“You don’t need to thank me.”
He didn’t point out that while they’d been able to find Zach Smith, finding her brother was still a very difficult proposition. He didn’t want to destroy her hope or her joy in the things she’d learned today. Matt loved how she always saw the bright side. Living with a mother who’d abandoned her for her next fix and then to foster care, Ari was a remarkably glass-half-full kind of woman.
She pushed the spring greens around on her plate. “I searched for three years,” she emphasized, leaning forward, dropping her voice to a near whisper that was raw with emotion. “I got nothing. But you make things happen just like that.” She snapped her fingers in the air. “You found Gideon’s friend. Someone who made him come alive in his words. So yes, I need to thank you.”
She made Matt feel like a hero, when really it was a matter of money and having contacts in the right places. But he wanted to be her hero. And he wouldn’t rest until he found her brother.
“I will find him for you.”
“I know.” She was so sweet in her faith in him. In the next moment, as their meals were laid in front of them, she burst out with, “Oh my God, will you look at that rack?”
Matt let go of a laugh that came straight from his belly, and the waiter dipped his head to hide his smile. If Ari had any idea of the double meaning, she didn’t give a hint.
She ate the way she did everything, with enthusiasm, moaning around a mouthful. The erotic sound kicked his pulse even higher.
“You’ve got to try some.” She held out a forkful she’d just cut.
He wanted nothing more than for her to feed him, so he cupped her hand to pull her closer as he let himself take what she was offering.
“To die for, right?”
Jesus, she didn’t know the half of it. Had no idea what was happening to him under the tablecloth or that his heart had powered up into heavy metal drumming mode.
“Try mine.” He dredged a hunk of lobster tail in butter.
She put her hand under the fork to catch a drop as her mouth closed around the tines. She slowly drew away, driving him a little mad. A lot mad. Eyes closed, her lashes long and lush, she moaned her appreciation. Then she licked the drop of butter from her palm.
When she opened her eyes, they shone with the knowledge of what she was doing to him. Sweet and seductive was one hell of a combination. One he wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist forever—even though he gave self-control his damned level best.
“Ever had lobster before?”
She shook her head, her smile half-cocked. “Like I said, SpaghettiOs were gourmet in my house.”
“Canned stew in mine.” He wanted her to know he’d been there too. They shared common beginnings, making them alike in so many ways, yet different in how they’d each reacted. “Watered down so it would stretch further.” Although his dad’s portion never got the extra water.
“Sometimes we’d fry just bread because there was no cheese for grilled cheese sandwiches.” She made another mmm sound that tightened every muscle in his body. “Isn’t it amazing how you can invent really good stuff when you don’t have enough?”
He had never thought of the deprivation of his youth that way, yet he remembered how Susan and Bob had always brought joy into their house without much of anything. “At Christmas with the Mavericks and Susan and Bob, we had hot chocolate and made garlands out of paper and popcorn and hung it all on a fake ficus tree Bob rescued from the dump. Nobody cared it was made out of plastic. It was about being together.” Matt’s own home had been bare of decoration because his dad wouldn’t waste the money. With Bob and Susan, it had only been about the joy. The way Ari was all about hope.
“Gideon always found the perfect gift,” she told him. “It never cost a lot of money, but he never let us forget it was Christmas.”
“And after your brother left?”
Anyone else with her rough childhood would have gone down the rabbit hole at his question. Ari simply shrugged. “I was never as good at finding stuff. Gideon had a knack. He just cared so much.”
She was resilient, pulling the love she’d felt for her brother around herself like a warm coat, even after all these years apart. A lot of people would have been permanently beaten down by now. Not Ari. She’d triumphed.
No doubt about it, she was definitely Maverick material.
* * *
Matt refilled her champagne glass. Ari didn’t know how much she’d had, but she felt light and airy rather than drunk. Exchanging the lamb for lobster had been almost sexual, and the attraction between them sizzled barely beneath the surface. But the night was about so much more than just attraction.
They’d talked for hours, and it turned out that they shared so many common experiences from childhood. Of course, they also talked about all the things Noah did and said that cracked them both up. She adored hearing about the other Mavericks and Matt’s foster parents. She didn’t want dinner to end.
Just when they were about to get up from the table, his phone buzzed. Reading the screen, his expression grew serious. “Rafe just texted to let me know that Karmen Sanchez’s mother lives the closest, in Bakersfield. He also found her phone number.”
She wanted to rip the cell out of Matt’s hands to call the woman. But this wasn’t just about Ari, was it? She wasn’t the only person who had lost someone they loved. “Do you think it will open up old wounds for Karmen’s mom?”
Matt curled his fingers around hers, and her heart turned over as though she were doing somersaults on the trampoline.
“I don’t know.” His voice was so soft, his touch so gentle. “Maybe no one’s mentioned her daughter in years, and you’ll give her a chance to talk about her. To remember her.”
He astounded her with his insight. It was exactly what she’d been trying to say about Gideon—that the memories Zach Smith had given her were precious.
She thought of her mother, and how no one had talked about her after she’d died. Yes, she was a drug addict who had dragged her daughter from filthy apartment to dirty dive, one after the other. But Ari had loved her. “When my mom died and they took me away, it was like she didn’t exist anymore, as if talking about her would remind me of some terrible time.”
Matt’s hand tightened around hers, giving her his strength, his heat, his power. “But you wanted to remember, didn’t you?”