Meet Me under the Mistletoe

“Is marriage the answer for your family? Like a ship’s anchor for all that wildness?”

“Maybe.” Shannon flipped a curling lock of auburn hair away from her face, and shrugged. “But probably not for me.”

Once again there was a confusing emotion in her green eyes, quickly concealed. A man could get whiplash trying to figure her out, and for the hundredth time Alex’s head warned him to get out, now, before he got involved. Women like Shannon might be fascinating, but they were also too disturbing.

Despite the warning, he leaned forward. “Why not you?”

“Lots of reasons,” she said lightly. “I’m too independent and want things my own way. I enjoy working and keeping my own hours, that sort of stuff.”

Once again he had the oddest sensation, as though she’d told him something that wasn’t entirely true.

“Seeing how good you are with kids, I’d think you’d want a family of your own.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “How do you know I’m good with kids? Maybe it’s just a fluke with Jeremy.”

Alex laughed. “I don’t believe that. Why else would he respond to you?”

“It’s…complicated.” Shannon’s smile trembled and she looked at Jeremy playing with the train set. Her voice lowered. “I think it’s because I understand what he’s going through. You see, my father died in an accident when I was eight. One minute I was a happy, carefree little girl, and the next…”

Her eyes blinked rapidly, unnaturally bright, and he winced. “Don’t, Shannon.”

She shook her head. “No, I want you to understand, because if there’s anything I can do to help Jeremy, I want to do it. I know how it feels to be young and have your world fall apart, and to hurt so much you want to crawl in a hole and hide,” she said, sounding as if the words had been dragged from a deep place in her soul, a place she didn’t usually reveal.

Alex felt like a heel for causing her to speak about something so painful. Maybe it wasn’t such a terrible thing to ask for her phone number to give the day-care center. Jeremy came first, and Shannon obviously wanted to help.

He raked a hand through his hair, his need to stay uninvolved battling with the seductive desire to be close to a woman as tempting as Shannon. And right in the middle of the battle were his son’s needs, more important than anything else.

“Actually, there is something…well, there’s a favor you could do for us,” he said slowly.

Shannon raised one eyebrow when he fell silent. “Yes?” she prompted.

“The day-care center has been asking for an emergency contact in case they can’t reach me. I know it’s a lot to ask, but they’re right about needing someone local. I understand if you don’t want to. It’s really all right if you say no.”

Alex sent up a prayer she would say no, or seem reluctant, or say something else that would get him off the hook. Then he could honestly stall the day-care center again.

“Of course,” Shannon said, reaching for her purse and taking out a business card. She scribbled something on the back and handed it to him. “This has my office number, and I put down my home and cell, along with my executive assistant’s phone. She can always reach me. Really, if there’s anything you need, just call.”

God in heaven…

She was so generous, and Alex gazed into her green eyes for an endless moment, then down at the curves of her mouth. Panic lapped at the edge of his consciousness; he didn’t want to be attracted to Shannon or be pulled into her world. He wanted things to be calm and sane, with everything in its proper place. He needed things to be that way.

The doorbell rang before Alex could sort through the emotional minefield he’d stumbled into, and he let out an unconscious sigh of relief. “That must be dinner.”

He pulled out his wallet, but Shannon shook her head.

“It’s my treat, remember?”

Letting a woman pay for dinner went against the grain. “But—”

“No ‘buts.’” Shannon got to her feet. It had been years since she’d had so much trouble keeping herself from blushing, yet something about Alex was making her say things she never planned on saying.

And those eyes of his…they were too darned intent. She’d bet anything that he wasn’t thinking about her the way she kept thinking about him, but that was the story of her love life. Men always had a different agenda, and how was she supposed to figure out a man who’d lost his wife and was worried about his son?

“So, how is everything going with your classes?” she asked after they’d settled at the dining-room table and spooned various portions onto their plates, the food steaming and spicing the air with the pungent fragrances of lemongrass and other herbs.

Alex groaned. “Okay, but I didn’t have any idea how tough it was teaching basic engineering principles to undergrads.”

“I thought you’d been teaching for a long time.”

“No, this is my first year. I used to work on engineering projects all over the world. But now that it’s just me and Jeremy, I realized that moving every few months for a job wasn’t the right life for him.”