From This Day Forward (17 page)

"No, I don't," she agreed, a terrible sadness settling on her heart. She wanted to tell him that she knew it was only an excuse to send her away. But he might walk away, and she didn't think she could bear that. Maybe if she could make him admit something, anything!

"It has nothing to do with you."

Frustration mingled with sadness inside her. He would not give way, even to the end. "It has everything to do with me. It's the reason I'm leaving in the morning."

Jason released a heavy sigh. "Caroline, this is for the best. You'll see that in a few months. You're just upset now because you came all this way only to turn around and go back. It's not—it's not you. It's about expectations."

"Why don't you try unbending a little, Jason?" she suggested, growing angry despite her determination not to do so. She longed to touch him, to relieve the rigid tension in his body. "Haven't you ever been pleasantly surprised?"

"No, I haven't," he said seriously. "Now it's my turn to ask the questions. Why did you come here?"

"I knew you needed me," she replied simply. He still needed her. Why couldn't he admit it?

Jason stiffened. "I don't need anyone."

"Everyone needs someone. There's no shame in that."

Jason turned to go.

"No, please don't go. We can talk about whatever you want," she cried out, desperate for him to stay. If he walked away now, she knew she would never see him again, and she felt as if her heart would break at the thought. Tomorrow would come soon enough.

"What do you want from me?" he asked tiredly. "What did you hope to find here?"

"I don't know. Warmth, kindness, companionship." She paused, afraid of running him off again but equally afraid of not saying what was on her mind and regretting it for the rest of her life. "Whatever is eating you up inside—maybe it would help if you talked."

"There's nothing eating me up," he insisted tautly.

"Then talk to me, Jason. I'll be leaving in the morning. What can it matter? Tell me what you're running away from." She could feel him withdrawing, fortifying the defenses that kept them apart. "When will you learn that running away doesn't solve anything? You've isolated yourself in this jungle to escape your past, to forget who you are. It won't work, don't you see? The things that happened to you,
they... they..

Her voice trailed off and she gazed away guiltily, horrified that she had almost said too much.

"What could you possibly know about anything?" he asked suspiciously. "You act as if you have some mysterious insight into my character. I've asked you before and I'll ask once again. Just what did Derek tell you about me?"

Caroline backed away from the furious accusation in his eyes. "Nothing, not really. But one tends to make certain assumptions about a man who hides away in the jungle."

"Well, perhaps you shouldn't assume," he informed her, the fury in his gaze lessening by degrees until it was gone altogether, replaced by a wary distrust. "Come, I'll walk you to your room."

Caroline approached him and he placed a hand on her elbow, steering her toward the spiral staircase she'd mounted so many times. This might be the last time she ever saw him, the last time he ever walked her to her room or touched her.

I've failed you, Jason
,
she thought.
You believe you failed Peggy, and I've failed you. If only I had more time.

He followed her up the stairs to the landing above. She walked slowly, prolonging the inevitable moment when he would leave her outside her room.

"I have to go," he said huskily.

"Why? Where?" she asked, almost desperately. "I don't even know where you sleep at night."

"I don't usually," he admitted, though she could tell by the regret in his eyes that he hadn't meant to.

"Why not?" she asked eagerly, hoping for some
further revelation, hoping to keep him near for a few more minutes, long enough to think of something, anything that might make him open up to her. "Tell me. Tell me what keeps you awake at night."

"It won't work, Caroline," he whispered, remorse evident in his tone. "We won't work. You're going back to New Orleans in the morning."

"But I'm here now," she reasoned, pressing her body against his without volition, wrapping her arms around his muscled back. She offered her lips to him, her heart, her soul, her body.

"Don't," he ground out. His rasping breath undermined his struggle to appear unmoved.

And as he denied her with his words, his body responded to her with a will of its own. She recognized the turmoil in his eyes as his arms tightened around her and he drew her toward him, his lips covering hers gently at first, then harder, deepening the kiss with a fierceness that set her blood afire. A feral groan echoed inside his chest, vibrating through her body. Her lips parted beneath his, opening to his fervor. She felt the hard ridges of muscle as her hands played upon his broad back.

If I can make him desire me, maybe I can make him love me.

Then suddenly his hands grasped her arms and pulled them from around him, putting her away from him. His eyes burned with passion in the pale moonlight. Tearing his gaze from her with an effort, he moved away, stopping at the top of the stairs and looking back at her.

"Good-bye, Caroline," he said simply before continuing his descent.

Caroline stood on the balcony, gasping for breath,
gazing after Jason until he disappeared from view, feeling all the humiliation of opening herself to him and having him walk away from her without a backward glance. The taste of his lips still lingered on her mouth, the feel of his almost brutal kiss still raw on her lips.

Lifting her eyes heavenward, she whispered, "I don't want to leave. Please, make him love me by tomorrow morning."

Caroline smiled ironically. Nothing was too hard for God, she well knew, but it would take a true miracle to change Jason Sinclair's heart overnight, a miracle the likes of which mankind hadn't seen since the parting of the Red Sea.

Releasing a deep sigh, she was about to turn and go into her room when movement at the edge of the jungle caught her eye.

Ines—she was slipping away to the small shack to take the mother and her child home, wherever that was. Caroline's intention had been to follow them and find out where they'd come from so that she could try and stop this disease before it became an epidemic. The early arrival of the mail boat had changed all that.

I could still go,
she thought. She could follow Ines and learn what she wanted to know. She turned, gazing toward the river and the unseen boat that waited to take her from all that she had grown to love.

Of course, if she followed Ines, she might not get back before the mail boat left in the morning. The thought stilled her, and she considered the possibility. Yes, that was one way to avoid going—be somewhere else when the boat left.

Jason would be furious.

Her thoughts reeled back to the time she told Melanie how sorry she was for involving her in the scheme that had resulted in her marriage to Jason, and she remembered being concerned that Derek would be angry. But Melanie had replied, "He'll get over it."

So strong was Melanie's faith in Derek's love that she was willing to risk his fury because she knew that he would forgive her.

How Caroline longed for that kind of love.

She glanced at the place where Ines had disappeared into the jungle. If she didn't hurry, her decision would be made for her. She wouldn't be
able
to follow Ines.

He'll never forgive you,
a voice inside her warned. But what did she have to lose? He was already sending her back. And if he truly wouldn't forgive her, there would be other mail boats.

Caroline drew her shawl closer around her against the surprisingly chill night air. With one last glance at the heavens, she descended the stairs and hurried across the courtyard and into the jungle.

Chapter Nine

The
shrill blast of
the
mail
boat's whistle broke the early morning calm. Jason straightened and wiped his face with his bare arm, fighting the rising well of pain inside him. He'd done the right thing, the only thing he could have done under the circumstances.

He felt the pressure of eyes on him before he glanced at the men who worked around him—accusing eyes, rueful eyes.

"Damn." His gaze fell on Ignacio. "What the hell are you looking at? We have work to do."

Ignacio snorted and turned away, the expression of contempt in his eyes saying more than any words could have.

All morning, Jason worked like a man possessed. He tried with all his will not to think of her, not to feel as if his own blood flowed away from him on the wide, wild Amazon, but th
e
fazenda
itself seemed
to sag
with sorrow at her absence. He'd wanted her to go, so why did he feel as if a part of him was being torn away?

When he returned to the house for lunch, he found it quiet and deserted. No lunch awaited him. It was just as well; he had no appetite and no desire to face Ines's baleful, accusing glances.

He stood for a long time, gazing out the open dining room door at the encroaching jungle, contemplating the precarious nature of his existence here. No one had believed he could make a coffee plantation work and grow in this remote region, and to be honest, there had been times when he doubted his own sanity. But somehow, with the help of dedicated men, he'd managed to carve out a place for himself.

Still, the jungle waited patiently at his doorstep for the chance to reclaim what he'd taken from it. Now and then it would send a reminder—like a plague of insects or a deadly mud slide—to remind him how insignificant he was, to remind him that he was only here, alive and thriving, because the jungle allowed it.

This was no life for a woman. A woman needed stability and comfort. The sound of the river rushing to its source, the familiar scent of rotting leaves invigorated him and made him feel attuned to the rhythm of life. A woman could never comprehend such a thing. She would have grown to hate it here before long—and she would have grown to hate him.

What could he give her here in the harsh jungle? She'd come in search of warmth and companionship, things he knew nothing about. Caroline had been duped as completely as he had.

He couldn't help admiring the willful young woman who had confronted him so defiantly that first day. She'd been his equal in every way except physical size and strength—intelligent, arrogant, bold, courageous, yet utterly feminine. Caroline was no weak hothouse flower to wither and die in the tropical heat, no delicate Irish rose unable to survive in the harshness of the real world.

Not like Peggy.

Peggy had never learned the hard lessons of life. She'd been as out of place in the slums of New Orleans's Irish Channel as a flower in a sewer. There had been something in her, something pure and beautiful. She'd had dreams, romantic dreams of finding a way out of the wretched existence they had shared. And once her dreams were killed, she'd been unable to go on living.

A faint, sweet melody floated to him on the air, the sound coming from the salon, a haunting refrain that stirred deep in his soul. He closed his eyes tightly against the pain, the hollow echo of loneliness in his deepest being.

Damn Derek to everlasting hell! It had been a mistake to trust his cousin, a mistake for which he would pay as long as he lived. Caroline would return to New Orleans and start over. She'd find someone else, someone who could give her what she wanted. But Jason knew that he would never forget, nor would the empty place she'd left in his heart ever be filled again.

He hadn't felt such a bottomless ache since Peggy's death, and he'd vowed never to feel it again, never to allow anyone to get that close to him again. And he'd succeeded—until now—until Caroline.

His boots echoed loudly on the hard tile floor as he rushed to the salon, half expecting to find her there
bent over the piano, her body swaying with an abandon she seemed incapable of attaining except through that instrument. What greeted him was an empty room. The piano stood silent and forlorn, though the room resonated with the memory of music, as a whisper of her scent clung to the thick air.