friend like you before." Caroline laughed. "I've never had a friend at all, not really."
"I am your friend always," Melanie assured her, her tone solemn, her expression serious. "Remember that."
Caroline nodded, unable to speak past the emotion that clogged her throat, trembling as a shiver of apprehension crawled up her back. Was she doing the right thing? She prayed god she wouldn't regret this decision a few months from now.
Straightening her shirtwaist, she followed Melanie to the door where she stopped, glancing around the dark, familiar lobby.
She might miss the vigorous world of Sinclair Coffee Company, but she would be glad to leave New Orleans behind, glad to escape the strictures of a society into which she had never fit, a society that had always tried to crush her independence.
Bolstering her courage, Caroline walked through the front door and into the noisy bustle of Tchoupitoulas Street for the last time.
Chapter One
Caroline stood on the pier, watching uneasily as the mail boat rounded a bend in the river and disappeared from view. She dabbed her face with a damp handkerchief and gazed around, unease threatening to become genuine fear at the vast wildness of the jungle. A screech she now recognized as a macaw pierced the other sounds, sending an army of goose flesh up her arm.
At least he could have sent someone to meet me.
The jungle sweltered with tropical heat, even though the sun had begun to set in the western sky. A fragile breeze set the foliage at the tops of the tall trees in motion. She longed for its soothing touch to chase away the heat and the incessant gnats that hovered around her unprotected face. But the air at her level remained unaffected.
Unbuttoning the top few buttons of her bodice, Caroline dabbed at her moist throat, glancing at the dirty white sack the boat's pilot had dropped on the dock. Logically, she knew that if the inhabitants of this isolated, remote wilderness didn't know when to expect the mail boat, they certainly couldn't know when she would arrive. Still, the boat's captain had blown the whistle several times as they'd approached the pier. Surely someone must have heard. How long would she have to wait before someone realized she was here?
A feeling of unreality gripped her. During all the preparations, Brazil had seemed a world away, a vague dream. All she'd been able to think of was escaping the dull emptiness of her life in New Orleans and grasping at what might be her last chance at happiness. Now, as she stood on the very threshold of a new life in a savage wilderness awaiting a man she'd never laid eyes on, her heart grew faint.
A loud splash at the edge of the river startled her, and she gazed up to see a cayman slither slowly into the water, disappearing beneath a mantle of red and gold water lilies. They were smaller than the alligators in Louisiana, but here in the Amazon there were no cities bustling with people where the creatures wouldn't dare venture. This was their domain, and she was the intruder.
Fifteen years in the wild.
What would he be like after being cut off from civilization for so long? As she'd read his letters, she'd formed a mental image of Jason Sinclair as a polished, refined gentleman planter. But her long journey west from the mouth of the Amazon had opened her eyes to the primitive conditions he'd lived under. The towns where they'd stopped along the way could hardly be called towns at all, with the exception of Manaus, which had stood out in this boundless wilderness like a ruby in a pig's ear.
The few homes she'd seen along the way had been raised Indian huts. Most of them barely passed as dwellings. Some didn't even have walls but were just wooden frames with thatched roofs.
And the heat and the insects! She'd thought they were bad in New Orleans, but they were nothing compared to what she'd experienced here. Somewhere between the Amazon and the Rio Branco, she'd stopped wearing a corset—until today. Today she wanted to look her best, but the torturous garment had quickly become soaked with perspiration. The cloying fabric caused her skin to itch miserably.
Movement at the edge of the jungle caught her attention. A figure emerged from the rich verdure, moving toward her with the casual grace and strength of a jaguar. Her mouth went dry and she began to tremble with anticipation. Was this man walking toward her