All Fired Up (Kate Meader) Read Online Free PDF Page A

neighborhoods where every other business was a wine bar or a dog groomer. Jack owned a share of the veteran Italian restaurant, and the rest belonged to his future in-laws, or more specifically his future father-in-law, Tony DeLuca. Now Shane’s father-in-law, since a guy in a Hawaiian shirt had presided over his nuptials to the man’s eldest daughter.
    Nope, not weird in the slightest.
    Jack leaned against the hood of his car, some black deal that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a presidential motorcade. His eyes were peeled to his phone, his thumbs moving feverishly. Shane had never met anyone who worked as hard as Jack. When he wasn’t at the restaurant, he was checking out his other places in Europe and the US. He still showed up most mornings to receive the deliveries and he was the last one to leave at night after close down of service. No, Shane couldn’t fault him on his work ethic.
    The boss looked up and shoved his phone into his jeans pocket. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything,” he said, the tone one of not really giving a fuck.
    “I usually like to take a ride on my day off. Coming to this neighborhood is as good as any.” Shane busied himself removing his helmet and tearing open the zipper on his leather jacket while Jack just stared. Alrighty, then.
    “So what’s up?” Shane asked after the uncomfortable pause had joined forces with a downright awkward one.
    “You should have told me,” Jack said, his expression still grave.
    About Cara? It had to be about Cara.
    “Told you what?” Shane fronted.
    Jack scrubbed his hand through his thick, dark hair, making it stand on end in furious spikes. A very specific memory invaded Shane’s brain, and he forced it deep. He was so like…Looking at Jack and not being reminded was a downright impossibility but that’s the path Shane had chosen. Gotta take the bad with the good.
    “I had to hear it from Lili.” An edge of vexation had crept into Jack’s voice.
    So Cara had finally confided in her sister. Made sense, though the sisters hadn’t struck him as being all that close.
    “It just sort of happened,” he muttered.
    “Well, you should have come to me.” He raised his gaze to the building behind him as though pondering some great question. Pulling a jangle of keys from his pocket, he moved up the stoop toward a big oak door, about fifteen feet from the main entrance to DeLuca’s restaurant.
    “Come on up,” he said with weary resignation.
    Shane’s mind raced a mile a nanosecond. Was that it? You’re married to my future sister-in-law, so come on up? Not how he pictured his welcome to the family. He had a whole raft of other images in his head about that.
    Jack was already inside and had left the door ajar. When Shane made it to the top of the inside stair, Jack had disappeared through another doorway. He followed into a comfortably cluttered apartment, walled with an array of funky art pieces.
    “It’s a bit of a mess and I can move the furniture into storage if you don’t need it.” He surveyed Shane with a quick up-down as if he were assessing his armchair requirements. “Although I imagine you probably need something given how you’ve been living the last few weeks.”
    Realization clobbered Shane like a kiss with a two-by-four. “You’re offering me a place to live?”
    There was that mouth twist again. Uh, maybe not. Jack arced his arm around the space, taking in a large living room with a decent-sized kitchen.
    “I purchased the building about six months ago when I bought out the previous investor in DeLuca’s. Lili and I used to live here before we found the townhouse a few blocks over and I haven’t gotten around to fixing this unit up. She said you needed a place.”
    Shane’s brain was starting to settle with the knowledge that, one, Jack didn’t know about Cara and, two, he was offering him a place to stay but he didn’t seem too happy about it. Relief and confusion got tangled up in his head, refusing