by Deborah Cox
"You cannot tell Master Jason. You gave your word."
"I know I gave my word, but this—this is something I didn't expect. If you'll tell me where these people came from and let me examine the others who have been exposed, I won't tell Jason. Adults rarely die of the disease, and there are few children on the fazenda. Besides, I'll be there to diagnose any outbreaks early; that's the key to treating measles. What do you say, Ines?"
Ines hesitated. Caroline could sense the battle raging inside the other woman, but even before she spoke, Caroline knew what decision Ines had reached. "It is for your own good, Senhora. It is better for you that you don't know. I cannot."
Caroline sighed in defeat. "Damn it, Ines."
"Will you help the boy?"
"I'll try, but he is very sick." Caroline retrieved a blanket from a stack in the corner and used it to cover the boy to the chin. Compassion swelled inside her because she knew what hell he had to face before morning. "Tell her to keep him covered no matter what."
Ines repeated Caroline's words in Portuguese, and Caroline watched the boy's mother to make sure she understood.
"When the fever breaks, he will sweat and his body will grow cool." Again Caroline waited while Ines translated, her own body shivering with the memory of her childhood bout with pneumonia, an experience that had nearly taken her life. "Does she understand?"
"Sim, Senhora."
"If the fever doesn't break by sunrise, she must come and get me. Tell her that, Ines, exactly as I said it. She must come and get me."
Ines hesitated, then translated.
"If the fever does break, he'll probably have chills, then fever again. The fever shouldn't last longer than half a day. If it does, she should come and get me."
Again Ines translated, then turned to Caroline, the hope and faith in her eyes causing a catch in Caroline's throat. Closing her eyes, Caroline made a silent appeal to God for the child's recovery. There was nothing more she could do.
"You will make well, sim, Senhora" Ines asked anxiously.
"I'm not sure I can," Caroline admitted, coming to her feet. "It's in God's hands now."
"Will you tell Master Jason?"
"I don't know. I should," Caroline said, remembering the night of the mud slide and Jason's concern for his workers. She felt as if she were betraying him by keeping Ines's secret. What would he say if he learned that she was endangering his men and their families? Still, Ines had trusted her too. There had to be a way to keep from betraying either of them, but she was too tired to think tonight. "Let me sleep on it. We'll talk about it in the morning."
"If Jason already knows about whatever it was that I saw last night," and Caroline wasn't at all sure what that was, "why must we keep it secret from him? Ouch! Be careful!"
"Why did you not put on the shoes?" Ines asked, gazing up at Caroline from where she knelt on the floor. Her skillful hands massaged the aches and pains from Caroline's swollen feet.
"Because, you said it was a matter of life and death." Caroline sat on a stool in her sitting room, her nightgown hiked up to her knees, her bare feet soaking in a large pan of hot, soapy water.
Ines took one of Caroline's sore feet from the water and patted it dry, then gently applied an evil- smelling ointment.
"Are you sure that stuff works?" Caroline asked dubiously.
"Sim," Ines replied.
"What did you say those nasty little creatures were?"
"Chigoes—fleas," Ines told her. "They burrow in the flesh. This will kill them."
Caroline shuddered, silently calling herself every kind of fool for her recklessness. If only she'd taken the time to put on her shoes last night.
"The bandages, Senhora?"
"They're in my medical bag," she said, motioning with a nod of her head toward the corner where the bag stood on a small table.
Ines went to fetch the bandages, and Caroline took the opportunity to survey the damage to her feet. She couldn't see anything buried in her flesh, but the pain whenever she tried to walk and the terrible swelling were enough to confirm Ines's diagnosis.
"You are liking Master Jason more than you want to tell yourself," Ines remarked from across the room. "Last night, you think maybe Master Jason needs help, yes? So you don't stop to put on the shoes. Are you wearing the talisman?"
"Of course not!" Coloring guiltily, Caroline recalled waking last night with the object clutched in her hand, the twine wrapped tightly around her forearm. "That's voodoo nonsense. And besides, even if I believed in it, which I don't, I wouldn't want a man I had to trick into loving me. And stop trying to change the subject."
Ines knelt before Caroline again, smiling slyly up at her, then glanced away sheepishly. "Woman always has to trick the man, Senhora. Surely you are this wise, yes?"
"Ines, how do you know so much about men?"
"Mae, she tells me some." Ines grew serious, her brow furrowing with a frown of concentration. "Senhora, the boy, can you save him?"
Looking into Ines's hopeful face, Caroline thought she understood some of the anguish her father had suffered. He'd wanted to heal them all, but even medical science couldn't cure some things. Epidemics were the worst because there were so many, so many children.
"I'll try," Caroline told her as she had last night.
For several moments, Ines looked at her wordlessly, her expression unreadable, before nodding and rising. "I must go. Master Jason will want the lunch. I will bring a tray for you as well."
"Thank you. I've made a mess of things. How am I going to help that poor child if I can't walk?"
"Rest today. Maybe tomorrow you will walk."
"At least the mother didn't come for me. You did tell her what I said."
"Of course, yes. Rest, Senhora," Ines said, exiting the room quickly, and Caroline couldn't help wondering if she did so intentionally to avoid further questions.
"Where is Caroline?" Jason asked crossly as Ines entered with his lunch.
"She is unwell, patrao," Ines replied, setting a plate of hot food on the table before him.
"What's wrong with her?"
Ines dipped her head, refusing to meet his gaze, and Jason decided it might be wise not to probe further. It was probably her monthly, something he really didn't want to discuss with Ines.
"It is not serious," Ines assured him a bit sheepishly. "She will be better tomorrow."
"I'll take your word for it," Jason said gruffly, concentrating on his meal. Scooping up a forkful of rice, he raised it to his mouth when a shrill whistle rent the morning calm. "What the hell!"
Ines went to the door, peering out. Her shoulders slumped, and Jason knew what she'd seen before she turned to stare at him with angry, accusing eyes. "It is the mail boat."
"It's early," he said. His heart settled into his stomach, and he tried desperately to deny the regret inside him. It was early, damn it! It wasn't supposed to be here for two more weeks. "Do you think she'll feel up to traveling?"
Ines shook her head. "I am not knowing, patrao." She stood staring at him, her eyes reproachful. Determined to ignore her, he returned to his food, lifting the fork once again, only to drop it onto the plate with a loud clatter. He'd suddenly lost his appetite. How could he eat with Ines glowering at him as if he'd drowned a litter of kittens?
"Go and find out, Ines," Jason growled. "I'll go down to the pier and ask the captain to wait." He pushed himself up from the table. "Go on. I only hope she's packed."
Caroline stood at her door, grasping the frame for support. Tears ran unchecked down her face as she strained to see the mail boat in the distance. With every second, it grew larger on the horizon. There was no escape.
She had failed. There was no place for her beside Jason, no room in his life. He didn't want her. It didn't matter that her heart was breaking, that she felt as if she were dying on the inside. He didn't want her, and nothing would ever change that.
Not only had she failed herself, she had failed Jason. She was leaving him to wallow in his lone
liness and struggle for the rest of his life with the demons that drove him to hide away in this jungle. In her mind, she relived every moment she had spent here, trying to discover where she had gone wrong, what she could have done differently. The fact of the matter, as difficult as it was to swallow, was that he didn't care for her, plain and simple.
Well, Jason might not want her, but he needed her. He was just too stubborn to admit it. He would pay the price in loneliness. Would he find another wife, once the marriage was dissolved? She didn't want to think about it. She was miserable enough without adding jealousy to the emotions simmering beneath her surface calm.
He needed her, damn it! Why couldn't he see what he was doing?
In the corner of her eye, she watched Ines mount the stairs and walk slowly across the balcony toward her.
"It is the mail boat," Ines said.
"I know." Caroline wiped away the tears with the back of her hand.
"I will miss you, Senhora."
Caroline's composure nearly broke. She managed to keep the tears at bay, though her voice trembled when she spoke. "And I'll miss you, Ines."
Taking a deep breath, Caroline gathered her dignity around her like a cloak. In a moment, Ines would embrace her, and if she did so, that would be the end of her self-control.
"Come, help me finish packing," Caroline said stiffly, turning away from the door.
Chapter Eight
"What's wrong with it?" Jason called over the unusually loud clamor of the boat's engine. He caught the end of a rope and secured it to the short post set in the pier.
"Don't know yet!" the short, burly man in the boat shouted back.
Jason turned as if he sensed her presence behind him, frowning at what she was certain must be a bewildered expression. His gaze dropped to her bandaged feet, and Caroline tugged at her skirt in an attempt to cover them.
"What's the matter with your feet?" Jason shouted to be heard over the racket made by the boat's motor. The captain cut the engine off in the middle of Jason's question, and the word feet reverberated up and down the jungle like an explosion.
Caroline blushed as the man in the boat gazed curiously at her half-hidden feet. Opening her parasol with as much dignity as she could summon, she tilted her chin defiantly. "You needn't concern yourself. They are sore. Ines bandaged them."
Jason scowled. "That's what you get for running around barefoot like a damned aborigine."
Ignoring his caustic comment, Caroline said, "My bags are packed and ready in my room."
"Well, you might as well go back inside," Jason told her bitterly. "There's a problem with the motor."
"How long will it take to repair?" she asked, silently cursing the hopefulness in her breast. She was a fool. How could she want to stay when he didn't want her here?
The man in the boat leaped onto the pier with more agility than she thought him capable of. It was he who answered her question, doffing his tattered brown hat in a gesture of respect. "Don't know yet, ma'am."
"I'll let you know," Jason assured her. "Go back to the house and get out of this sun."
Caroline bristled at his high-handed manner. But the relief that flowed through her outweighed her indignation. Turning back toward the house, all she could think of was that she had been given another reprieve. It might be a short one, she warned her soaring heart, and it would come to an end when the captain repaired the boat, but at least she wasn't leaving just yet.
Caroline slipped through the door into the small shack, careful not to wake the sick boy should he be sleeping. She'd been coming here for three nights now, and each time his condition had improved. He should be dead; he should have died before she even saw him the first time. The fact that he was not only clinging to life but actually improving could only be attributed to a very strong will to survive.
Caroline waited for Ines to follow her in, then closed the door behind them. Turning to face the interior of the room, she gasped aloud at what met her gaze. The boy sat up in bed, staring at her with a broad smile. His mother sat on the bed beside him, her eyes brimming with tears.
Immediately, the mother began babbling happily in Portuguese. She stood to make room for Caroline, who sat on the bed and took the boy's face in both of her hands.
"She say thank you, Senhora. You save her son's life and she say you have great magic."
"No," Caroline said sharply. "No magic. Tell her I accept her thanks, but I did no magic. His body healed itself, with God's help."
His skin felt cool to the touch, and his breathing sounded almost completely normal. "Amazing!" she murmured, unable to believe her own eyes and hands.
Examining him, Caroline found that his lungs had cleared almost entirely and his fever was gone, as were the red pustules. She then turned to examining the mother, who had developed a full-blown case of measles.
Caroline reached into her medical bag and withdrew a bottle of quinine. She found a chipped china cup stacked in a corner of the room and poured about an ounce into it.
"Tell her to do exactly as I say," she said to Ines. "She and her son can go home, but she must rest until the rash goes away. This is quinine." She spoke to Ines as she handed the cup to the woman, and Ines translated.
"Mix a pinch," she demonstrated, taking a small amount of the powder between her thumb and index finger, "with this much water. Take it twice a day until the rash clears. Ines, the rest of her people have got to get help."
Ines stopped translating and gazed guiltily at Caroline.
"Why won't you let me help them?" Caroline asked.
"Senhora, what can you do? You will leave in the morning."
Pain clutched at Caroline's chest. She'd almost forgotten. The problem with the mail boat had been repaired and the captain planned to leave at first light. "You're right," she said, her shoulders slumping in abject defeat. "Let's go back to the house. You can bring them some food to take back with them."
"Sim, Senhora," Ines agreed, and they turned to go.
When they reached the house, they saw Jason at the edge of the courtyard, surrounded by a stand of fan palms, their fronds rustling in a gentle, cooling breeze. His bewildered, forlorn expression tugged at Caroline's heart. He reminded her of a lost little boy, standing there beneath a distant moon, gazing at the house he'd built with his own hands as if he'd never seen it before.
"What will we do?" Ines whispered.
"You go around the house to the kitchen," Caroline said, pressing her medical bag into Ines's hands. "I'll distract him."
Ines gazed at her dubiously, as if she didn't particularly like that plan, but she did as she was told, and Caroline studied Jason again.
He seemed so vulnerable, standing there in the moonlight, so fragile, despite his physical size and strength. She remembered his powerful grace, his masculine beauty as he'd showered at the beneficio. That powerful body housed a brittle soul. How she longed to reach that soul, to mend his bruised heart.
He wouldn't allow himself to suffer, to grieve the losses he'd experienced in his lifetime. Yet he suffered for his people. He'd suffered for Ernesto's parents and for Vincente who had been injured because of his own carelessness. What a terrible weight of responsibility he bore!
What was he thinking? If she could understand that one mystery, perhaps she could find a place in his heart and his life. But she couldn't read his eyes in the darkness, and she knew that if she approached him now, his melancholy would instantly give way to anger.
Ines had been right about one thing—Jason Sinclair was the most private, withdrawn man she had ever encountered. The more she tried to break through his reserve, the more he withdrew. She could hardly blame him, after the way he'd described his early life. A child needed emotional nourishment in order to grow, and Jason's emotional growth had been stifled, his spirit all but extinguished by a life of poverty and cruelty. The only way he'd been able to survive was by burying his feelings so deeply that no one, least of all his brutal father, could dig them out.
"Who's there?"
His voice startled her so that her heart leaped into her throat. She'd tried to be still and quiet, but something had alerted him to her presence. It was as if he possessed some special affinity for the jungle, a kinship that had allowed him to distinguish her minute noise from the usual nighttime sounds.
"Show yourself," he demanded, the threat in his voice undeniable.
Caroline stepped forward into the dim moonlight, and the tension in Jason's body evaporated before her eyes like steam from the jungle after a heavy rain.
"Damn it, woman," he growled, his voice thick with a violence that hadn't yet faded. "What do you mean sneaking up on a man like that?"
"I—I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"
"What are you doing out and about this time of night anyway?" he asked, his gaze sweeping her from head to foot. "Haven't you been to bed at all?"
"I couldn't sleep," she explained, gaining control of her voice and her emotions. "I saw you standing there . What were you looking at?"
Jason snorted, running a hand through his hair as he returned his attention to the house before them. "My home," he said bitterly, "at least what used to be my home."
Caroline followed his gaze to the stone-and-mortar structure before them. "It's the same as it always was."
"No, it's not the same at all."
Caroline turned to find him staring at her. The unmasked pain in his eyes tightened her throat. She clasped her hands in front of her before she gave in to the impulse to reach out to him. His soul ached as much as hers did. If only she could force him to admit that he was lonely here, that he needed her.
"Well," she said, trying to sound light when her heart was being torn apart, "I've always thought it seemed more like a house than a home, actually more a building than a house."
A calm tension pulsed through the encroaching jungle. Even the night sounds seemed subdued tonight, save the insects that chirped incessantly high in the giant trees. In the distance an owl hooted a solitary song.
"Where have you been?" Jason asked, genuine curiosity and concern reflected in his ice blue eyes.