Blame it on Cupid Read Online Free PDF

again.
    Scowling and ticked off, he yanked open his back door and felt the prompt slap of ice air. Hell and more hell. All this voyeurism was going to completely ruin his workday tomorrow—he could already feel a lack-of-sleep headache coming on—and if he wasn’t still up, the hounds of memories wouldn’t have had a chance to chase after him.
    Most days, he wasn’t remotely bitter. He didn’t want Dianne back, was long over all that. He had a great time with his female friendships and sleep-mates. So did they. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He just had no intention of putting himself in harm’s way ever again. Chivalry was very nice, but somebody else could do it. And if somebody thought that made him a cold, unfeeling creep, well, that was tough.
    Still glowering, he crossed the yard, swore when the cold, wet grass sneaked into his shoes, hiked up her driveway and closed her damn front doors.
    He didn’t do it to be nice.
    He didn’t have a nice-bone left in him. He’d only done it out of plain old selfishness. He knew damn well he wouldn’t have been able to sleep, fretting that anyone in hell could have walked through those wide-open front doors. And if he didn’t catch at least some sleep, he was going to be completely worthless at work tomorrow.
    He might enjoy looking at her delectable fanny, but he sure as hell was not going to enjoy living next door to such a witless woman.
    Â 
    M ERRY WOKE UP TO the caterwaul of her traveling alarm clock. She slapped it off, then blearily opened one eye. Seven o’clock.
    A god-awful hour for a girl who’d only made it to bed at four-thirty.
    She stumbled off the couch, stretched, then forced both eyes open. She vaguely remembered trying to decide where to sleep, but then just pulling a blanket over her head in the living room. Everything about the house had seemed overwhelming at that point.
    Still did, for that matter. She thought she knew Charlie Ross. And, of course, people changed when they matured. But where Charlie had been so warm and natural and likeable, his house seemed decorated by a robot. Almost all the surfaces were gray or stainless steel. The walls were filled with gargantuan canvases of scary modern art, and every room had technology so ultra-cool that she couldn’t even turn on the TV or set a clock on her own.
    Okay, cookie, enough griping.
    She stumbled toward the bathroom. Never mind all the looming crises ahead of her, she felt darn good about all the chores she’d accomplished last night.
    When she’d first walked in the front door and looked around, she darn near panicked, but kept her mind on what mattered. Charlene. Getting the place prepared for the little girl to come home. So Merry’s first priority, obviously, was to put up the pink Christmas tree and presents—that little girl was going to get a Christmas come hell or high water!
    And after that—well, the house had shaken her up on a zillion emotional levels, but just making it livable was the first challenge. Clearly no one had cleaned the house since Charlie died. There was a sock in the living room, a jacket hanging on a kitchen chair—nothing terrible—but reminders of her dad that Merry didn’t want Charlene exposed to the minute she walked in the door.
    Once all that tidying was done, she’d recognized the ghastly smell in the kitchen as something rotting in the fridge. Hell’s bells, there went the rest of the night. She’d dumped the icky fridge contents, scrubbed and sanitized, chased out to an all-night grocery to bring in some milk and basics, then came back to do a dust and vacuum and bathroom-clean.
    In the shower, shampoo streaming down her face, she admitted to herself that in real life, she didn’t mind being a slob. Or a relative slob. Far too many things were more interesting and important than dust, but Merry could justify her brief cleaning freak-out. It wasn’t