by Bella Andre
She sighed. After they'd made love, after he'd made her feel like she mattered, it turned out that letting Matt go wasn't easy at all.
Get a grip, Ari. After all, she'd walked into his arms with her eyes wide open, hadn't she?
She kissed the top of Noah's head and forced herself to smile at Matt as she waved good-bye. In the huge garage, as she unlocked the door of her ancient car, the shiny frame of Noah's bicycle caught her eye, the training wheels on the back. Behind it was the mountain bike.
She needed a distraction to take her mind off her one and only night with Matt. And Noah needed a distraction to take his mind off his mom. What better way than learning to ride his bike without the training wheels? They could surprise Matt after Noah had mastered it. It might help him reevaluate his position on the water wings or letting Noah help cook breakfast or...heck, any number of things.
And it might end her fixation on how seductively her sexy boss kissed. Because she needed to concentrate on being the best nanny Noah had ever had. Even better than Mary Poppins.
*
Ari had been here only one week. How was it possible that the house could feel empty without her? Matt had itched to ask her to spend the day with them, but he'd have driven himself to the edge of insanity keeping his hands--and mouth--off her all day long. Hell, he'd barely been able to sleep last night. It had taken all his willpower not to walk down the hall and beg her to come back to his bed, back into his arms. Back to the place where everything finally felt right, if only for a few precious hours in the dark.
No question about it, she was worth a beating from his brothers. But it was Susan's gaze he couldn't face if she knew he'd taken his nanny to bed, abusing the trust of his employee.
"So, buddy, what shall we do today?"
"The zoo." A pout hinted on Noah's mouth.
Ari had mentioned Irene's broken promise. There were obviously residual effects of her casual thoughtlessness.
"I haven't been to the zoo in ages." He always tried to do something fun with Noah on their weekends together. "I heard about a great place close by from a guy at work. With a puppet theater and a petting zoo. You can even talk to the parrots. How does that sound?"
"Fun!" Noah's eyes bugged with excitement.
"I just need to drop off some work papers on the way, okay?"
Half an hour later, they were in the car. Doreen had the day off, and he enjoyed driving Noah himself. He had the guilty thought that it would have been so damn sweet with Ari beside him, leaning between the seats to inspire Noah with endless questions or comments, teaching him with everything she said and did.
Wending their way through surface streets to reach the San Jose office, Noah chattered about school, the mummy museum, meeting Ari's friend and her son. He was glad Noah was distracted, because the neighborhood wasn't the best. He was pretty sure he saw a drug deal going down in an alleyway, and an inappropriately dressed lady attempting to attract business, even on a Sunday morning.
He'd seen worse in his old Chicago neighborhood. A stabbing or a shooting on a Friday night was common. But when Noah came along, he'd realized the true importance of having made it out of that life. His mission was to make sure his son never lived the kind of childhood Matt had, the kind of life all the Mavericks had experienced. If not for Susan and Bob, he didn't know where they'd all be. The Mavericks were his blood brothers. But Susan and Bob had been their heart.
Turning a corner, he almost hit the brakes. Golden-blond hair, skinny jeans, and an innately sensual walk that stopped his heart--he'd know that rear view anywhere.
What the hell was Ari doing here?
She stopped at a corner apartment building, its flaking paint faded to gray and the awning ready to fall off its struts. His foot unconsciously lifted off the accelerator, and the car slowed as she opened the outer door and disappeared inside.
This was where her friend lived?
This was where she'd brought Noah?
It couldn't be. She'd vowed to keep his son safe, and he trusted her to keep that promise. Ari wouldn't bring Noah here. So what was up? Had she lied about where she was going? Maybe she planned to meet up with a man instead of her friends.
After what they'd done Friday night, Matt's mind twisted imagining another man's hands on her, another man's lips covering hers...
"Daddy?"
Damn it. He'd stopped paying attention to Noah. "Yeah, buddy?"
"Do parrots bite?"
"We'll find out today." His son was priority number one, not what had happened with Ari the other night. But he still couldn't strip the image of her with another man from his mind--or the jealousy that knifed deep into his gut.
Because even if he couldn't have her now, for one perfect night Ari had been his.
*
Noah adored the puppet theater, and he'd gone back to the petting zoo three times, hunkering down to stroke his hands along the goats' sides. They learned that parrots could bite and their beaks had tremendous pressure per square inch. Matt approved of how carefully the docent handled both the birds and the kids surrounding them. When the talking parrot repeated what Noah said, he giggled, his hands over his mouth. By the end of the day, they'd vanquished Irene's ghost completely--at least until the next time she dropped in to stir things up. Happy, laughing, joyful Noah chattered all the way home.
"We have to tell Ari about the llamas, Daddy." Matt had lifted him up to pet them.
That had been Noah's refrain all day long: We have to tell Ari.
It was impossible to stop thinking of her when Noah clearly wished she had been with them too.
If Irene was the specter...Ari was the dream.
A dream Matt couldn't let himself have. Not just because she was his son's nanny, but also because he didn't have anything to offer her beyond wild, beautiful, fabulous sex. Matt didn't have what it took to cement a real relationship that would last, not after Irene or a childhood like his. He could still see Ari's horror when he'd told her about Natural Born Killers.
It was close to dinnertime, and Matt stopped for takeout pizza. The closer they got to home, the faster his heart beat with anticipation for the mere sight of her car parked in the garage.
Damn it, he had it crazy bad for her.
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.
"She started losing jobs all the time. We moved around a lot. Gideon remembered the good times, and he used to tell me about them. But I didn't remember my dad. I only remembered my mother...like that. When Gideon turned eighteen, he joined up so he could take care of us. He said he'd send money."
"But he never did?" It must have been a huge double blow.
"I'm sure he tried. But we got kicked out of our place right after he left." She pressed her lips together. "I don't think my mom's landlord ever told him where we'd gone. I'm not even sure if my mom gave the guy any information to pass on."
His heart broke for her. She'd never even had a childhood. His chest ached with his inability to reach out and fold her into his arms.
"How old were you when she died?"
"Twelve." She blinked slowly. "It was a drug overdose. They tried to find Gideon, but Jones isn't exactly an uncommon name. I didn't know which branch of the service he'd gone into. I didn't even know if he was still in the military."
Jesus, what she'd been through--a drug-addicted mother, losing her brother, losing her home over and over, never feeling safe. He saw clearly now why she empathized so easily with Noah's pain over his mother's aborted visit. And with him.
In so many ways, their childhoods mirrored each other--the instability, never knowing how his dad would react, a mother who was emotionally absent. They'd both been abandoned. But he'd found the Mavericks and Susan and Bob. Whereas Ari had gone into the foster care system.
"I'm so sorry," he said again, knowing his words were completely inadequate. "How were your foster homes?"
He got another shrug. "I got moved around a lot, but I was used to that after living with my mom." She deliberately left out every detail but that one.
Yet another thing they had in common--Matt never gave people the details of his shitty childhood either. He didn't want their pity. And he didn't like to have to go back there, even in his head, if he didn't have to.
"But I met some really good friends," she continued in a brighter tone. "I don't know what I'd do without Rosie and Chi."
He saw so many things now. Her desire to help with the youth home for foster kids coming of age was rooted in her own experience. He called Bob and Susan his foster parents, but they were far more than that. They were Mom and Dad. A kid needed tremendous luck to find people like the Spencers.
But though Ari hadn't been lucky, she was resilient. She'd taken care of herself all on her own. She'd grown and thrived. She was bright and enthusiastic and full of joy, laughter, and hope. They came from the same beginnings, but while Ari had the strength to step out into the light, too often Matt still remained in the darkness of his past.
That was the biggest reason why he needed to leave her alone. Drawn to Ari's brightness as if he needed to feed off her, Matt knew he could so easily drag her down. Just as Irene had always accused him of doing to her.
But God, how he admired Ari for the woman she'd made herself into. "You're amazing."
She tilted her head, her lips parted. And he felt the denial coming. But he wouldn't let her say it.
"My parents were alive," he told her, "but we barely had enough money to eat sometimes. We lived in Chicago, and usually my coat and boots had holes in them when I walked to school." There'd been so much worse, but he wouldn't burden her with his father's cruelty or his mother's indifference. He just needed her to know she wasn't alone. "I understand how hard it is. But the Mavericks and I had Daniel's parents. Without them, I wouldn't be here."
She shook her head, her hair falling over her shoulder. "You'd have found a way."
> Without Susan and Bob's solid presence, without the Mavericks going to bat for him, he would have remained the kid his father hated. The Mavericks and the Spencers had helped him to value his love of learning.
Who had helped Ari?
"Rosie and Chi sound like your Mavericks. They kept me sane in an insane world. We all need people to help us through."
He allowed himself one gentle touch, taking her hand in his. He couldn't be with her again, but there was something else he could do. Something that would mean the world to her.
"I can help you find your brother."
Chapter Fourteen
Ari wasn't a speechless kind of girl, but Matt stole the words from her lips.
I can help you find your brother.
Matt Tremont was a man who made the impossible possible. Look where he'd come from--a childhood where there wasn't enough to eat and his feet had nearly frozen through the holes in his shoes. That had to be why he was so good to the people who worked for him, respectful with Doreen, and sweet with Cookie. Now this, an offer to help return her brother to her.
She simply nodded, with all her gratitude shining in her gaze.
"What have you learned so far?" He squeezed her hand, and his comfort touched her deep inside.
Finally, she found her voice. "I started looking for him about three years ago." With her college tuition, books, and day-to-day living, even with Daniel's fabulous scholarships, it had taken a long time to put a little money in a savings account.
After her mom died, she'd been shuffled between so many foster homes she couldn't count the parents or the kids. She was like a transient, losing everything again after a few weeks or months. Between her mom and foster care, she'd learned to live and pack light. She'd run out of places to hide her meager stash from the other kids. Another lesson in traveling light: They couldn't steal what you didn't have. One of the fathers had tried to molest her, but she'd been able to get out of there fast, mostly because she'd had so little to take with her.
She'd not only survived, but she'd been lucky to find Rosie and Chi, her best friends in all the world. After high school, when Daniel had given her the job at Top-Notch, she'd lived paycheck to paycheck, and she'd clung to the little studio like she did to Rosie and Chi. In a world where she'd never had anything, the small room was hers, a hideaway, a place to run to. And it was the only place where Gideon could find her, if he ever got one of her letters.
