took several deep breaths, letting herself be comforted by the only man who’d ever given her this tenderness. “I’m okay. Just give me a moment.”
“Are you sick? Is something wrong with the baby?” he demanded.
“No, no. I’m fine. We’re both fine.” Realizing that strands of hair were escaping her carefully constructed coil, she lifted her hand to re-anchor the pins. Caleb’s eyes drifted up.
And she remembered.
Instead of fixing the elegant do, she pulled out the pins and let the soft mass fall around her shoulders. Caleb had always loved it when she wore her hair loose, though he’d never once said so out loud. Some things a wife simply knew.
“If you’re both okay, why did you faint?”
Because I just realized that you might have a mistress. Held in fear’s tight grip, she didn’t speak the words. She may have become stronger in recent months, but she wasn’t strong enough to hear his response to that statement. Not yet. As long as she didn’t say it, Caleb couldn’t lie to her, couldn’t fracture the fragility of their new start.
“I think I overdid it making dinner,” she said, with a small shrug. “I should’ve sat down a bit more during the day.” A lie of omission hidden in truth.
“Are you sure that’s all?” His hand drifted to her nape, a soft massage that was all the more seductive because of his overwhelming physicality. As usual, his touch made her want to behave in ways that were utterly unladylike and vaguely terrifying.
Did he do this for Miranda? Stop it! she told herself the second the thought entered her mind. She wouldn’t let her own fears and suspicions sabotage the decision she’d made with her eyes wide open.
In their time apart, despite all her hurt and anger, she’d accepted that she loved Caleb in a way that was so deep, it was a once-in-a-lifetime gift. Though that realization had spurred her to fight for their marriage, it wouldn’t stop her from walking away if they failed. And if she kept letting the past interfere, they would surely fail. For the sake of their child, she had to look beyond Caleb’s relationship with Miranda.
“Vicki? Come back to me, honey. Is everything really okay?”
She started to nod but her mouth shaped the word “no.” And she knew that although there was one wound she might never be ready to talk about, it was time to lay open another. “I spent a lot of time thinking about us today.”
Those hazel eyes seemed to harden but he didn’t stop his massage. “What’s to think about? We’re married and you’re carrying our child.”
“No, Caleb. Don’t do this again. Listen to me.”
“Talk.”
“You were angry about the separate beds last night.” But not angry enough to go elsewhere, she told herself, trying to soothe the agony in her heart.
“I want my wife in my bed. What’s wrong with that?”
“But that bed wasn’t the happiest of places for us, was it? I wasn’t ever…woman enough for you. I could never satisfy you.” It was like ripping out pieces of her soul and handing them over to him, but this had to be done.
“Jesus, Vicki.”
“You know I’m right, Caleb.” No matter how humiliating it was for her to admit…to accept, her failure in bed had helped drive him into another woman’s arms. If Vicki wanted Caleb back, she had to face up to that.
Caleb didn’t know what to do. He was used to taking charge but, at that moment, he was lost. Stroking her cheek, he shook his head. “Don’t look so sad, sweetheart.” Many times in the last few years of their marriage, he’d glimpsed that haunting sadness in her expression.
He’d felt helpless that he couldn’t bring the light he’d caught tantalizing glimpses of before they’d married back into her eyes. He’d assumed that once she was out from under her grandmother’s shadow, the light would flare bright, but it had faded until he’d been terrified he’d done something to kill it. “It’s nothing that we can’t fix.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Yes, Vicki. Yes. But we can’t do it if you won’t let me into your bed.” When she didn’t respond, he tried another approach. “We’re going in with a new mind-set—it changes everything.”
“Yes, it has to, doesn’t it?” Nodding in agreement, she wrapped her arms around his neck and lay her head against his shoulder. “Oh, Caleb. I missed having you beside me.”
He’d loved her long enough to understand the message in the liquid softness of her body. Please, don’t let me be deceiving myself. This was as close as Vicki ever came to making the first move. Sure that he was reading her right, he stood and, with her in his arms, headed for the bedroom. When she held on tighter, the knot in his chest eased.
Maybe it would be different now that they’d finally brought the secret pain of their marriage out into the open. Maybe Vicki would respond to him in the way he’d always wanted her to respond. Maybe.
She didn’t say a word as he carried her into the master bedroom. When he set her on her feet, they just looked at each other for several long seconds, two starving people in front of a banquet. The same moment that he began to reach for her, Vicki’s lashes fluttered shut and her body swayed toward his.
Cupping her face, he kissed her. She always responded to this, kissing him back with explosive passion. He cherished the kisses she gave him during lovemaking because they were the only signs that she wanted him.
So he kissed her. For a long, long time. Kissed…and hoped. When she whimpered and made a small restless movement, he slid his hands to the back of her dress and pulled down the zipper. Trailing his fingers up her spine, he became fascinated by the delicacy of her skin but resisted the urge to linger. Part of him was afraid this moment would be lost if he didn’t hurry. Promising himself he could return to savor her, he raised his hands to the shoulders of the dress and slid them down her arms. She let go of him only for the instant it took to remove the dress from her upper body.
The sound of cloth on skin sizzled over him as the dress fell to puddle around her bare feet. The feel of her almost naked body was an erotic shock. Exquisitely shaped, her breasts were small, taut, letting her eschew a bra when she chose…like tonight. He loved when she did that. It drove him half crazy.
Still kissing her, he moved his hands down her sides, stopping to stroke his thumbs over her nipples. She gasped into the kiss but didn’t react in any other way. Her hands didn’t move from around his neck; her body didn’t press closer to his. Caleb didn’t give up. She’d raised the topic, welcomed his embrace. What clearer indication of desire did he need?
He shed his shirt without breaking the kiss, then hesitantly pressed their bodies together. Her breasts rubbed against his chest, a sweet kind of torture. There was no rejection in her body, but neither could he read true welcome, passionate need. Only her mouth gave him hope.
Breaking the kiss at last, he lifted her and put her on the bed. Wide, the design a simple wooden frame, they’d picked it out in the weeks before their marriage, never guessing that it would become the center of one of the major issues in their relationship.
His
