From This Day Forward

chapter Ten



Jason squinted through the warm, steady rain as he used his machete to hack through the tangled verdure. He should have put her on the boat personally. At least if he'd done so, he'd know where to find her now.

A hand grabbed his arm from behind, and he turned in time to see Ines trip over the twisted branches of a fallen tree. Reacting quickly, he grabbed her by the arm, setting her back on her feet.

"How much farther?" He shouted over the roar of the storm. The urgency to see Caroline, to make sure she was all right, nearly drove him to madness. And Ines's assurances had done nothing to curb his anxiety.

"Not far!" Ines replied, slicking her wet hair off of her face.

He turned back to the trail before him, chopping through the lush jungle vegetation with a vengeance, spurred by a growing anger. Ines should have tried to stop her, and failing that, she should have come to him immediately. As for Caroline, he was beginning to realize that her daring knew no bounds. The fact that she had had the temerity to defy him was bad enough, but on top of that, she'd gone and hidden herself away in the jungle.

What he wanted to know more than anything was why. Did she have any idea what could happen to her if the slavers found them?

He shuddered at the thought and redoubled his efforts, pushing himself and those with him unmercifully.

Ines had been damned uncooperative about the whole situation. "Ask Senhora," she'd said. "I will show you where, but you must promise not to be angry."

"I'm already angry!" he'd bellowed.

Angry? What an insufficient word to describe what he was feeling. Right now, he'd like to choke her, as soon as he was satisfied that she was all right.

The rain gave way to blue sky as the jungle opened into a slight clearing. Crude huts stood in a circle around a grassy square filled with the excited squeals of Indian children chasing a javali, a pig-like animal with long, stiff hair, in a circle.

Slaves.

The plantations were probably in Minas Gerais or Mato Grosso hundreds of miles to the south. The runaways had come here to the Amazon jungle in hopes of eluding their masters.

Most of the structures in the tiny village were thatched huts, but two more permanent buildings stood at opposite ends of the square. Obviously this settlement had been here for some time.

"How could you have let her come here?" Jason asked, his tone accusing as his gaze burned into Ines's guilty eyes. With the exception of murder, there was no greater crime in Brazil than aiding runaway slaves. Man or woman, the penalty was imprisonment and loss of property. He'd risked it by leaving food and supplies where they could find them, but he'd never visited their village, and he didn't like being here now.

"How could I have stopped her?" Ines asked meaningfully.

Yes, how indeed? Once Caroline made up her mind to do something, she was like a force of nature.

Slowly men and women began emerging from the huts, eyeing him and the Yanomami mistrustfully. Most of them seemed to relax when they saw Ines step forward, but one man remained suspicious.

He walked toward Jason, his manner arrogant, his movements wary. Nearly as tall as Jason, he presented a threatening demeanor with his muscular frame and uncompromising glare.

"My name is Jason Sinclair," Jason said in Portuguese. "I believe my wife is here."

The black man gazed at Ines, who nodded almost imperceptibly. When his eyes returned to Jason, they had lost most of their fire. He appeared suddenly weary, almost vulnerable. "I am Pocedo. Follow me."

They walked toward the thatched building at the far end of the village. Jason became aware of things he hadn't noticed before—the lack of activity in the village, the sound of coughing and moaning. He could smell the sickness, and his stomach churned to think of Caroline here so close to death and disease.

There was no door, only an animal skin covering the opening. The large black man pushed it aside and allowed Jason to enter first. What met his gaze chilled him to the bone. Hammocks had been strung throughout the cavernous room, hammocks filled with suffering humanity, some so still they might have been dead.

She stood beside a hammock, whispering soothingly to its inhabitant. Her soft voice pierced his heart and set the blood pounding through his veins. Part of him wanted to shake her, to berate her for disobeying him. Another part of him wanted to rush to her, to take her in his arms and tell her how empty he'd felt inside when he'd thought he'd lost her.

Sensing their presence, she turned to stare at them with wide-eyed surprise, the signs of fatigue showing plainly on her face.

"Jason! What are you doing here? Who are these... these..."

Fear and fury and a wild joy coursed through him, causing his body to shudder with the effort to control the bombardment of emotions, to keep them from showing in his eyes lest she realize the depth of his concern, and use it against him.

This fragile woman presented a greater danger to him than any raging torrent or pestilence. The jungle could destroy his body, while Caroline and only Caroline could destroy his soul if he gave her the power to do so. It terrified him as nothing else in his life ever had.

So intent was he on his wife, Jason had forgotten the Yanomami were with him until Caroline averted her gaze from the naked men who had crowded into the building. Their bodies, like his, were painted with red and black dots and geometric designs.

What a shock they must present to her. He didn't know how many Indians Caroline had encountered on her trip to the fazenda, but he knew she would not have had any contact with the Yanomami. They were far too cautious for that. They stayed deep in the jungle, far from the white man. The sight of half a dozen naked, painted savages should have terrified her, but he read no fear in her expression, only embarrassment and surprise.

"Natives," he said, "Yanomami. And they've come with me to find my runaway wife."

He stepped closer, and Caroline's face registered further shock when she got a good look at him. He'd also forgotten the red dots that covered his own face and body. He knew they stood out much more strikingly against his white skin.

An uncertain laugh escaped her lips and she stifled it immediately. "I'm sorry. It's just that... What happened?"

"What are you doing here?" He cut straight to the matter at hand.

"Whoever they are, they shouldn't be here," Caroline warned, indicating the short, brown Indians with a nod of her head.

"Why? What's wrong with these people?" Jason asked with an instinctive dread.

"Measles."

The word sent a tremor through his body. Diseases had decimated some of the largest tribes in the Amazon. Because of their isolation, the Yanomami had been spared so far, but neither had they been exposed to European diseases enough to develop any measure of resistance.

Wheeling around, he spoke to Socrates in his native language. "These people have a disease that could be deadly to your people. Get your men out of here immediately and return to the yano. Thank you for your help."

Socrates nodded, smiling, "She is very plain, Man from Somewhere Else. If you decide to send her away again, remember I have many sisters."

Jason smiled at his friend's offer and his inaccurate assessment of Caroline. Beauty was indeed in the eye of the beholder. Right now, Jason didn't think he'd ever seen anything as lovely as his wife.

"What about you?" Caroline asked. She appeared uneasy, anxious, as if she wasn't sure what he might do. "Have you had the measles?"

"Yes, when I was a child," he told her, searching her face.

She wiped a stray curl from her forehead, releasing a great sigh. Upon closer inspection, he saw the dark circles beneath her eyes that marred the perfection of her skin. Her eyelids appeared puffy, her skin slightly sallow.

"You look exhausted," he said. "When's the last time you slept?"

"I don't know. What day is it?"

"You have to sleep," he scolded gently, coming to stand close beside her.

"You don't," she said weakly.

Placing his big hands on her slender shoulders, he drew her into the fold of his arms. He wanted to hold her, just hold her forever. He wanted to crush her to his chest and tell her... tell her....

"Come on," he said gruffly, "you won't be any good to them if you don't rest."

Her weary head relaxed against his chest, and Jason felt an unaccustomed flood of affection for this courageous, determined woman who was his wife.

"I'm no good to them anyway," she murmured, her voice bitter with defeat. "I can't do anything for them. I give them quinine. It doesn't help. Nothing works."

"Now who's playing God?" he asked, trying to lessen the burden of grief he sensed inside her, trying to suppress the thrill that coursed through his body at her nearness.

"Where do you sleep?" he asked, steering her toward the door.

"I can't," she protested, trying to stop, but his momentum propelled her forward with him.

"Where?" he asked again.

"Nowhere. I haven't slept since I've been here. I don't know."

Ines stood uncertainly at the door, moving out of the way as they reached her.

"Find out, Ines," he told her, pushing the animal skin out of the way and guiding Caroline's unresisting body through the opening into the outer dampness.

Once outside, Jason surrendered Caroline to Ines's care and turned to face the man who had approached him earlier, the man he held responsible for allowing his wife to work without rest for two days.

"You bastard!" he ground out, advancing toward the other man who retreated before Jason's fury, in spite of his size.

Rage pounded in his ears and hammered through his veins. Jason drew back and punched the retreating man in the jaw, knocking him off his feet. Pain exploded in his fist, streaking up his arm, but he ignored it, stalking toward the prone man. With a feral growl, he hauled his target to his feet and drew back again.

"No! Jason, stop!"

Blinded and deafened by fury, Jason hardly noticed the voice humming in his ear. Were they willing to kill her in order to save a few of their own? A resounding yes echoed inside his brain. Yes, they would sacrifice the doctor to save the patient. She was nothing to them, no blood relation. But she was everything to him, and they were about to learn what that meant.

Once again his fist met the other man's face, the force of the blow sending him reeling backward. But this time he managed to remain standing.

"No!"

The word came again, more high-pitched this time, like a scream. A hand grabbed his arm and he shrugged it away, his every sense tuned to the man before him who seemed to have recovered and stood waiting, his own fists clenched.

Caroline stepped in front of Jason and he stopped, gazing over her head at the other man.

"Get out of my way, Caroline!" he ordered.

"No! Stop it! Please."

Grabbing her by the shoulders, Jason turned her aside, but she clutched his shirt with all her strength, clinging to him when he tried to extricate himself. Angrily, he released her shoulders and grabbed her by the arms. His large hands wrapping around her small wrists, he pried her hands from his shirt and stood staring down into her fearful eyes.

"Please," she whispered, and the blindness lifted from his mind.

Awareness returned, and he realized how tightly he held her and how violently her body quivered. Releasing her abruptly, he trembled with self-loathing, while his heart pounded in the aftermath of his anger. Had he hurt her? He didn't think so. His anger had been directed at the man who stood now staring at him, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. But at the very least, he'd frightened her.

And he instantly regretted it. In one awful moment he realized she had never been exposed to violence, to the unremitting fear of living in a world dominated by someome larger and stronger who delighted in cruelty, a world without sanctuary. Her eyes were too clear, her face too open and trusting to have endured that kind of hell, and he didn't want to introduce her to it now.

"It's not his fault," Caroline said, her voice pleading.

"I'm sorry." Jason raised a hand to her cheek, glad that she didn't flinch from him. "I'm sorry."

"Perhaps you should tell him," Caroline said, motioning toward the injured man with a nod of her head.

Overwhelmed by relief that he hadn't inadvertently hurt her, he pulled her unresisting form into his arms, holding her tightly, his chin resting on the top of her head.

"Go with Ines," he murmured.

He held her at arm's length, gazing into her worried eyes. "I won't attack anyone, I promise. Go with Ines."

"How could you let her work like that without resting?" Jason asked bitterly in Portuguese as soon as the women were out of ear shot.

"Be careful whom you are accusing," the other man warned in the same language, massaging his throbbing jaw. "We all tried to get her to rest but she wouldn't listen. We are grateful she is here, but we want no harm to come to her."

Jason closed his eyes as the tension flowed out of his body. A thin mist rose off the warm, damp earth as the clouds parted and the sky brightened.

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

The black man smiled. "Don't be sorry. We thank you for letting us have your wife for a little while, and we are glad to see that you take good care of her. And now you are here, the gods will smile on us all the more. Come, there is cachaca. We will drink to your wife."

#####

Jason groaned, his head still not quite clear from the drug he'd smoked the night before. What he really wanted was to go with Caroline, to hold her until she fell asleep, to be with her when she awoke.

But it would be impolite to refuse to drink with the man, especially after attacking him, so he followed him to a small table made of two tree stumps with a smooth slab of wood laid on top of them, thinking that politeness would do him in yet.

Caroline awoke to the sound of cicadas chirping so loudly she thought at first she must have fallen asleep in the open. Sitting up, she gazed around her at the profound darkness, swatting ineffectually at a noisy mosquito that hummed close to her face.

"Are you well, Senhora?" Ines's voice reached out to her from the darkness, and she knew she hadn't dreamed Jason into existence. He had really been there that afternoon. Was he still somewhere in the village?

"I'm fine," Caroline assured her, rising from the low, crude cot.

Ines struck a match to a lantern and the room brightened to a degree, shadows flickering and growing long against the rough walls. "You should stay in bed."

"Why?" Caroline asked. "I feel rested. Where is Jason?"

"I am not knowing," Ines replied. "Will I find him?"

"No!" Caroline gasped, crossing her arms over her breasts, aware suddenly that she wore nothing but her thinnest chemise. "No, I just wondered. I can't sleep another minute, Ines. I think it will be morning soon."

Caroline moved to the crude table in the corner where a pitcher and bowl stood.

"The water is fresh," Ines told her. "I draw it while you sleep. But it will be not hot."

"Oh." Caroline almost sighed, running her hand through the silky, tepid water. "It's too warm for hot water anyway. I'll just wash up and then go and check on the patients."

"You'll be sick yourself...."

"Please, Ines, Jason already pointed that out to me. I know what I'm doing."

Jason. What was he doing here? How did he learn that she hadn't boarded the mail steamer? However he had gained that information, he had evidently forced Ines into bringing him here. How angry he must be to realize that he had to wait another month or more before he could finally be rid of her.

"Have you slept at all?" she asked Ines.

"Some, yes."

"I'm sorry Jason dragged you through the jungle like this. It's my fault." Her voice broke with emotion, fear coalescing in her throat as she imagined her next encounter with Jason.

"Do not apologize, Senhora. I am glad he finds you so he can maybe keep you from killing yourself with work."

Caroline ignored the comment, her mind and body absorbed with visions of how wonderful the cool water would feel on her skin as she tried to push the picture of an enraged Jason from her mind. She would not cower before him; she would face him defiantly and calmly.

"I will find some food, yes?" Ines said, exiting quickly.

Caroline closed her eyes, slipping the sleeves of her chemise over her shoulders and allowing it to hang down from the waist. He would berate her for disobeying him and for causing him to lose valuable time away from the fazenda. But she hadn't asked him to come after her. She would have been just fine had he not.

The water felt as wonderful to her deprived skin as she'd imagined. Dipping the edge of her chemise into the water, she used it like a washcloth, smoothing it over her face, her throat, her bare breasts, careful to keep her back to the door in case someone accidentally stumbled into this room.

The thought had barely left her mind when she felt the prickling of a presence behind her. She wasn't sure if she'd heard something or simply sensed movement, but she knew with a desperate kind of fear that there was someone else in the room, someone between her and the door.

She turned with a start to find Jason standing in the doorway. Her arms went up automatically to cover her exposed breasts, and she stood there, half- naked and trembling.

Instead of relief that the intruder was Jason, Caroline's body resounded with a primeval fear. It coursed through her and set her heart to hammering as he stepped further into the room, his large body filling the small space. She took a step back. Spotting her discarded shirt on the floor, she bent and picked it up, wrapping it around her.

"What—what do you want?" she managed to ask. "Why are you here?"

If only she could read his expression, but she couldn't bear the intensity of those slate blue eyes long enough. Never had she felt so vulnerable, so incredibly aware of her own body. The air crackled with male vitality as he stepped farther into the room, stopping at the tiny gasp that welled up from her throat.

"Ines," he murmured, his heated gaze moving slowly over her exposed flesh, "she said the hut was empty. I'm sorry."

Ines. Why had she lied? She'd known Caroline was still inside the hut—bathing. That little schemer. She'd deliberately misled Jason, deliberately thrown them together.

Caroline watched him turn to go, knowing in her deepest heart that if she didn't stop him now, she might never have another chance to try and reach him. They'd be returning to the house soon, and Jason would disappear again. If she couldn't find him, how could she get through that impenetrable shell of his?

"Wait!" she cried desperately.

He turned to face her, and her mouth went dry. She felt terribly foolish, standing there trembling like a virgin, afraid for him to stay, afraid for him to go.

The bright red paint on his face brought to mind the Indians who had accompanied him here. Had he taken part in some savage ritual? He'd seemed so at ease with the natives; he'd even spoken their language.

Her mind catapulted her back to the day she'd encountered Jason bathing at the beneficio. The image set her blood on fire.

"I have something that might take that off," she murmured. "The dye, I mean."

She turned away, quickly donning her shirt, her fingers fumbling on the buttons as she struggled to calm her body's violent trembling. Opening her medical bag, she found a large bottle of witch hazel and a clean cloth.

"Sit," she said, motioning to the cot with a nod of her head.

Jason moved to obey her command, eyeing her warily as he removed his shirt. She hesitated, surprised by his action. "It's everywhere, I'm afraid," he told her.

Caroline felt her face turn furiously red but tried to act casual as she thought of red dots everywhere. She stood before him, the top of his head level with her chin. He lifted his face and she dampened the cloth with the witch hazel, willing herself not to think of how her shirt gaped open, to forget that she wore nothing beneath the thin material, to ignore the fire in his light blue eyes that turned her legs to rubber and caused her heart to hammer against the wall of her chest.

Concentrating on his face, she tried not to notice the naked expanse of his chest. Whenever she allowed herself to think of it, a dizzying ripple rose up from her knotted stomach, devouring her, threatening her fragile control.

"I'm sorry I spoiled your plans by not getting on the mail boat," she said, trying to make conversation, to fill the silence with sound, any sound but the fierce drumming of her heart. She massaged the cloth against his skin and the dye dissolved. "But these people need me. There will be another mail boat."

Wiping the rest of the dye from his face, Caroline stood uncertainly, trying to decide how best to approach his chest, how to tame the trembling of her hand. She decided to start at the top, applying her ministrations to a dot of dye on his collarbone.

It was a chest, after all, just flesh and bone, part of a man's body. She'd seen a chest before—many times in medical school or when she would assist her father. But Jason was not a patient or a medical specimen to be dissected and studied.

And he most certainly was not Wade Marshall. Her first husband had been only a few inches taller than she, always carefully manicured, always fashionably dressed. There had been nothing threatening or unsettling about Wade, nothing overwhelming. Still, the marriage bed had been a shock, even with the medical knowledge she'd acquired beforehand—the intimacy of it, the invasion of body and soul, the terrible vulnerability. She had never known another man, but then, could there be that much difference?

Yes, she thought immediately, yes, there could be a world of difference.

"Do you want to leave Brazil?" he asked huskily, his chest vibrating beneath the cloth that separated her flesh from his.

Anger stiffened her spine and blinded her raging senses. "Why do you ask?" she nearly spat, moving her efforts to another circle of dye. "You never have before. I think my feelings have been abundantly clear from the start. Are you trying to humiliate me by making me admit something? What I want or don't want has no bearing on this situation."

"Ouch! Be careful!" he growled, his voice heavy with desire. "You'll rub the skin off."

Comprehension flooded her and Caroline realized she'd been wiping viciously at a dot near his small, flat nipple. She drew back and doused the cloth again, acutely aware of his body and the intimacy of what she was doing. His unwavering gaze searched her face, unnerving her further.

Pressing the cloth against his breastbone, she felt the hard ridge of muscle through the material. Her rapid breathing sounded loud to her ears in the raw silence that connected them, and she wondered if he could hear it, too.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, reaching underneath her gaping blouse, his big hand rough and gentle as he caressed the underside of her breast. The breath caught in her throat at the explosion of sensation along her every nerve ending. Her nipple grew painfully taut, aching for his touch.

She knew she should pull away. He might desire her physically, but he did not love her, and she wasn't sure any longer that the gulf between their hearts could be bridged by their bodies. Still, her body leaned toward him. She braced herself with her hands on his broad shoulders because a terrible weakness had begun to insinuate itself into her marrow and she didn't think she could stand upright under her own power.

"Please don't," she managed to gasp, "not if you don't want me... want me to stay."

A low moan rolled up from Caroline's throat as his thumb teased a taut nipple. Currents of sensation flashed from his hands through her body with the force of a violent thunderstorm. Wade had never made her feel this yearning fervor, this all-consuming hunger.

While his one hand stroked her breast, his other undid the tiny buttons she'd fastened so ineptly, pushing the shirt sleeves down her arms. She gasped, the thought of covering herself gleaming in her mind for an instant. But the feel of his breath, warm and pulsing against her flesh as he bent and kissed a swollen nipple stole her thoughts and the last of her resistance.

"Stay," he whispered against her burning skin, his tongue light and wet on her tumescent flesh. "Stay, Caroline."

His words filled her foolish heart with joy. She seemed to be melting into him, surrendering control of her own body to him as his hand cupped her buttocks and he pulled her close so that she was standing between his legs. He lifted her off the floor, turning her so that she lay on her back on the cot, the swiftness of his actions startling her.

He covered her with his body, his elbows on either side of her shoulders holding his weight off her. His hands cupped her face, massaging her scalp, her temples, her lips, as he planted kisses on her nose and eyelids, filling her with a wild fire, a sweet longing that forced her body toward a swirling tempest.

He stood to finish undressing, and she watched him because she wanted to and he wanted her to, and there was no one to tell her it was wrong. She studied him as she'd longed to do that day at the beneficio, memorizing every muscle, every contour of his magnificent body. The thought of unleashing all that male power made her weak inside, her body almost fluid. The raw intensity in his gaze stole her breath.

The reality of Jason Sinclair bore hardly any resemblance to the man she'd expected from his letters. And yet, she would not trade the reality for the fantasy if given the chance. She remembered fearing what he would be like after so long without social contact—savage, coarse, barely human. Now she found that the very wildness she'd feared was the thing that set her heart to pounding and caused the raw yearning deep inside her.

Her mind stopped functioning as she surrendered to passion, swept away by his ardor. He was all over her... his hands... his mouth, touching her, tasting her, robbing her will. His hardness huge and full against her sent jolts of fear and desire pulsing through her body. His profound maleness overpowered her and left her trembling like a maiden. Three years of marriage might never have happened.

One hand cupped her face as he kissed her deeply, possessively. His other caressed its way over her shoulder to her breast, his finger and thumb tugging and teasing her nipple, then moving lower, lower until he found the moist heat between her thighs.

His fingers slid into her and she cried out, arching her hips toward him, panting now with a sweet madness as his lips trailed a path of fire down her neck. He demanded nothing less than total surrender, and her body obeyed, trembling with fervency deeper than anything she'd ever experienced or imagined.

He raised his head to look at her, his back bowed so that their faces touched, his rasping breath warm and sweet on her lips. His fingers were gone now, replaced by the velvet hardness that touched the opening to her center.

He whispered her name, his soft, strong voice quivering down her spine as his legs forced hers wider apart.

A ragged gasp rumbled up from inside her, and he hesitated, gauging the cause—pain, fear, passion? When her body arched toward his, it took every ounce of restraint in his being not to take her quickly, forcefully, and end the agony in his loins. But he remembered her reaction to his earlier violence and felt the delicacy of her small, soft body. She seemed so fragile he feared he might crush her if he weren't careful.

He hadn't meant for this to happen when he'd come looking for her, but from the moment he'd walked into the hut and seen her standing there, her breasts barely covered by her crossed arms, he'd sensed a frightening inevitability about everything that had led them to this moment. Still, he would have stopped had she reacted in fear or revulsion, had she denied him in any way. She had not.

He sensed her body opening beneath him, even before he began to press gently into her yielding flesh. Soft moaning sounds rumbled up from her throat as he pushed himself deeper into her, sounds she could not control any more than she could control the way her body clung to his or the way the pulse in her throat beat fitfully beneath his lips.

He wanted to absorb her into himself and make her a part of him forever. He needed to feel her arms, soft and firm, holding him against her warm, willing body. For just a little while, he needed to believe that she was his completely, that nothing could ever drive them apart, that the darkness of the past could be conquered.

She gave a sharp cry as he penetrated her depths, and he went still, though the urge to thrust pounded in his blood. He wanted to savor the feel of her body soft and warm around him, beneath him. Her delicate arms around his back drew him closer, urging him with a longing that shone clearly in her passion- darkened eyes.

She lay still beneath him, connected to his motionless body, perfectly filled with him, fearful of the fire that raged inside her as her body and her soul opened and opened to him.

Finally he moved, pressing deeper into her arched, panting body. A ragged groan escaped his lips as he withdrew, then pushed into her again and again, filling her completely, only to withdraw again.

It was a violent, tender thing, their lovemaking. She clung to him, her body responding to his mounting fervor. His fierce strength and unbearable gentleness sent her spinning toward an infinite abyss as he thrust into her, slowly at first, the tempo building to a shattering climax.