Free More Than Fiends by Maureen Child Page B

to Thea. So, at the risk of lying yet again to my one and only child, I just said, “She’s a friend of Gram’s.”
    â€œWhy’s she here, then? Gram lives in Florida.”
    Like I said before. Smart kid. Damn it. “She’s, um…” Funny. All the lies I’ve come up with in my lifetime, and I couldn’t find one big enough to deal with a demon-obsessed old woman.
    I should probably be telling Thea about this anyway. If there were really demons out there, then she should know to be careful. Look both ways, don’t take candy from strangers—oh, and keep a sharp eye out for demons. Yeah, that’d go over big.
    Thankfully, I didn’t have to answer that question because she came up with an even more difficult topic a second later.
    â€œI can’t believe you didn’t tell me my father was alive.” She grabbed a paper towel off the roll in the middle of the table and started shredding it. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’m almost sixteen. I had a right to know. You should have told me.”
    I took the chair on the other side of the table from Thea and took a deep breath of pepperoni-scented air. Nothing like a good whiff of pizza to give me a little extra strength. “Probably I should have.”
    â€œProbably?” Her voice squeaked, it went so high.
    â€œFine. I’m a terrible mother. A rotten human being. I should be shot.”
    That eyebrow lifted again. “Really.”
    â€œSince we don’t have any guns, you want to just slap me around for a while?”
    She thought about it for a long moment or two, then finally shrugged. “If I do that, who’ll take the pizza out of the oven?”
    Aw. Sniffle. I was so touched. My genius daughter, who should be taking college courses—or, hell, maybe teaching college courses—was afraid of the oven. Something about all that heated air rushing out to steal her breath and singe her eyelashes. But then, it might be the fact that when she was a little girl, to keep her from getting too close to a hot oven, I told her a dragon lived in there.
    God. I really did lie a lot.
    As it turns out, though, good thing for me.
    â€œI didn’t mean to lie to you, Thea.”
    â€œSure you did.”
    â€œOkay, I did.” I scraped up the shredded paper towel and crumpled it in my hand. “But it was for a good cause. You were really proud of your dad, weren’t you? You know, the hero dad who saved all those kids from a flood?”
    â€œA fire.”
    â€œWhatever.”
    â€œBut it wasn’t real.”
    â€œIt was real for you, baby girl.” I reached across the table and gave her hand a pat. “Look, you were a little kid, wondering where your daddy was. I didn’t want to tell you—”
    â€œThat he left us?”
    Ouch. See, that was the conversation my lies had helped me avoid for sixteen years. I never wanted her to think her dad hadn’t wanted her. So I cleared that up, fast.
    â€œNot true. He left me . He didn’t even know about you.”
    â€œHe does now.”
    She didn’t look as if she knew what to think about that, either. Was she happy? Weirded out? Probably a little of both. Well, hell. Me, too.
    I don’t mind admitting that I wasn’t real happy about Logan coming back to town. Aside from the whole hormonal reaction to the man, it was damned strange to think of having to share my daughter with someone.
    Being a single parent isn’t always easy. There’s no one else to blame when something goes wrong or you make a bad decision. There’s no one to take a shift when your kid is up sick for a week. There’s no one to whine to because your kid is smarter than you.
    But along with the grief, you also get the good stuff to yourself. The hugs. The secrets. The smiles. The love.
    Okay, I guess I could see why Logan was pissed off about never knowing about Thea. But in my own defense, I’d