Meet Me Under The Mistletoe (O'Rourke Family 5) Read Online Free PDF

when he’d cursed himself and God…and his wife for being human enough to get leukemia and die.
    “Alex?”
    “Yeah,” he said tightly. “They were mostly single.”
    Shannon’s gaze flicked over him, seeming almost as tangible as a touch. “I may be single, but I promise not to bake you any cakes or cookies.”
    “Skip the Jell-O salad and casseroles, too, okay?” Alex muttered. He didn’t want anything that reminded him of the food at Kim’s wake.
    “I promise.” Once again something unknown flickered in Shannon’s expressive face, but he couldn’t begin to guess at the meaning. “And you can skip the offer of Thai food, if you prefer. I may be single, but I’m not on the prowl like Lisa or the others.”
    “What’s ‘on the prowl’?” Jeremy asked.
    He was examining them both with his serious eyes, and Alex saw that Shannon was as nonplussed as he was over the question. For some reason it reassured him. She was so darned confident about everything, it was nice to know there were some things she wasn’t certain how to handle.
    “It means that Shannon just wants to be our friend,” Alex said.
    “That’s right,” she added quickly. “Just friends.”
    The emphasis she put on the words drained some of the satisfaction from Alex, which just proved how illogical he could be. The last thing he needed was a neighbor who saw him a potential mate, particularly a neighbor as unsettling as Shannon.

Chapter Three
    “A ctually, Thai sounds good,” Alex found himself saying to his astonishment. “But Jeremy may not like something so different.”
    “That’s all right. I can ask the delivery guy to pick up a hamburger on the way over. Does that sound good to you, Jeremy? We’ll have him get french fries, too.”
    Naturally, Jeremy looked thrilled. He loved fast food, particularly since his mother hadn’t allowed him to eat any. Alex had tried to stick to Kim’s rules about their son’s diet, but convenience foods were called convenient for a reason…they were convenient.
    It wasn’t that he couldn’t cook. His work had taken him to some remote parts of the world where restaurants didn’t exist. You learned to cook or you didn’t eat. But between work and trying to spend time with Jeremy, it was easier to grab a bag of precut salad mix and a microwave dinner. Now that things were becoming moresettled, they would have to start a routine that made them both comfortable.
    “That would be fine,” Alex said. “Except I doubt you can get the delivery person to run an errand for you.”
    Shannon’s smile turned even more beguiling. “Wanna bet?”
    No.
    He definitely didn’t want to bet.
    She could probably charm a perfect stranger into doing something they had no intention of doing. Like him, for example. He’d fully intended to keep his distance, and now they were having dinner together again. He had to be out of his mind.
    “You can try the Thai food if you want,” Shannon told Jeremy as they went up her walkway. “I just love the peanut chicken. It’s sweet and yummy.”
    “Uh…okay.”
    They chattered away and Alex nodded in resignation as his son agreed to try a few of the exotic dishes Shannon enthused about. One of the few discordant notes in his marriage had been Kim’s lack of culinary adventure, and Jeremy was just as stubborn about trying new things…or had been until now. His son had done nothing but talk about Shannon ever since meeting her, so he’d probably eat live worms if she asked.
    “Any preferences?” Shannon asked Alex as she hung her coat in the entry closet. Unlike her orderly living room, the closet was an untidy mess of winter gear and sports equipment. He supposed it was a sort of metaphor, representing the variable sides of her nature. “I like almost everything, so speak up for whatever you want.”
    Spicy, he wanted to say, but was afraid it would come outsounding seductive. Curiously, her sexual impact was both subtle and overt. The overt part didn’t