Meet Me under the Mistletoe. Julianna Morris

like her, Daddy.”

      “I know. I’m sure you’ll see her again. Shannon is our next-door neighbor.”

      Jeremy let out a very adult sigh. “But you made her mad.”

      It was undeniably true, even though she’d appeared to forgive what he’d jokingly implied about her brother. Yes, Shannon O’Rourke was temperamental, but she’d also shown that she was loyal.

      A far cry from his own family.

      After his parents divorced, Alex and his two siblings had been pawns in their incessant power struggles. And now they didn’t see one another anymore. They were too far-flung for one thing; his brother was in the Arctic studying global warming and his sister was working in Japan. As for his mother and father, they’d each been married and divorced several times to other people, and they still hated each other with a passion that poisoned everything around them.

      “Shannon isn’t upset with you,” he said finally. “So it’s okay.”

      “But she’s mad at you, Daddy.” Jeremy was obstinate in his own way, and he obviously felt that Shannon being mad was a problem, regardless of who she was mad at.

      Alex rubbed the back of his neck. After his rotten up-bringing, he’d worried he couldn’t love a child. But from the minute his newborn son, all red and wrinkled, opened sleepy eyes and blew a bubble at him, he’d turned into a marshmallow where the kid was concerned.

      “I know, son, but you still don’t need to worry about it.” He would have said everything was “all right,” but he’d said it too often when Kim was sick, and he’d felt like a hypocrite each time Jeremy crawled into his arms and believed him.

      His son gave him an exasperated look, which would have been comical if his eyes weren’t so serious. “Can we get her a Christmas present?”

      A Christmas present?

      What did you get for a woman who must have everything?

      “We’ll get a poinsettia,” Alex promised. Plants were usually safe, especially since it should look like a seasonal gesture. Or as an apology for the verbal faux pas he’d stumbled into over her brother.

      Jeremy looked relieved, and as they trudged back to the Cherokee, he turned his head to gaze in the direction Shannon had driven. For the first time in a year he wasn’t clutching Mr. Tibbles to his chest; instead, he was casually swinging the rabbit by one arm.

      Alex let out a sigh of his own. He had to be careful. Seeing too much of the woman next door could lead Jeremy into getting ideas about a new mommy.

      Yet as he fastened his son into the child’s car seat, Alex couldn’t help thinking about Shannon. She was undoubtedly headstrong and opinionated, as different from his wife as a woman could be. He’d considered casual dating since Kim’s death, but none of the women he’d met were particularly interesting.

      And none of them were like Shannon O’Rourke.

      Chapter Two

      Shannon let herself into the condo and tossed her purse onto the couch before plugging in the lights on the Christmas tree. She had to be out of her mind even to have considered offering to babysit.

      “Me, babysitting. Hah!”

      Yet even as she scolded herself, she remembered Jeremy McKenzie’s solemn blue eyes and a familiar ache filled her. She’d been eight when her father died, leaving her confused and hurt. The thought of Jeremy feeling the same way tore at her heart.

      “I’m not the motherly type,” she muttered. She couldn’t change a diaper or even heat a can of soup, though Jeremy was surely old enough not to need diapers any longer. Even that she wasn’t certain about, though she was pretty sure most kids were potty-trained by the time they were two or three. How old were her twin nieces when they’d stopped needing diapers? It was embarrassing to realize she didn’t know. They were her nieces, and she loved them dearly. Sinking into the chair next to the phone, Shannon dialed her youngest sister.

      “Hey, Kathleen. When did Amy and Peggy get potty-trained?” she asked without preamble.

      “Shannon?”

      “Yes. How old were they?”

      “Er…not quite two.”

      Two. Well, that was good. Undoubtedly kids developed differently, but Jeremy was probably past that stage. Not that it mattered. Alex McKenzie hadn’t given any sign of being interested in her, so she wasn’t likely to see much of either him or his son.

      It was so depressing. Her love life was a disaster area. She wanted an honest relationship with the right man, but what if the “right” man didn’t want someone like her?

      “What’s up, Shannon?”

      She shrugged, though her sister couldn’t see the gesture. “A little boy moved in next door, that’s all. He’s really cute, and I started thinking about diapers and stuff. It doesn’t mean anything, except I got curious.”

      “Are you sure that’s all?”

      “Positive.”

      Shannon said good-bye and dropped the receiver with disgust. It had to be her biological clock ticking that made her ask stupid questions. She was twenty-eight years old and unmarried—and unlikely ever to be married at the rate she was going, so of course her clock was screaming.

      Shaking her head, Shannon walked up to the bedroom to change into a pair of sweats and then began to run on the treadmill in her spare room.

      She had a great family, a terrific job, made plenty of money, and was perfectly comfortable, she told herself in time with her steps. It wasn’t the end of the world if the love of her life never showed up. Of course, it was hard to keep believing that with the rest of the world obsessed with love, and her own family acting as if Cupid had gone target-happy with his bow and arrows. Even Neil, her brother who had once equated marriage with the plague, had fallen off the deep end. So now Neil had Libby. Her oldest brother, Kane, had Beth and baby daughter, Robin. Patrick had Maddie and their new son, Jarod. Dylan and his wife, Kate, were expecting a baby. Only her youngest brother, Connor, was still unattached. Of course, her sisters weren’t married, though Kathleen was divorced. Shannon grimaced at the thought of Kathleen’s ex-husband. There were worse things than being single…like having a cheating spouse who’d run off when you were almost nine months pregnant with twins.

      A half hour later the doorbell rang and Shannon stopped the machine. She wiped her face with a towel, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and took a swig on her way to the door.

      “Who is that?” she called on her way downstairs to the door.

      She peeped through the curtain and gulped at the sight of Alex and Jeremy McKenzie.

      “Isn’t this just perfect?” she mumbled. Her face was flushed, her hair damp, and she was wearing an old pair of sweats. Well, it couldn’t be helped, so she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders as she opened the door. You could get through the worst situation by acting as if you owned the world.

      “Hi.”

      “Hello.” Alex’s velvet-rough voice rubbed over her edgy nerves like a silky cat. “Jeremy wanted to be sure you weren’t mad at us.”

      Mad?

      Shannon thought for a moment, then recalled the way Alex had seemed to mock Kane, her darling oldest brother. She was willing to give him a second chance, especially with Jeremy looking at her with that anxious expression in his eyes.

      “I’m not mad,” she said, looking down at Jeremy and smiling. He really was the dearest child, with such a sweet, sad, worried little face. No wonder her scant motherly instincts were clamoring for attention. How could anyone fail to adore him?

      “It’s for you,” Jeremy said, holding out a poinsettia wrapped