rain falling gently beyond the open window slowly insinuated itself into the stillness of the empty room.
She closed her eyes and her mind took her to the orchards where no doubt Jason worked alongside his men. Or perhaps they had taken refuge from the rain beneath the red-tiled roof of the beneficio. She couldn't help remembering the first time she'd seen it—Jason standing naked on one of the patios, water pummeling his body and running over his muscled torso in rivulets.
With a low growl, she came to her feet, walking angrily to the open door and peering out. He was back to his old games, avoiding her by staying away from the house. What was he waiting for? Was this a new tactic? If his strategy was to wear down her nerves, it was working brilliantly.
Five months! He'd been away for five months.
She'd made the trip from Manaus, and she knew how long it took. In good weather like they'd had lately, it took less than three weeks. Even allowing two weeks to transact business, he should have been back three months ago.
She almost wished she weren't carrying his child. Almost. In the beginning, she'd wished it fervently. She'd been violently ill every morning and queasy for the rest of the day. She'd actually lost weight. Her clothes had begun to hang on her. Only now was she beginning to fill them out again, and shortly they would be too small for her.
And she didn't even want to think about what waited for her at the end, the pain. Whenever she thought about her crude surroundings, her heart grew faint. There were no facilities, no help at all for a pregnant woman, not even a midwife. She tried to shore up her courage by reminding herself that women had children in the jungle every day.
How she needed Jason now. She needed the strength and comfort of his arms around her. She needed to feel that he wanted this child as much as she did, that it wasn't just her baby. She needed to talk to him about her anxiety and to hear him say that everything would be all right.
That was the root of the problem, she decided. She still cared for him. She still wanted him to love her, wanted it even more now. She didn't want to bring a child into a house where a constant state of open warfare existed. She wanted to be a family, the three of them.
But when she thought of the way Jason had been raised, the kind of family life he'd described in his letters, she wondered if he were capable of that kind of bond.
A terrible sickness settled in the pit of her stomach every time she allowed herself to think of the life he and his sister must have lived. Home was the one place in all the world where one should feel completely safe, especially a child. Jason had never experienced that kind of home. Perhaps he had no concept of it, but even so, she knew from his letters that his heart yearned for it.
Was he still angry at her over the stupid water pump? Despite his harsh words, she had continued to handle the plantation books and he'd left her alone to do so. Evidently she'd proven her competence, but he wasn't about to admit it. Instead he ignored her while Ignacio traveled to Manaus to hire a new bookkeeper.
But something more powerful, much deeper than anger kept him away from her. A huge chasm had opened between them, a wide emptiness that she wasn't sure could ever be spanned. Why? Why had he withdrawn from her completely? Surely it couldn't still be the letters. It was worse than with Wade. Never had she felt this way about Wade, or any other man, for that matter. She told herself it was because she could feel his child growing inside her day by day, but she suspected there was more to it than that.
She wanted desperately to recall the intimacy they'd shared so long ago at the slave village. She'd thought, hoped, that a closeness was beginning to form between them. Now that had been destroyed, perhaps forever.
Sensing someone behind her, Caroline turned to see Ines standing in the doorway, her expression as forlorn as Caroline's own heart.
"What am I to do, Ines?" she asked, turning to gaze into the impenetrable jungle once again.
"I am not knowing, Senhora. It is as I said, you should not have kept