Fearless In Love

They found Ari in the kitchen, the refrigerator door open as she surveyed the contents. He’d told her she was free to indulge in anything available.

God, how he wanted to indulge in her.

No. He needed to keep his perspective. Needed to remember that their night together had been a mistake.

But when Noah rushed to her, and she closed the fridge and knelt to hear a blow-by-blow replay of everything he’d seen, all with a child’s wonder, Matt’s heart blossomed watching her with his son.

She was the caregiver he’d always wanted. The others had been too stern or too lax, too standoffish or too uninvolved. One had adored the luxury of his house, using it like her own mansion when he wasn’t home, hosting pool parties for her girlfriends. Another had designs on moving permanently into his bed. But to all, Noah had been merely a job.

To Ari, Matt’s son was a special person who deserved all her attention.

“I brought pizza.” He held up the box. “There’s enough for you to join us if you’d like.”

“Thanks.” She smiled at him as she grabbed plates and napkins, poured milk for Noah, then got sodas for him and herself. Lord, what her smile did to him. So much.

Too much.

They sat at the kitchen bar, and as soon as she took her first bite, she moaned, “Oh my God, this is good.” Then she scooped up a string of cheese and licked it off her finger.

Matt’s body went into hyperdrive—and his mind went to places no man’s thoughts should go when his son was sitting so close.

“Did you have a good time with your friends today?” Matt hoped he sounded conversational rather than desperately hooked on her.

“Jorge and Rosie were great. Our friend Chi stopped by too, which was a nice surprise.”

She didn’t appear guilty, as if she’d been holed up in a filthy, run-down apartment with her secret boyfriend all afternoon. And yet jealousy—and concern—still ran rampant in his head.

Noah shoved his last bite of pizza into his mouth, then scrambled down from his seat. “Let’s see a movie, Daddy. Ari.” He clapped his hands. “The LEGO Movie!”

“More Legos?”

“Yes!” He raced off, expecting them to follow.

“Have you ever taken him to LEGOLAND?”

“No.” He grinned. “But only because he’d want me to leave him there. Forever.”

By the time they entered the great room, Noah had the TV on and the movie queued up on streaming. He threw himself down onto a big bean bag he’d pulled in front of the TV. “You can come down here with me, Ari.” He waved his arm at her.

“Actually, Ari and I need to do some adult talk while you’re watching.”

Noah harrumphed like a disappointed old man, but he settled in for the movie. Ari sat in the center of the sectional couch near the window, and though Matt wanted her next to him—as close as she could get—he forced himself to sit on the other side of the L-shaped couch.

“Did something happen today?” Ari kept her voice low. “Something about his mom again?”

“No. He didn’t even mention her.” He didn’t want Ari to think he was some crazy stalker, but he also didn’t want it to come up later that he’d seen her in town and hadn’t told her. “I saw you on our way to the park. I had to take a detour into San Jose to drop off some papers. It wasn’t the best part of town.”

“Oh.” She picked up a pillow and curled her arms around it, her legs pulled up, her feet bare, her toes colored with red polish. He couldn’t stop the thought that she’d curled herself around him just like that less than forty-eight hours ago.

“I know you were visiting your friend, but the building didn’t look exactly…” He searched for the least offensive word. “Safe. If you want Noah to visit your friend and her son, it would be better to have Doreen bring them here.”

“Rosie’s place is in Willow Glen. She rents a cottage from a little old lady, and it’s really nice. There’s a park nearby too.” She breathed deep. “Where you saw me…that’s my apartment. The rent’s really cheap, and if things don’t work out here, I need to have someplace to go back to.”

She lived in that neighborhood? Horror rose in his throat. Terrible things happened in neighborhoods like that. He’d grown up in one. He hated the thought of her ever being there. Did Daniel know?

“You don’t have to worry that I’ll fire you.”

But he was her employer, and he’d slept with her, and then in the morning he’d told her it was a huge mistake. No wonder she had a fallback plan, given that most guys in his position would probably can her just to make things easier on themselves.

“It’s not because of what happened between us,” she said softly. “I just learned early on that I need a place to go. Just in case. And also…” She hesitated, then suddenly rushed on as if she had to get the words out before she rethought them. “My brother, Gideon, might come looking for me. I’ve been sending out letters and emails trying to find him. And that’s the address I use.”

She had a brother? She hadn’t noted any next of kin on her application. Daniel had never mentioned a brother either. Or that she was searching for him.

Maybe he shouldn’t get any more embroiled in her life. But in this past week he hadn’t just desired her, he’d also come to care about her. Which was why he needed to know, “Why would he be looking for you?”

For a long moment, only the sound of the TV filled their silence. Finally, she said, “My brother joined up right out of high school, when I was eight. My mom and I moved around a lot. When she died, they couldn’t find him.”

And she’d entered the foster care system. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, and he knew that shrug. It was what you learned to do when you were used to losing everything. It was the shrug you gave when you had to suck it up and move on with your life, even if it felt like there weren’t a hell of a lot of reasons to keep moving anymore.

“How did you lose your parents?” he asked softly.

She swallowed. “My dad died in a car accident when I was real little. Mom never got over it. The only thing that made her feel better was drugs.”

A deep ache curled around his internal organs. His hands itched to comfort her. If Noah hadn’t been glued to the TV in the same room, he might have given in. But he could only listen, the way she’d listened to his story about Irene.