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

shrouding the landscape. The windows clouded up the moment he got inside the Jeep, and it took several minutes before warm air began coming through the vents.
    “I don’t know about this. Maybe you’d prefer staying in,” he said when he’d returned inside his condo. “It’s a miserable night.”
    Shannon smiled. “I don’t mind, if you don’t. This is Christmas weather.”
    His eyebrows shot upward. “Snow is Christmas weather. This is just cold and wet.”
    “Give it a chance. We don’t get many white Christmases in this part of the country, but there’s the smell of wood smoke and fresh-washed evergreen in the air, and all those strings of lights sparkle through the rain like tiny jewels.”
    Alex shook his head, yet when they walked outside to the waiting Jeep, he realized that the scent of wood smoke and evergreens did fill the air, and the early twilight was indeed brightened by the Christmas lights strung on trees and bushes and houses. He’d deliberately chosen a place that was different than their old home in Minnesota, but while they probably wouldn’t have snow for Christmas, they’d have stands of pine and cedar keeping the forest green.
    And they’d have Shannon.
    The errant thought shook him. Desire was one thing, but he didn’t want to need anyone…the kind of needing that tied your heart in knots and made good-byes so terrible.
    “You’re quiet all of a sudden,” Shannon commented as he pulled out of the driveway. “Is something wrong?”
    Alex summoned a smile. Shannon was a nice woman, and she was doing a lot for his son, but that didn’t mean he needed her. He had to get a grip.
    “Nothing’s wrong. I just hadn’t realized we wouldn’t have a white Christmas.”
    “Well, we might get some early snow, but we usually don’t before January. Even then it’s iffy, and doesn’t stay long on the ground unless an arctic storm comes down from Canada.”
    Using the discipline he’d honed over the years, Alex forced his brain into less disturbing directions.
    Snow was a perfect distraction.
    He mentally noted where he’d stored the snow shovel, and calculated how long it would take to shovel the walks and their two driveways. He’d shovel snow for any neighbor, so it wasn’t significant that he planned to deal with Shannon’s snow.
    They were friends, weren’t they?

Chapter Seven
    A lex doggedly read the term papers piled on his desk and tried to ignore the cheerful sounds rising from the first floor of the condominium.
    Jeremy hadn’t forgotten about the half-finished cookies, and at 5:00 a.m. his son had been standing by his bed, asking if they could call Shannon to come and help finish making the “ginger people.”
    “You mean gingerbread men,” he’d said groggily.
    “Shannon says they’re ginger people.”
    “Did she say ginger bread people?” Alex was never at his best in the morning, and getting into a semantics discussion with a four year old before the crack of dawn hadn’t been the brightest idea in the world.
    “Shannon says ginger people.”
    Of course. Whatever Shannon said was the gospel truth as far as Jeremy was concerned. It didn’t matter, anyway. In the end they were just cookies.
    “Okay,” he’d muttered.
    “Goody.” His son had picked up the phone receiver and pushed it into Alex’s hand. “Call now, Daddy.”
    Oh, God.
    Why couldn’t children sleep when other people were sleeping?
    “Son, I didn’t mean it was okay to call. I meant okay, they’re ginger people.”
    “But, Daddy —”
    “You don’t want to wake Shannon up, do you? She’s on vacation. Besides, you don’t call friends this early in the morning.”
    Jeremy had reluctantly agreed, then he’d crawled into bed with him and talked for three straight hours, with liberal references to their neighbor and the things she’d done and said when they were together.
    So much for his daddy sleeping late. Alex had finally given up and called Shannon at a more reasonable hour