Sebastian’s look encompassed Ari as well, and she felt the glow of being automatically included. Matt had done the same that morning when he’d assumed she’d join them at the barbecue Charlie and Sebastian were throwing. As though she was family.
As though she was his.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Matt took a step closer to her, and her heart raced even though he hadn’t touched her.
“All right, let’s get these guys unloaded.” Sebastian climbed into the truck bed.
Ari marveled with Noah while they set up the dinosaurs in the back garden. It was a perfect ending to a perfect week. A nearly perfect one, anyway. If only she could wait patiently for Matt to see clearly for himself that he loved her.
But she couldn’t deny that every loving glance between Sebastian and Charlie filled her with a deeper longing—and more impatience—to share the very same emotions with Matt.
* * *
With his son’s hand in his on the driveway as they waved good-bye to Charlie and Sebastian—and Ari only a touch away—for the first time in his life, Matt actually felt happy. Real happiness. It was more than the joy he always felt at being with Noah. For once, he felt content. Being with Ari was completely different from his time with Irene—not frantic and rushed, but sweet and miraculous.
These past weeks he’d been continually asking himself about love. Not just was this love? But could he love anyone right? Could he be there always, without mistakes?
In the end, it wasn’t their incredible lovemaking that made him see the truth. It was how endlessly patient Ari was with his son—and how patient she’d been with him, never pressuring him to say I love you. And though Matt wasn’t certain he’d do everything perfectly, he finally believed Ari wouldn’t give up on him even if he took a few small missteps.
At long last, he could see things clearly rather than through a haze of fear.
He loved Ari.
Loved her in a way he hadn’t known he was capable of after he’d lost his faith in the people who were supposed to care for him as a child.
Tonight. He’d tell her how he felt tonight after the barbecue, when she lay warm and soft in his arms.
The only thing marring his happiness was his total failure to give Ari her heart’s desire. It killed him that he hadn’t found her brother yet. But he would, damn it. He needed to make Ari as happy as she’d made him.
“Have I mentioned recently how happy you make me? How happy you make us?”
She beamed at him. “You make me deliriously happy too.” She bit her lip before adding, “Noah and I have a special surprise for you.” She held out her hand for Noah. He took it and skipped with her to the garage, where Ari punched in the code to open the door. “Stay right there,” she called out to Matt as they disappeared inside.
Matt turned up his face to the sun, reveling in its warmth the way he reveled in the heat of Ari’s smile.
“You can look now!” Ari’s voice was accompanied by Noah’s laughter.
Matt opened his eyes…and his heart choked his throat as he took in the near paralyzing sight of Noah hurtling toward the big slope of the driveway on his bike.
A two-wheeled bike that no longer had its training wheels.“Remember to stay away from the hill, Noah,” Ari called.
But Noah was too excited to listen, and the bike gained speed. Too much speed.
Matt’s blood was like the roar of engines through his veins. Noah wore a helmet, but what if he barreled right out into the road?
“Noah!” Matt yelled, hit squarely by a vision of himself as a child, only a few years older than Noah, careening down a hill that was far steeper than he’d thought. “Stop!”
The gate was open to the street beyond it, and Noah was heading straight for it. Memories of agony and deep shame shrieked in Matt’s head as he started to run. His gaze shot to the road for signs of a car, but no way could he get to his son in time. Even as he ran, he felt the remembered pain of all those years ago, heard the awful crack of his arm breaking, his father’s voice calling him an idiot, a weenie, a good-for-nothing sissy.
“Noah!” His son’s name screeched through the sunshine. A car, the road, the hill. Jesus, God, please no.
Just when he thought everything was lost, Ari was there, barring Noah’s way, her fists on the handlebars. “Now, Noah, you know the rules. You need to stay up top,” she said, chiding him softly. As if nothing cataclysmic or life-threatening had happened.
As if Matt hadn’t just lost years off his life.
“Did you see that, Matt?” Somewhere through his haze of fear and fury, he vaguely noticed that Ari and Noah beamed at him with excitement shining in their eyes. “Noah can ride without training wheels. We’ve been practicing so he could surprise you.” She didn’t seem at all frightened by what had almost happened. “He did great, don’t you think?”
It was hardly even a question. She simply expected Matt to agree, to congratulate Noah on his new skill—and to congratulate her for helping his son.
But Matt still couldn’t see straight. Not when the only thing in his vision was what might have been.
Noah crushed beneath a car.
Noah with broken limbs.
Noah with brain damage like Jeremy.
And not when all he heard were the things his father had shouted at him on that day long ago, as his arm screamed in pain and tears streaked his cheeks. Insults and abuse that were seared into Matt’s soul as deeply as his mother’s refusal to step in and help had been.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” His voice was so deadly cold, so brutally sharp, that Ari stopped short, her smile instantly disintegrating.
“In my classes I learned it’s normal for a child Noah’s age to begin riding without training wheels. Plus, I did some research on the Internet. And Jorge can do it,” she added so softly that he had to read her lips over the rush in his ears.
“I don’t give a damn about Jorge or your freaking classes or what the hell the Internet says.”
He cursed, a four-letter word he’d never said in front of his son. But he threw it at her like a punch—then watched as Ari reeled from the blow.
“He isn’t ready to lose his training wheels.” Each word was a bullet. “Anything could have happened. Did you see how close he got to the road?”
“But I was there to hold on to him. To make sure he was safe.” She paused, swallowing hard before adding, “I’ll always be there for him.”