Jason ran a hand through his damp hair. He stared at her silently, and Caroline watched the changing expressions that always shifted across his face. At first, he seemed surprised to see her, surprise giving way to something she might have interpreted as gladness, if she didn't know how unlikely he was to be glad to see her. Whatever that emotion might have been, it quickly gave way to curiosity.
"I had no idea," he said. "I mean, that you spent the afternoons here."
"How could you?" Caroline asked. "There are many things you don't know about me."
Anger was getting the better of her, and she struggled for control. If she didn't tread lightly, she'd find herself baiting him again. She didn't want to drive him away, so she'd have to use another approach.
She turned the leather-bound book in her hand so that Jason could see the title on the spine. It was Bleak House by Dickens. "Your taste in books seems quite eclectic. Your library is extensive."
"I'm glad you approve. Please feel free to avail yourself of anything that interests you."
"I wondered if you had anything on coffee cultivation." Her eyes remained on the book in her hand, but she could feel the heat of his gaze on her. "I can't imagine that you would not. You've got everything from Russian history to Goethe to Jane Austen.... If I didn't know better, I'd think that every book in your library was a new edition."
"They are. It's my only requirement. Derek and his wife bought them on my behalf," he told her. "One hundred and twenty yards of books, enough to fill all the shelves in the room."
"You don't...?"
"I don't have time to read," he said.
The skill with which he told the lie chilled Caroline to the marrow. He was very good at it—at lying. How would she ever be able to know when he was telling the truth?
/ used to sneak and keep some of the money I made working at the sugar mill to buy books, he wrote Derek. I'd hide them under my bed and read them late at night after my father passed out.
The words of the letter leaped unbidden into her mind, jolting her with their significance. Compassion gripped her heart at the thought of that small boy hoarding the money he'd worked so hard for and using it to purchase books, books his father had burned more than once.
Jason was still hiding his books. He guarded his secrets carefully. How would he react if he ever learned that for the past year she and not Derek had taken his detailed lists and purchased the books he'd requested?
"The most I can manage is the month's worth of newspapers we get when the mail steamer comes up from Manaus," he was saying. "And why would you want a book on coffee cultivation?"
Caroline shrugged, trying to appear casual while her mind churned with unspoken questions. "I told you, I'm curious." She held his gaze for as long as she could, but something in those iridescent blue depths forced her to look away before he penetrated her very soul. It was the second time she'd experienced the sensation of being scrutinized, physically and emotionally, by those sharp, inquisitive eyes.
Opening her book to the place where she'd left off yesterday, she tried to dismiss him, but Jason would not be dismissed so easily. He stood still, studying her intently. She read the same paragraph three times without comprehension before finally lowering the book and gazing back at him.
"There are no seasons here," he told her, "not like you're accustomed to at any rate. There's the rainy season when it rains every day, and there's the dry season when it rains every other day."
She smiled up at him serenely, and he frowned and looked away. "I'm not at all what you expected, am I?" she asked.
Jason returned his gaze to her with a shrug. "I don't even remember what I'd expected any more. What about you? Am I what you'd expected? I mean, you must have had some kind of expectations or you wouldn't have come here."
Caroline felt her face burn as she remembered the fantasies she'd nurtured in New Orleans. She was twelve years old when her mother had died, so she remembered what it was like to have a complete family. And she remembered how it had been between her parents—the love, the laughter, the secret glances they shared that she didn't understand at the time. That