Fearless In Love

Irene was a slap in the face to everything his parents had taught him—which in retrospect was probably a big part of her allure. His father would have said she was worthless and flighty and Matt was ruining himself by taking up with her. Though his father was gone by then, dead of a massive coronary during Matt’s first year in college, being with her still felt like he was getting one up on his dad.

But the Irene he’d thought he wanted turned out to be an illusion. She loved her fun to the point that she had no sense of responsibility. She was caring until she forgot about a friend and snubbed her for another. She lived on the surface of life without any deep thoughts or deep feelings.

“When she found out she was pregnant, I realized I wanted my son more than anything. So I was willing to take her too. But when the baby came along, she decided he wasn’t any fun—crying, needy, wanting to be held all the time. Noah was a month old when she handed him over to me.” He should have known Irene would never last, but he’d actually been shell-shocked—partly because he had no clue how to take care of a baby either. He’d asked when she’d be back and her answer was simply, I don’t know, accompanied by a careless shrug of her shoulders. Whatever trust there’d been between them had died in that moment. Because it wasn’t just his son who wasn’t enough for Irene. It was Matt. And that destroyed his final thread of hope that he’d one day have a real love like Bob and Susan had.

“I’ve been trying to understand her,” Ari said, with a frown that indicated she wasn’t getting very far. “Thank God Noah had you. A lot of kids have no one.”

“I wish I could be enough for him,” he said in a low tone. “But every time she flits in for an hour or two, then suddenly discovers something more ‘important’ to do, he ends up feeling like he doesn’t matter. Sometimes I think he’d be better off if she were gone forever.” He could feel his teeth grinding. He always kept his emotions under control and lost his cool only when his son was threatened, by a nanny or a bully or a bully’s mother. But Irene made him want to break his vow to keep his cool in every situation. “She comes back just often enough to keep Noah on her hook.”

Ari reached out, then just as quickly retreated, dropping her gaze. It was obvious she wanted to offer comfort.

She couldn’t know how badly Matt needed that comfort, how much he wanted to wrap himself around her and breathe in her scent like a calm breeze washing over him.

* * *

The room had grown darker and more intimate the longer they talked. Matt was only a touch away. But no matter how badly she wanted to, Ari couldn’t touch, not even when his pain for Noah was like a physical wound in her own body. She hurt for Matt as well, for the hopes he’d had five years ago and the dreams that had died.

“I can’t believe she actually brought him firecrackers and a trampoline,” he said. “But the Superman parachute is still the ultimate. All I can think is that she wants him to be a daredevil like she is.”

Ari could almost see him shudder at the thought. Matt’s biggest fear was that something bad would happen to his son, but while she obviously wanted Noah to be safe, little kids still needed to run free and try new things. Which meant they were going to get hurt sometimes.

“Maybe a little daredevil isn’t so bad,” she said gently. Before Matt could object, she explained, “I don’t mean jumping out of planes and lighting firecrackers in the backyard. Just small things like learning some tricks on a scooter. Or a pogo stick.” She thought about the water wings that hampered Noah when he was swimming, but decided this still wasn’t the right time to bring that up. Not tonight.

Picking up his tumbler, Matt swirled the liquid. “He begged to see Jurassic World, but I should have known he’d be terrified of the dinosaurs. The only reason he wants to try the daredevil stuff is to impress Irene. He wants her to love him so badly that he’ll do anything, and I want so badly to protect him from turning himself inside out for her.”

Matt was so kind, so loving, and such a great dad—even if he was sometimes as overprotective as Irene was careless. Ari wanted to climb onto his lap and wrap her arms around him, feel him close and warm and solid against her.

Instead, all she could say was, “Being scared of roaring dinosaurs gobbling up people isn’t the same as wanting to try things like the trampoline.” Though Noah could probably do more than his dad would let him. “I was terrified of the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz when I was a kid.”

“You were afraid of the monkeys, not the witch?”

“They had big, awful grins.”

“For me it was Natural Born Killers.”

She gaped. “Your parents let you watch Natural Born Killers?”

He shrugged. “My dad said you had to be tough to get along in this world. My mom agreed with him.”

“That’s crazy. How old were you?”

“I was twelve.” He grimaced. “In reality, it’s probably not any worse than a lot of video games. It was just seeing it up there on the big screen.”

She could see that he was trying to move them beyond the specter of Natural Born Killers, but Ari still thought it was crazy to take a kid, even a twelve-year-old, to see a couple cut a bloody swath across middle America.

She might not be able to wrap her arms around him, but she could make sure he heard the truth. “You’re doing a great job, Matt. No matter what else happens, Noah will always know how much you love him.”

He stared at her for long moments before he finally said, “Thank you for being so good with him under difficult circumstances.”

She blushed at his praise. And the way he looked at her. As if there was more he needed to say. More he wanted to do.

God, how she longed to be in his arms, where nothing else mattered but how much pleasure they could give each other. And where she’d finally felt like she mattered.

It was long past time to shift the conversation to what they’d done together the night before. It might feel easier in the short term just to ignore it, but she couldn’t let it fester between them—and he obviously didn’t want that either, since he’d brought it up earlier.

“About last night—”

He held up a hand. “I can’t apologize enough for what I did.”

Frustration ate at her. Didn’t he see that she’d been a totally willing partner in their lovemaking? And that he hadn’t coerced her into anything?