Secrets in the Marriage Bed Read Online Free Page A

held close. “Vicki? Talk to me. Come on, sweetheart.”
    She 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