Meet Me Under The Mistletoe (O'Rourke Family 5) by Julianna Morris

friends” with Alex meant she didn’t have to worry about him discovering she was the domestic equivalent of a shipwreck. On the other hand, she still hadn’t rushed to tell him the truth, either, particularly when he’d asked if she’d make cookies with Jeremy.
    The words had stuck in her throat.
    Instead of saying, “Sorry, but I couldn’t bake a cookie to save my life,” she’d agreed to his request. Worst of all, she and Jeremy were making those cookies in the McKenzie kitchen, rather than her house, so anything she broke,spindled or mutilated would belong to Alex. Fortunately, he was upstairs, looking for something, instead of sitting in the kitchen watching her make a fool of herself. But sooner or later he’d come down and see her mess up the place.
    At least Jeremy looked content. He had smudges of flour on his cheeks and a smile on his mouth; it was worth a little humiliation if it made him happy. And he was so smart. He could already read words like flour and sugar and ginger , and he understood measurements.
    He was also smart enough to understand the difference between really being sick, and pretending because he didn’t like the changes in his life.
    “Jeremy, have you ever heard the story about the boy who cried wolf?” she asked casually.
    He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
    “It’s about a little boy who was given the job of watching the sheep for his village. A village is a small town,” she explained. “It was an important job, making sure a wolf didn’t come and scare the animals.”
    “What was the boy’s name?”
    Shannon blinked and thought furiously. She didn’t know the story that well, just the highlights and the message behind it. “I think… I think his name was… Bob.” She cringed the moment the name came from her mouth, but she was new to this storytelling thing.
    “Bob?”
    “Y-yes. Bobby. Bobby liked watching the sheep, but sometimes it was boring, and he wanted to get the villagers’ attention. So he’d cry ‘Wolf!’ and everyone would drop what they were doing and come to help chase it away. But when they got there, he’d laugh because they were out of breath and worried, and he knew it was just a joke.”
    Jeremy darted a look at her. “That wasn’t nice.”
    “You’re right, it wasn’t nice. Unfortunately, he kept doing it and the villagers stopped believing him. Then one day a wolf did come.”
    “What did he do?”
    She swallowed, suddenly unsure of herself. A sheep-eating wolf was a grim tale for a four year old; it might have been better if she’d asked Alex before starting the story.
    “Uh… Bobby called, but no one came from the village.”
    This time Jeremy didn’t even look at her; he just nodded.
    “Do you understand why it was so important for Bobby to tell the truth?” she asked, brushing some of the flour from his cheek. “It’s like when you say you’re sick, except you really just want to see your daddy. After a while nobody knows if anything is really wrong.”
    Jeremy’s small lower lip pouted out, then a huge sigh rose from him. “But I don’t like day-care.” He planted his elbows on the table and looked angry. “Why did Mommy have to go away?”
    Her chest tightened. He’d gone right to the tough question, the question she’d asked so many times about her own father.
    “I don’t know…but I know that she didn’t want to leave you.” Shannon pushed the bowl of flour and other ingredients to one side and sat next to him. Some things were more important than cookies. “Tell me about your mommy.”
    Standing outside the kitchen, Alex fought a thousand different emotions as he listened to Shannon. Pain at the emptiness Kim’s death had left, love for the woman who’d been his wife…anger at life’s injustices.
    And hope, hearing Shannon encourage Jeremy to talk.
    Soon his son was pouring out stories about Mommy taking him to the pond to sail paper boats, about cookies and bedtime stories, and the songs she used to