you introduced me to your ‘fiancée,’ Spiffy or Sparky or whatever the hell her name was.”
    â€œMisty,” he said, shoving both hands into his jeans pockets. “Her name was Misty.”
    â€œAh yes.” I nodded but didn’t roll my eyes. And, hey, good for me. “Much classier name. Thanks for clearing that up.”
    â€œYou should have told me anyway,” he said and stalked around the perimeter of the kitchen.
    My gaze followed him and so did Sugar. The big dog’s nails clicked happily on the floor while she played what she thought was a new game with her new best friend. Me? I stood still and wished he was in Nevada.
    â€œYeah, that would have gone over well,” I said and walked to the kitchen table to grab a handful of chocolate. “‘Oh, so nice to meet you, Scrunchy. Logan, you’re a daddy. When’s the wedding?’”
    â€œMisty.”
    â€œWhatever.”
    While he paced, I unwrapped a piece of chocolate-covered caramel, thanked whatever genius little candy maker had come up with that concept, and stared idly through the back door to the mud porch. Now, my business is cleaning houses, so my house is always clean—almost always—and my windows are always shiny. Usually. Anyway, my point is, while I stared out the upper, glass half of the back door, I noticed something.
    Even though the windowpane was clean and nonstreaky, there was a long pattern of extra clean right across the middle of the glass. Frowning while Logan continued to fight his way past Sugar to pace, I thought about that for a long minute, and then it dawned on me.
    When crazy-lady Jasmine was there earlier, she’d made me shoot Leo in the head with that nasty-looking stuff in the spray bottle. Some of the liquid had missed poor, smoking Leo and splattered on the glass.
    Now, that glass wasn’t just clean, it was damn near gleaming.
    What the hell was in that stuff, anyway?
    â€œSo you see my position.”
    â€œUh-huh.” I popped a kiss into my mouth and studied that sliver of extra clean.
    â€œSo you agree.”
    â€œSure. What? Huh?” I swiveled my head to look at him, and he looked way too pleased for my comfort level. “Agree to what?”
    â€œTo me seeing Thea on a regular basis.”
    â€œI didn’t agree to that.”
    â€œI could sue you for joint custody.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t,” I said and hoped I sounded way more confident than I was. He could really make things ugly for me. I mean, I owned my own business, but it wasn’t a Fortune 500 company. And he was a cop. Judges liked cops. Plus, I’d sort of hidden his daughter from him for, well, her whole life. That wouldn’t look good.
    â€œI want to know my daughter.”
    â€œYou just met her. Good start.”
    â€œCassie…”
    â€œWe’ll work something out,” I said and forced a smile that felt too tight and grimacelike to be convincing, but he appeared to be okay with it.
    â€œGood.