From This Day Forward

by Deborah Cox

  The boat secure, he ran toward the place where he'd seen movement. His heart froze in his throat. "Caroline!"

  She lay on her side, her body covered with mud—still, silent. He rushed to her, silently praying that she was still alive as he knelt beside her and rolled her gently onto her back.

  She screamed and Jason released her, a cold terror crawling up his spine. It was then that he noticed her twisted left arm and tried again, careful to avoid the injured appendage. She was panting, her eyes only half-open.

  "Jason!" she breathed. "Jason!"

  "I'm here."

  He nearly gasped aloud at the sight of blood covering the front of her soiled skirt. His pulse racing in alarm, he pulled her against him, cradling her head and shoulders in his arms. How badly was she hurt? Had she survived the boat wreck and what must have been a harrowing night alone, injured and terrified in the jungle, only to bleed to death in his arms?

  "Where else are you hurt?" he asked, forcing the raw emotion from his voice, not wanting to frighten her. She was in shock, he knew, and she might not realize how badly she was bleeding.

  "The baby," she murmured. "The baby, Jason."

  Her body stiffened and she began to pant, groaning low in her throat. When she was able to speak again, she gasped, "Jason, oh, Jason, my water broke! Oh, Jason, I'm so afraid!"

  That explained the blood, he realized with short-lived relief. She wasn't cut anywhere; she wouldn't bleed to death, but the baby was coming—now.

  "I'm here," he said soothingly, trying to sound calm when an overwhelming urgency pounded inside him. He had to get her to safety. He had to... to... God, he was going to have to deliver the baby. "How long has it been since your water broke?"

  "Oh Jason, I don't know!" Her head rolled from side to side as she tried to do something, anything, to distract herself from the pain that would envelop her again in a few minutes—or was it seconds? She wasn't sure. She wasn't sure of anything right now except that if Jason let go of her, the pain and darkness would devour her.

  "Try to think," he said gently. They were a long way from the fazenda. He had no way of knowing if there was shelter close by. The boat would have to do.

  "I don't know!" she cried. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Jason. It's my fault. The baby... the baby... it's too soon. I shouldn't have left. I'm sorry."

  Careful to hold her injured arm steady, Jason pulled her limp body into his arms and stood. She gasped, clinging to him with her right arm wrapped tightly around his neck.

  "What are you sorry for, Caroline?" he asked as he carried her toward the boat. "I'm the one who drove you away. Don't talk foolishness. I'm the one who's sorry."

  "I'm sorry," she murmured, resting her head against his shoulder, sending a sharp, painful surge of protectiveness through him.

  Blinking his eyes against unexpected tears, he whispered, "I won't let anything happen to you, Caroline. I swear it before God. I won't let anything happen to you or the baby."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jason's hands trembled as he wrapped his son in a small square of material he'd cut from one of the blankets he found below deck. Gazing at the small, reddened body, he could hardly comprehend the fact that he had guided his own son into the world, that he'd watched him take his first breath, that he held him in his hands now.

  His own blood flowed inside that small body, his and Caroline's, mingled together to form a new life that hadn't existed before.

  Everything seemed changed—the jungle, the night-darkened river, his own heart. All his hopes and fears converged in the miracle he held so carefully.

  A boy. He'd known all along it would be a boy. What he'd never anticipated was the overwhelming surge of love and pride that racked his exhausted body. He knew, with a certainty more powerful than anything he'd ever experienced, that he would die for this child, if need be—and for Caroline.

  Walking toward his wife where she lay in the bed he'd brought up from below deck, Jason felt his heart skip a beat. He'd almost lost her—both of them. Because of him, she'd run away. If he hadn't found her when he had, they would have both almost surely died. How could he have ever lived with that?

  Carefully, Jason slipped the child into the crook of Caroline's good arm, and she received him with a weary smile.

  "He's so beautiful," she said, her gaze caressing the infant as she fumbled with the buttons on the front of her blouse. "Jason, I think you're going to have to help me," she said as the baby began to fuss.

  Awkwardly, Jason stepped forward and began unbuttoning her blouse. A raw, elemental desire shuddered through his body, mingling with another emotion he could not name, though its power nearly drove him to his knees. By the time her breast was free, he could hardly breathe.

  Caroline guided the baby to her breast, gasping in shock as his tiny mouth closed over her nipple and he began to suckle.

  Exhausted but radiant, she gazed at Jason, a soft smile curving her lips. "He has your eyes," she said.

  Jason backed away, swallowing convulsively. He'd noticed right away, of course. They were clear blue, as blue as an Irish sky in springtime, his mother would have said. Of course, they might change when the child got older. The thatch of snow white curls almost certainly would.

  "Where are you going?" Caroline called.

  Jason stopped, realizing that he'd reached the edge of the boat and had been about to jump out onto the bank. Why, he couldn't say. All he knew was that he needed to get away from them, from the emotions tearing at his heart.

  "Please don't leave me," she pleaded. "I need you. I can't care for him alone with this broken arm."

  "I—I can't," he murmured without facing her, the admission torn from his very soul.

  He'd held the babe, bathed him, wrapped him against the elements, because he'd had no choice. But when he surrendered him to his mother, he'd meant for it to be a final relinquishing.

  As he secured a hammock to the boat's walls near where Caroline lay, he thought about how tiny and helpless his son was. He'd made himself a solemn vow to protect them, and the best way to do that was to keep himself a safe distance from them. But there was only so much a man could endure.

  "Where will he sleep?" Caroline asked.

  Jason turned to gaze at them, his wife and son. The babe still clung to his mother's breast, though he had dozed off. His tiny fist lay against her soft flesh, his head resting on her white shoulder.

  "He can sleep with you," he suggested.

  "Jason, this cot is too narrow," she reasoned. "I can't support him with one arm. And if he needs attention in the middle of the night, there's nothing I can do."

  How could he make her understand? He needed to distance himself from this child—from both of them—now, before the attachment he'd already begun to feel devoured him and pulling away was no longer a possibility.

  "Jason!" she called. "You held him before. What are you afraid of?"

  "Myself," he murmured.

  "He's your son," she reminded him.

  A tremor flashed through his body and he closed his eyes, his hands clenching into fists at his sides as he struggled against the hunger in his chest.

  "I'm a coward, Caroline. You were right. I'm afraid I'll—I'll care too much."

  There, he said it. He admitted his deepest weakness. He was afraid that he would lose anything he cared too much about and he couldn't bear the pain. If he didn't care so much, maybe pulling away wouldn't destroy him.

  "I'm afraid you can't control that, Jason," she was saying as if she'd read his thoughts. "Haven't you learned as much yet? You ran away from the world because you couldn't control it. You thought that if you isolated yourself, you could stop feeling. Now you believe that if you distance yourself from your son, you can make yourself not care about him either. Don't you see? You can't control your heart."

  Was she right? He wondered. He'd always believed he could control anything, everything, once he escaped the iron fist of his father's rule. But he hadn't been able to control Car
oline or the fungus that had decimated his orchards or the overwhelming emotions that had devoured him at the moment of his son's birth.

  The realization that there were so many things beyond his power should have terrified him, but it didn't. There was a strange comfort in letting go of some of the weight of responsibility.

  Gingerly he reached for his son, and Caroline lifted him with her arm as best she could.

  "Watch his head," she urged.

  "Caroline, I can't do this," he said, fear flashing through him without warning as he wrapped his arms around the baby.

  "You did it before," she reminded him. "I'm so tired, Jason, and my arm is throbbing. Please..."

  Her words trailed off, and Jason had the uncomfortable feeling she'd fallen asleep. Now what was he supposed to do?

  He stood, gazing down at her sleeping form, his son cradled in his arms. If he allowed himself to, he could feel a swell of contentment as pure and joyous as anything he'd ever known.

  A son. A wife. A family. They embodied everything he'd ever truly wanted.

  Tears welled in his eyes as he realized he'd surely die if they were ever taken from him.

  Caroline was right. She'd been right about so many things. He could not head off the surge of affection for his new son, any more than he could hold back his feelings for her. They were part of the fiber that made him who he was. From this day forward, he would never be the same again; he knew it as surely as he'd ever known anything in his life.

  Glancing one last time at his sleeping wife, Jason carried his son to the hammock in the corner. Carefully he climbed in and lay on his back, the baby resting on his chest. Both hands securely around the infant, he closed his eyes, dreaming of the years to come, years of watching his son grow and teaching him the things his own father had never taught him. Before long he settled into a peaceful sleep, the first he had known in seventeen years.

  Jason steered the small boat through the early morning quiet. The river spread before it, as smooth and benign as silk. Peaceful, serene.

  Caroline lay sleeping in the bed he'd left on deck, her left arm in a sling lying beneath her breasts. Her strong, rhythmic breathing caused the injured arm to rise and fall gently. Her long, dark hair spread around her white face, mangled and matted with mud, despite his efforts to clean it.

  Cradled in her right arm, she held their sleeping son against her warm, soft body. Jason's stomach did a somersault as emotions pummeled him faster than he could repel them, piercing his every defense—pride, love, tenderness.

  The baby moved, and Caroline's eyes flew open immediately. Jason jerked his head away before she could read the undisguised emotion in his eyes, before she could see into his soul. But they drew him like a magnet, this woman and child, this perfection.

  Against his will, he turned to gaze at them once again, and Caroline smiled weakly.

  "How do you feel?" he asked, his voice strange in his own ears.

  "Tired," she murmured.

  Caroline drew the child to her breast, gasping as the tiny mouth closed over her tender nipple. Awkwardly, she supported the babe against her shoulder so she could caress his head with her good hand. Her eyes glazed with an emotion that touched him like a shadow.

  His own feelings must pale when compared to hers. She'd known this child for nearly nine months, carried him beneath her heart, felt him move inside her body. They were still connected in a way that made him feel like an outsider, an observer with no part in the miracle.

  He turned away from the warmth reflected in her eyes. Within minutes, his own pier would come into view and they would be faced with the same world they had left behind two days ago. The same problems would be waiting for them. But for a few more minutes, he reveled in the closeness that had grown between them last night.

  When he glanced at Caroline again, both mother and child were asleep.

  "Caroline," he murmured. He hated to wake her, but they would be docking soon and she needed to cover her exposed breast and prepare herself before they met the rest of the world.

  "Caroline," he said more insistently.

  Smiling languidly, she opened her eyes, and the love and contentment reflected there took his breath away.

  "We'll be docking soon," he told her. "I think you should, ah—"

  Suddenly, inexplicably embarrassed, he could only gesture toward her exposed flesh. She understood and drew her blouse together awkwardly, a touch of pink staining her cheeks.

  "We should name him, you know," she said weakly.

  "There's plenty of time for that," he assured her, concentrating on the river now that there was, blessedly, something to take his attention away from the yearning in his chest. "We can talk about it when you've regained your strength."

  They accomplished the rest of the journey in silence. As they drew near, the pier exploded in activity. Men had already gathered and had begun preparations to send a search party after them. Now they stood at the end of the dock, craning their necks to see whether he was returning alone.

  "I see a Senhora!" someone shouted, and a cheer went up from the small group.

  Jason scowled, even though his heart swelled with pride at their admiration. Cutting the engine, he moved to the side of the boat and tossed a thick rope to one of the men on the shore. Quickly the boat was secured and boarded.

  "Easy," Jason said as the men tried to crowd around Caroline. "She's still weak."

  Ines shouldered her way through the silent, gaping men. "My poor Senhora!"

  "Take the baby, Ines," Jason ordered. "Be careful of Caroline's left arm."

  Caroline smiled weakly at Ines as she took the child from her arm. "Isn't he the most beautiful baby you've ever seen?"

  "Sim, Senhora," Ines agreed, her eyes filling with tears. "Out of the way!" she commanded as she made her way back through the sea of men.

  Jason moved beside Caroline, carefully arranging the sheet he'd wrapped around her to replace the ruined skirt he'd had to cut away last night. The pressure of her eyes drew his gaze to hers as he carefully slipped his arms underneath her and lifted her off the bed. Immediately she twined her arm around his neck and rested her weary head against his shoulder.

  Fear clutched his heart as he held her to him, trembling through his being, a fear greater than any he'd ever known before. All his life, the things he'd cared about had been stripped from him. He didn't think he could endure it if he lost her, lost them.

  He should put them on a boat and take them to New Orleans himself, as soon as they were strong enough to travel. He should take them far from him and see to it that they had a comfortable home and everything money could buy before taking himself out of their lives forever. But if they were so far away, how could he keep them safe?

  Never had he been so confused, so trapped by a situation that brought him the fiercest joy and deepest fear he'd ever experienced.

  He knew from the rhythm of her breathing that Caroline had fallen asleep again. She'd surrendered herself into his care last night because she'd had no choice. But how could she continue to trust him after what he'd done, what he'd almost done, what he was? He didn't deserve it, any of it. He didn't deserve her or a perfect son or her unreserved trust.

  Winding his way through the smiling, gaping men who moved aside to let them pass, he tried to clear his mind, tried to think rationally, but in the blink of an eye, he had lost every ounce of logic he'd ever possessed. In the blink of an eye, he'd been transformed into something he didn't understand or particularly like.

  There were no more walls, nothing to protect him from his own emotions. All he had to do was look at his son or at this extraordinary woman who had believed in him when he didn't believe in himself, this woman who had taken his seed and given him a child.

  Every time he gazed at them or thought of them, the walls dissolved and the emotions he'd tried so hard to cut off assaulted him with a vengeance.

  It was as if his heart had been turned inside out and all his feelings lay bare and unpr
otected for all to see.

  It scared the hell out of him.

  Caroline awoke with a start, listening intently for any sound from the crib at the end of her bed. When none came, she relaxed back on the pillow once again.

  She'd been dreaming about the storm. Over the last few weeks since Jason brought her back to the fazenda, she'd been slowly remembering things about that terrible accident. The memories came to her in the form of hideous nightmares. Tonight she'd dreamed of falling through the air, helplessly buffeted by fierce winds. When her body slammed into the roiling water, the impact had awakened her.

  How had she ever survived, she wondered for the hundredth time. Why had she lived when the others had not?

  Shivering in the darkness, she remembered waking on the riverbank, covered with mud, racked with pain, unable to move. If Jason hadn't found her, she'd have almost certainly died. He'd saved her life, hers and their child's.

  Pushing the covers down, she climbed out of bed, careful not to jostle the injured arm that Ines had set properly following Caroline's instructions. Her heart swelled with joy and love as she gazed down at her little Jase.

  Caroline wondered how Jason would react to her decision to name the baby after him. It wasn't official, of course, but she couldn't continue thinking of him as the baby or the child, as if he were an object instead of a little person. And since Jason had chosen to avoid them both, she'd picked a name herself. Even if Jason objected strenuously, she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to think of him by any other name.

  Running her hands lovingly over the raw-wood surface of the small crib, she smiled into the darkness, thinking of how frantically the men had worked to build it upon her return. Jason had bemoaned its roughhewn appearance, but it meant more to her than any expensive store-bought cradle ever could.

  And the women had been equally kind, gifting her with potions to make the baby sleep, to make him eat better, to make him grow faster, and though she couldn't bring herself to use any of them, she managed to appear grateful. Their time and their knowledge she did treasure and use, but when Ines had suggested that she find a wet nurse, that it wasn't quite proper for the patrona to nurse her own child, Caroline had refused flatly.