Along Came Trouble(106)

He disconnected. “My sister Katie.”

Ellen stepped close enough to hand him the shirt. “I met her.” Katie had Caleb’s dark hair and intense eyes. She’d been friendly and fun and intimidating beyond description. She’d made it clear her brother was no Romeo. Which meant Ellen wasn’t and had never been a Chiclet. Ellen didn’t know what to think about that.

Caleb’s eyes were dark and inscrutable, holding none of the indulgent amusement she’d grown used to seeing there. “She invited you to dinner,” he said. “Wednesday night at our house. We’re having my whole family over for my nephew’s birthday. Six o’clock.”

Our house. “You live with Katie?”

“Katie lives with me.”

Ellen didn’t know where Caleb lived, any more than she’d known he lived with his sister. She didn’t know if the nephew was Katie’s son or if Caleb had another sister.

The depth of her ignorance made her acutely conscious of her selfishness. They’d done the most intimate things together, but she’d asked him virtually nothing personal. What kind of game had she been playing?

“The party’s for Clark,” Caleb said, bailing her out. “He’s turning ten. He’s my sister Amber’s kid.”

Katie and Amber, then. He could have more sisters, though. He could have brothers, too.

Ellen covered her face with her hands and tried to think what she wanted to say to him. It was surprisingly difficult. Her mind was a dark, musty attic full of truths hidden in steamer trunks and beneath drop cloths. How was she supposed to find anything?

“Yes or no, Ellen. It’s a simple question.”

Unsure what he meant, she had to back up the conversation in her head to find it. Dinner. She was invited to a big family dinner at Caleb’s house, where she would be . . . what? His girlfriend? His lover?

What did she want to be?

She ducked it. “I can’t. I’ll have Henry on Wednesday.”

“Henry’s welcome, too. I’d never invite you anywhere without inviting Henry.”

Frustration made his voice sharp, and she bit right back. “How am I supposed to know that? Some people don’t like kids.”

He laid the shirt over the back of a chair and stepped closer, crossing his arms. “You’re supposed to know because you’ve seen me with Henry, and you know I like him. Christ, Ellen. Who do you think I am, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” she insisted. “I don’t know you very well.”

She didn’t. She didn’t know about his family, and she hadn’t known how he felt about her, and she hadn’t known he was going to punch Richard. Until he’d done it, she’d have sworn he had better control of his feelings than that, and she’d have sworn she didn’t want him to defend her.

Wrong on both counts.

His jaw tightened, and he took a deep breath and shook his head. “That’s bullshit.”

“I didn’t know you lived with your sister.”

“You didn’t want to know. You don’t want to meet my family, either, which is why you’re going to find a way to turn down my invitation. You think it’s safer if you keep me at arm’s length, so you treat me like a f*cking sex toy.”

The blow hit her hard, as he’d intended. Would it hurt so much if he weren’t right?

She didn’t know. He was right. She’d been treating him like a sex toy, a roving dick she could climb aboard because it suited her purposes. She hadn’t tried to get to know him. Getting to know him would make her vulnerable. What if she fell in love again and it turned out to be a mistake, and this time she dragged her son along for the ride?

“I’m sorry. God, Caleb, I’m really sorry.”

He watched her, every inch the stoic soldier. If she was hurting him, he wasn’t going to show it.

“Why didn’t you fight back?”

Against Richard, he meant. He’d wanted her to defend him against all the terrible things her ex had said about him, to defend herself rather than let Richard run her down.

Even after everything Richard had put her through in the past few days, it had been easy to let him abuse her. Not because she believed he had a right to—she’d come too far for that.

But she also had years of practice dealing with him when he was drunk, and she’d known it would be useless to confront him. When she did that, he got angry and loud and vicious, and she’d desperately wanted to prevent a scene on her front porch that would get him arrested. If he got arrested, he’d be fired, and without his job, Richard would become an unemployable drunk.