“Oh no, it’s T-Rex!” Matt cowered, throwing his arms out in fear. Noah roared, a loud, perfect rumble that shut down all conversation for three seconds while everyone in the hall stared.
“It’s going to get me,” Matt cried and ran in small steps so Noah could catch him.
“Really,” Daniel drawled. “James Bond should have more dignity.”
“At least I dressed up,” Matt said, pulling on Noah’s tail.
“You’re just wearing your tux.”
Matt suddenly crouched in a Bond shooting stance, reaching quick as lightning behind his back to draw out a gun, and shooting Daniel with a stream of water. “Bull’s-eye.”
Just like that, Ari fell in love with him all over again.
It was his laughter, the water pistol, the way he’d played the terrified victim with Noah. And how beautiful he was in that tux. You could love a friend. You could lust after a man. But with both lust and love coming together, it was enough to make a girl swoon.
Noah grabbed Matt’s hand. “Daddy, take a picture and send it to Mommy. I want her to see T-Rex.”
Matt shot a quick glance at Ari, and the look said so much. Irene was the ghost in Noah’s funhouse—and if he didn’t hear back from his mother, he’d be hurt all over again.
Quickly hiding his reaction, Matt said, “Sure, buddy.” He caught a shot of Noah roaring, then texted it. “It’ll scare her to death.”
Thankfully, two seconds later, his phone pinged. Irene had sent back a terrified smiley face followed by lots of heart emoticons, which made Noah laugh.
For one long moment, Ari felt as if she were alone in the hall with Matt, everyone watching Noah, only Matt’s gaze on her, communicating silently. He could have refused to take the picture. But he’d done the right thing, giving Noah the contact with his mother that made him so happy.
She wanted to reach out to touch Matt even if the time wasn’t right. And she might have if Jeremy hadn’t started to chant, “Haun-ted house. Haun-ted house.” Noah joined in, then Susan and Bob, and finally the downstairs filled with the cry.
Will climbed two stairs and clinked his glass. “Silence!” he called out. “Let me see if the ghosts are haunting.” Reaching into his Bride of Frankenstein pocket for his phone, he pushed his wig slightly out of the way so he could put the cell to his ear. A few seconds later, he held up the phone and yelled, “The haunt is on!”
The cheers were deafening.
“You’ve all got your tickets.” Cinderella had handed them out along with the drinks. “Rob the bartender will call the numbers every fifteen minutes. We’ve got a shuttle bus in front to take you to the haunted house when your number is up.”
A shuttle bus. A real haunted house. So this was how billionaires did Halloween.
“I didn’t get a ticket,” Noah pouted.
Will leaned down, almost toppling his wig. “That’s because you get to go on the first bus. You’re special.”
“Wow,” Noah said with a huge smile. “I’m special.”
Will said to the adults, “Privileges of being a Maverick—we all get to go first.”
“But Evan and Whitney and Paige aren’t here yet,” Susan said.
“We can’t keep this crowd waiting,” Will replied. “They might attack with pitchforks.”
The Bride of Frankenstein gathered up his monster and his doctor and led the way to the first shuttle bus. Ari slid into a seat and Matt followed, pulling Noah onto his lap, the dinosaur tail sticking into the aisle.
Like a brand, she felt Matt’s heat through the thin material of her gypsy skirt. And she wished she hadn’t made that promise—to them both—not to touch him while they were here.
* * *
Ari was beyond gorgeous as a gypsy girl, her midriff bared, her calves laced with gladiator-style sandals. The cleavage in the deep vee of her tight, sparkly top made all of Matt’s pistons fire.
He’d stood at the top of the stairs watching her for long moments before coming down. She was so natural, so easy and real as she’d laughed and joked with the Mavericks, with Noah, with Susan and Bob. She fit so well with everyone he cared about, the way Harper and Jeremy did, the way Charlie and her mother, Francine, did.
He’d wanted to claim Ari in front of everyone. But how could he when he was still unable to shake the feeling that, ultimately, he wouldn’t be able to be there for her when she needed him most?
Can’t stick up for nothing and nobody.
His father’s voice still plagued him. And it was true that he hadn’t yet found her brother. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to tell her how he felt.
But God help him, he still couldn’t stop touching her.
Noah grabbed the seat in front to shout with glee at Susan, and Matt leaned close to whisper against Ari’s ear. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep my hands off you when you’re dressed like that.”
“As a matter of fact, you aren’t,” she whispered back as she shook his wandering hand off her thigh.
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. It just happened.”
“Liar,” she whispered. But she couldn’t hide her smile—or the glimmer in her eyes that said she loved the fact that he was driven to touch her. And while guilt simmered low in his gut and knowing he hadn’t yet declared his feelings for her, he simply couldn’t put any distance between them. Not when they’d been so close over the past three days. He craved that closeness now.
The bus zigged and zagged up the winding drive to Will’s workshop, where he and Jeremy had built the Cobra. Next to it, workmen had toiled for the last month constructing a haunted house right out of Psycho, complete with a long set of stairs leading to it. For safety, Will had installed lighting on the steps and in the spooky graveyard alongside it. But inside it would be dark and scary. And intimate.
Dark enough, he hoped, to get his hands on Ari for a moment or two.
Clambering out of the shuttle, Noah pulled at his hand, surging ahead as scary calliope music played like at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. “Daddy, Daddy, we gotta be first.”
Matt would have preferred to be last, so no one would see him grab Ari. But Noah couldn’t be held back.
Hands pushed Matt forward. “Come on. Little kids gotta see.” That was Bob, maybe Daniel too.
Noah grabbed Ari’s hand as the doors opened automatically into near pitch darkness. Red laser lights flashed on, splashing the front hall as if it were covered in blood. A man laughed from an overhead chandelier, and the red lights caught his dangling feet.