Buoyed by his support, she continued, "He's busy earning money to support our child. We really have to start saving for college from the start, don't you think?" A very long pause and in the background, harsh whispers. Her fingers tightened on the receiver. She knew exactly who was prompting Lara.
"He's my brother." The subtlest of threats.
"And he's the father of my child," she said softly, letting herself luxuriate in the feeling of something she'd barely dared to acknowledge before—Caleb's loyalty was hers, now and for always.
Though he didn't love her with the passionate devotion she knew his heart was capable of, though his work was the most important thing in his life, though he'd betrayed her in a way that had cut her to the core, he'd also shown her that she mattered. Mattered enough to fight for. And she was a woman who'd never mattered to anyone.
Caleb stiffened against her and she knew he was going to try and take over, having gauged what was going on. His ability to give her control obviously came to a screeching halt the instant he thought she might be hurt. Lord, she adored him, but he could drive her crazy. She pushed away and pointed at him to stay put. Eyes narrowed, he crossed his arms across his chest.
"You can't keep me from talking to my brother." Lara's voice started to rise.
"I would never try to." Vicki took a deep breath and pulled off the gloves. "As long as you don't make him unhappy when you call, you're free to talk to him. Can you do that, Lara?"
A long, almost dark silence, then the dial tone. Vicki sighed and put the phone on the wall cradle. "She hung up."
Caleb hugged her into his arms. "I don't want you dealing with my family. They can be—"
"No, Caleb." She tipped her head back and looked up at him. "I meant what I said. We fight each other's battles now. Don't take this away from me. I'm strong enough to support you."
He looked at her for a long, long time, a dawning pride in his eyes that nearly stopped her heartbeat. "You're very sexy when you're riled up, Mrs. Victoria Elizabeth Callaghan."
She laughed. "Uh-huh, coffee first. Then we'll talk." Backing away, she suited action to words and poured their drinks. Caleb kept teasing her with kisses on her neck until she finally pushed him into a chair and put his coffee on the table in front of him. "Behave."
He grinned and took a sip.
Shaking her head, she leaned her body against the edge of the table beside his chair, her mind on their earlier conversation. "What I don't understand is why your family is so hard on you. I mean, I know you chose a different path but no matter their philosophical problems with the capitalist way—" she rolled her eyes "—I'd have thought they'd be proud of you. Even my grandmother is impressed by your achievements and she's the harshest judge I know."
Caleb felt his jaw lock. "Yeah, well." This was one place he did not want to go.
She put a hand on his cheek, forcing him to look at her. "There's something more, isn't there?"
"Come on, sweetheart, let's just relax and have our coffee." He picked up his cup, wondering if she knew how pretty she looked in her pink sweater and jeans. She was what was important, not Lara and his parents. "I don't want to discuss my family right now."
He held his breath as he waited for her to drop the subject, to let sleeping dogs lie. But he'd forgotten how much things had changed.
"No, what you need to do is talk to me," she said, continuing to caress his cheek.
"There's nothing to talk about."
She dropped her hand but her eyes wouldn't release him. "Then why are you angry?"
"I'm not angry." Putting down his cup, he laid a hand on her thigh.
With another scowl, she put down her own cup and straightened from her leaning position. He thought she was accepting defeat. Then she threw one leg over him and straddled his lap, hands flat on his shoulders. "Talk to me."
"Maybe there are things I don't want to talk about." He'd put the crushing shame of his past behind him. There was no need to bring it all up. Not now. Not when their life was finally going wonderfully right.
"Tell me why they treat you this way." She frowned as he picked her up and put her aside before going to ostensibly refill his cup. "You can't shut down whenever you feel like it, Caleb."
His temper snapped. Thumping the cup on the counter, he faced her across the length of the room. "You're telling me I'm shut in? What about you?" It was a defensive strike and part of him was ashamed at using his skills at cross-examination to put Vicki on the back foot.
The truth was, he didn't want to talk about why his father hated him and his mother barely tolerated him. Ever. So he'd turned the spotlight on Vicki. But in spite of the reason driving him, he was also speaking the absolute truth.
Caleb looked more furious than Vicki had ever seen him. Despite all their fights up to this point, he'd never let his temper get this out of control. Right now, she could almost see the sparks in his eyes. What she couldn't understand was why.
"Me?" She pointed to her chest, hurt that he was bringing up her sexual deficiencies when she'd thought he'd begun to understand why she'd acted as she had. "I know I'm not great in bed but—"
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "I'm not talking about sex."
"Then what?" She was truly confused but she wasn't about to let it show. Caleb was a good man but he was also a stubborn one who liked getting his own way. She refused to sit back and let him bulldoze over her. The last time she'd done that, it had almost destroyed their marriage.
"Christ, Vicki." He shoved his fingers through his already mussed-up hair, a remnant from their earlier loving. "Do you know how hard it is to get through that shell you've grown around yourself?" He shook his head. "You're like a damn hermit crab. Every time I ask too much of you, you withdraw into your protective walls." His eyes were tormented. "Do you know what it's like living with a woman who can shut you out without a thought? It kills."
She shook her head. "I don't. I've always tried to meet you halfway."
The word he said was sharp, blunt and so brutally explicit that she took a step back. Part of her wasn't sure she had the ability to deal with him when he was like this. The other part of her whispered that this was what she was fighting for—a husband who didn't hold himself back for fear that she couldn't handle him.
"I don't know what your family did to you," he said, "but it scarred you, even if you won't admit it. You're so terrified of letting anyone close to you, trusting anyone with a piece of yourself that you'd rather be alone."
"That's a lie!" she cried. "I'm fighting for us!"
"Are you? If I ask you questions you don't want to answer, ask you to face things you don't want to face, what will you do?" His jaw was clenched so tight, there were white lines around his mouth. "You'll go hide, get yourself under control, then smile at me in the morning as if nothing happened."
She couldn't speak, she was shaking so hard. Mutely, she reproached him. It wasn't true. It wasn't. "Maybe that was true before. But not anymore. I came to you," she whispered, reminding him of the night when she'd forced him to listen to her despite his anger.
"It's not enough to rip open your heart once and then seal it back up again, satisfied that you've filled your emotional debts."
"I don't understand." She was trembling.
His shoulders lifted as he put his hands on his hips. "Now that we're happy in bed, you feel like you can go back into that safe little shell where you live your life, where you don't have to deal with the fact that another person's needs might involve you making yourself vulnerable."
That broke her paralysis. "How can you say that? You know how much it hurt me when I thought I couldn't give you what you needed. I wouldn't have felt that way if I was closed off!" She was screaming, and she wasn't a woman who screamed.
His fists clenched at his sides. "But you didn't show it when it mattered, did you? You didn't talk to me about it. You just let the wound fester until divorce seemed the only option!"
She wanted to argue but couldn't. He was right. Even now, she still kept secrets—the most damaging, painful kind of secrets. She'd tried not to think about it, tried to put what he'd done with Miranda behind her, but his infidelity continued to be a bleeding cut inside of her, something that wore away at the soul of their marriage. Yet she couldn't bring herself to speak about it, couldn't bring herself to lay her heart open to the blinding hurt she knew awaited.
"How many things are you never going to talk to me about because they're too hard to face?" His eyes were a maelstrom of emotion. "Do you know why I'm really mad? It has nothing to do with our problems in bed."