Fearless In Love(48)

“They just got out of school.” Zach wore an adoring-dad look, with a broad smile and laughing eyes. Whatever he’d gone through during his tours of duty, Ari was glad to see he hadn’t brought it home with him.

“Man, your brother was a kick,” he told her. “Huge prankster. You wanted to forget about it all for a while, you hung out with Jones.” Smiling with the memory, he shoved mugs at them while he sat in the side chair that gave him a sight line to the backyard. “But he had another side to him he didn’t show most guys. And it really broke him up when he couldn’t find you or your ma. He wrote letters and sent emails, but it’s hard when you’re over there, ya know.”

“My mom and I had to leave the apartment we were in.” Ari didn’t say they’d been kicked out, didn’t mention that drugs had torn them all apart. She felt the subtle shift of Matt’s body beside her, as if he were moving closer, wanting her to know she had his support.

“He figured that. And later he got a letter saying she’d passed.” He shook his head. “It was six months after, and he started writing letters like crazy, even more than he’d written before.” Zach shook his head. “But no one could tell him who to contact about what happened to you.”

Gideon had looked for her. She knew he wouldn’t give up—just like she would never give up her search for him.

“Thank you for telling me that. It really means a lot to know he tried so hard to find us.” Matt’s hand covered hers, and he squeezed it in solidarity as she said, “To find me.”

“Do you have any idea where he is now?” Matt asked.

“We lost touch. It happens like that when you get stateside.” Zach rubbed both hands along his thighs, his gaze down as if he were seeing things he’d long ago put out of his mind. Then he breathed deeply, let it go with a sigh, and his smile returned. “I was Smith. He was Jones. They called us Alias Smith and Jones, like that old Western TV show. You couldn’t have one without the other. It’s like they say in the movies, band of brothers and all that. Because all you’ve got is each other.”

“I know what that’s like,” she confided. “I have a really close bond with my friends from foster care.”

“I can see the similarity,” he said with a nod. “We thought it’d be a cakewalk, ya know. Do your time, collect your paycheck.” He snorted at his own naiveté. “But then there was 9/11 and everything changed. Me and Gideon were attached to the same squad. We got bumped up to team leaders. We didn’t think about getting out, because we were doing important stuff over there.” He puffed out a breath. “We re-upped,” he said, then clarified with, “Reenlisted,” though Ari already knew what he meant. He gazed at her with a deep sadness in his eyes. “Kiddo, if he’d known about your ma, he woulda come home, but he got that letter a few months too late.”

Kiddo. That’s what Gideon had always called her. Hearing Zach say it brought tears welling up again.

“I know he would have come home for me. I’m just not sure he would have found me.” After all, she’d been searching for three years and gotten nowhere. “The only thing I know is that he got out about nine years ago.”

Zach nodded. “We both did. It was a fu—” He cut himself off. “Sorry, kiddo.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “My wife gets on my case about the language ’cause of the kids. Anyway, it was a mess over there.”

“And there was something about Gideon losing some guys?” After nine years of a total black hole of information about her brother, she had to know everything.

“IED. Lost his team. Three of his people. Damn near broke him in two. It wasn’t his fault, but I’d’a felt the same if it were my guys. That’s what got him in the end. The guilt, ya know.”

“And what about you? Why did you leave?”

He swore softly, then just as quickly added, “Sorry. But hell, we couldn’t have Alias Smith all by himself. It was Alias Smith and Jones or nothing.” He drifted deep inside himself again. “It was time, ya know. The longer you’re there, the higher the risk. I figured, without Gideon, my number just might be up.”

“When did you last see him?” Matt’s voice was low.

“I only saw him once after we got stateside.”

Outside, children laughed. The sun was still shining. Yet inside, Ari felt as though darkness had fallen.

“He just vanished?” she asked.

“He didn’t want to see me.” Zach’s expression was tight, but not with anger. With understanding. “I made him remember. And remembering tore him up.”