“You know, I’ve been curious.” He glanced at the tight clamp of her jaw. Nerves. She needed a big-time distraction. “So you’re not personally a victim of abuse, but something had to light that fire under you. What was it?”
“My aunt.” She shut her eyes for a blink and bounced her knee. Repeatedly. “The time she showed up at our house with a two-inch-long split down her cheek is burned into my brain. I was six and the ghastly sight of raw flesh...”
With a shudder, she went on, “She needed stitches but refused to go to the emergency room because they have to file a report if they suspect abuse. She didn’t want her husband to be arrested. So my mom fixed her up with Neosporin and Band-Aids and tried to talk some sense into her. Leave that SOB, she says. You deserve better.”
What a thing for a kid to witness. His sharpest memory from that age was scaring the maid with geckos. “She didn’t listen, did she?”
“No.” Cia stared out the window at the passing neighborhood.
When he looked at a house or a structure, he assessed the architectural details, evaluated the location and estimated the resale value. What did she see—the pain and cruelty the people inside its walls were capable of? “What happened?”
“He knocked her down, and she hit her head. After a two-month coma, they finally pulled the plug.” Her voice cracked. “He claimed it was an accident, but fortunately the judge didn’t see it that way. My mom was devastated. She poured all her grief into volunteer work at a shelter, determined to save as many other women as she could.”
“So you’re following in your mom’s footsteps?”
“Much more than that. I went with her. For years, I watched these shattered women gain the skills and the emotional stability to break free of a monstrous cycle. That’s an amazing thing, to know you helped someone get there. My mom was dedicated to it, and now she’s gone.” The bleak proclamation stole his attention from the road, and the staccato tap of her fingernail against the door kept it. “I have to make sure what happened to my aunt doesn’t happen to anyone else. Earlier, you said marriage is about not being able to live without someone. I’ve seen the dark side of that, where women can’t leave their abusers for all sorts of emotional reasons, and it gives me nightmares.”
Oh, man. The shadows inside her solidified.
No wonder she couldn’t be still, with all that going on inside. His chest pinched. She’d been surrounded by misery for far too long. No one had taken the time to teach her how to have fun. How to ditch the clouds for a while and play in the sun.
Wheeler to the rescue. “Next time you have a nightmare, you feel free to crawl in bed with me.”
Her dark blue eyes fixed on him for a moment. “I’ll keep that in mind. I’d prefer never to be dependent on a man in the first place, which is why I’ll never get married.”
“Yet that looks suspiciously like an engagement ring on your left hand, darlin’.”
She rolled her eyes. “Married for real, I mean. Fake marriages are different.”
“Marriage isn’t about creating a dependency between two people, you know. It can be about much more.”
Which meant much more to lose. Like what happened to Matthew, who’d been happy with Amber, goofy in love. They’d had all these plans. Then it was gone. Poof.
Some days, Lucas didn’t know how Matthew held it together, which was reason enough to keep a relationship simple. Fun, yes. Emotional and heavy? No.
Lucas had done Matthew a favor by taking over his monument of a house, not that his brother would agree. If Matthew had his way, he’d mope around in that shrine forever. Cia had already begun dissolving Amber’s ghost, exactly as Lucas had hoped.
“Looks suspiciously like a bare finger on your left hand, Wheeler. You had an affair with a married woman. Sounds like you deliberately avoid eligible women.”
At what point had this conversation turned into an examination of the Lucas Wheeler Philosophy of Marriage? He hadn’t realized he had one until now.
“Marrying you, aren’t I?” he muttered. Lana had been an eligible woman, at least in his mind.
“Boy, that proves your point. I’m the woman who made you agree to divorce me before we got near an altar,” she said sweetly and then jabbed the needle in further. “Gotta wonder what your hang-up is about marriage.”
“Nagging wife with a sharp tongue would be hang-up number one,” he said. “I’ll get married one day. I haven’t found the right woman yet.”
“Not for lack of trying. What was wrong with all of your previous candidates?”