His aching heart followed her every move as she ran here and there, exclaiming in glee, scaring the ponderous flock of herons standing on one leg in the pond.
A child. Hers. Would she ever want one again? Would it be his child she’d want? They’d been making love without protection, but she’d told him from the first day they didn’t need it. She must be protected, probably by an IUD.
But why had she had one fitted? Because she’d been sexually active? Had she indulged in unprotected sex with others? He never had. She was the only one he’d ever trusted, the only one he’d ever shared full intimacy with. Did she go around trusting men to be conscious of their health? Had he been a fool not to take precautions for that reason alone?
His heart was stabbed with a lance of jealousy and oppression. Then she turned to him, her smile elated and again, fool that he was, everything else ceased to matter.
“Roque, did you see those?” She jumped up and down as she pointed towards one of the trees ringing the glade filled with chattering, quarreling birds. “Toucans! And those have to be macaws. And I saw hummingbirds and hawks. And about a hundred kinds of butterflies.”
The last of his agitation dissipated as his lips widened indulgently. “And there are also more than two hundred species of mosquito.”
“Ha—my repellant ointment laughs at all two hundred species.” She walked up to him, hugged him around the waist. It took all his control not to crush her to him. “Thanks, darling. This is my life’s most magnificent surprise. This place is phenomenal.”
He smiled down on her, his heart constricting. “Tomorrow we go to see another phenomenon, the ‘meeting of the waters'.”
“I still can’t believe the black, clear waters of the Rio Negro can actually run side by side without mixing with the clay-colored waters of the Rio Solimoes, and for many miles.”
“That’s why it’s called a phenomenon.” He pinched her cheek when she narrowed her eyes at him, made another face and chuckled. “And then this place is more of a phenomenon than you realize. According to the shaman, places like this are magical foci, radiating fertility to the whole region. And shamans—as he considers us to be—harness their powers, use them as a nexus to the gods to bring forth bountiful sustenance—and progeny.”
Suddenly he felt as if she’d been transported to another plane, leaving him behind.
This new attack of remoteness hit him the hardest ever, shattered his resolve to cool down, to lay off. Calling himself a self-destructive, self-defeating fool, he caught her in a harder embrace. He had to stop her from drifting away. He wouldn’t survive her leaving him, not again.
He devoured her lips, and with a groan that shook him she came back to him. But not completely. And he went mad.
He barely snatched a mat from his backpack, threw it on the ground before he dragged her there. She went down, no reciprocating fervor, just limp surrender.
He had to have her fire, her ardor. He had to!
He discarded their swimsuits then his hands and lips roamed her, exploited every bit of knowledge and experience with her responses and preferences, trying to ignite her. He almost wept with relief when she caught fire at last and gasped for him.
He covered her body, thrust inside her, maddened, as if he’d stamp her with his essence, an image of a child with golden eyes and hair with a thousand shades shriveling in his soul even as his senses rocketed. Her soft screams filled his head as she writhed in the conflagration of release, catching him on the shock wave, sending him into his own explosive climax.
He didn’t move off her this time but lay over her, filling her, joined in ultimate intimacy, bitterness flooding him.
He was repeating his mistakes, being just sex to her.
But this had to be more than sex. She’s given you total surrender, absolute intimacy… Sim, fool yourself some more.
Eight years ago, she’d given him that the same day she’d left him.
Jewel stood on the edge of her boat, watching Marúbo disappear. They were turning into a tributary, heading for another village at its furthest point upstream. The tributary would get smaller on the way so they’d taken only the smaller boats. On arrival, they’d still need to hike for half a day to reach their destination. She couldn’t wait to get there.
And she couldn’t wait to leave there. To leave here, leave this expedition and Brazil.
Her efforts to keep a part of her unconquered by Roque, to save something of herself to survive with, had failed. Instead, she’d traded away her one chance of survival for two weeks of absolute bliss in his arms.
She’d opened herself to him, bared everything that she was and thought and felt, let him see the extent of her love, holding nothing back but the words.
And in return, he was already withdrawing.
It had started after that time in the glade five days ago. After he’d told her what the place signified.
Had the magical place revealed to him how empty of potential their lovemaking was and had it put him off her? Did a man who didn’t want children with a woman still feel repulsed if he knew the choice wasn’t there?
But she’d wanted longer with him, didn’t know how to give him up. And he was cutting her time, her remaining life, short.
He tried to disguise his cooling, but his endearments and light-heartedness felt strained, his spontaneity replaced by pensive watchfulness. He still made love to her, but his approach was stilted, as if he was summoning desires he no longer felt, his ferocity coming late, as if his response was building automatically, nothing to do with who his partner was.
But it was the aftermath that damaged most. Those times had been what she’d craved most with him, the sheer beauty and depth of descending together from the heights of the sensual storm, of feeling cherished and even more desired. Now his awkward kisses and caresses, his hesitant gaze, as if he were dispensing a requisite chore, added a deeper scar each time.
But what had she expected? She’d known her attraction to him was her synthetic shell, and beauty, even when real, bound no man. Hers seemed to have lost its appeal. Now he’d experienced it thoroughly, the still visible pattern where she’d been put back together must be evident. He could now be imagining what lay underneath, seeing her with the artificial effects undone. He could be remembering her when that negligible network had been a glaring map, marring her body and face, and he’d forced himself to look, to touch, to pretend to want.
But if he was becoming sated, or even sickened, he wasn’t doing anything about it. By now, she knew how compassionate he was. He probably didn’t know how to end it, was trying to do it gradually so as to cause her the least pain.
And she was too pathetic to do what she should have done weeks ago. She wasn’t sparing him the discomfort. And she had to find a way to release him, absolve him of any guilt or worry on her account. She had already been destroyed so it didn’t matter how much more doomed she became.
He suddenly appeared on the observation deck of his boat.
Longing writhed inside her. She knew he was looking at her from behind his sunglasses, was debating whether to pretend not to notice her or whether to acknowledge her. She saved him the trouble, turned away. Then she lurched forward and crashed to her knees.
They’d collided with something!
She’d barely risen to her feet, felt the pain shooting in her knees and blood trickling down her legs, seen the ominous underwater shadow of what looked like a gigantic sunken tree, when another collision from behind sent her hurtling overboard.
She heard her name being roared out as she hit the water. The plummet through the surface was like crashing through glass. The blow stunned sensation out of her whole left side. Then a thousand razors roared along her nerves. Her eyes and mouth jolted wide on the pain and panic, and warm water flooded in, cutting off sight and breath.
She thrashed, fighting the suffocating fluid, desperate arms reaching for the surface. She reached it and it only turned into attacking darkness. The boat—it was h
eaving, pieces of it separating, plummeting, pummeling her under with brutal blows. She went down, and down.
Her lungs burned, her vision a backlash of murky crimson. Beyond terror, the last tatters of survival instinct drove her up to break the surface—and it was there. The boat. It was capsizing.
For endless moments, it loomed over her in a merciless taunt.
Holding her last breath, she watched it make its final descent as Roque’s face filled her last thoughts.
At least this would be a way out.
For both of them…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE macabre sequence slashed its slow-motion terror across Roque’s vision, goring his mind.
He’d come out on deck, an unreasoning urge taking him to assure himself that Jewel was still there. She had been. Then she’d turned away. Then she’d lurched and fallen to her knees.
Alarm had hit him so hard it had delayed his realization that her boat had hit something. Then terror had begun.
Her boat had shuddered to a jarring halt then veered frighteningly. Right into his boat’s path. His boat had collided with its stern with full force. This time, Jewel had become airborne, her hands clawing for non-existent purchase. A roar had shredded his throat as he’d seen her hit the water, watched it engulf her.
He’d exploded into a run, terror detonating in his gut, and had been knocked off his feet. A sunken tree had lodged in the keel of her boat and launched it at his again. His boat, still going full steam ahead on its upstream struggle, had plowed into her now horizontal boat, right in the middle, rolling it over the tree trunk, starting the unstoppable process of overturning.
His shouts had become stifled. His heart had felt like it was bursting. Horror had been killing him with every heartbeat. Jewel had just broken the surface of the water. Right under the breaking up, capsizing boat.
And he was now pummeling the river headfirst, his arms and legs mad machines slicing through the water, defying the current, propelling him at manic speed, one purpose fueling him.
Shield her. Break the impact with your body. Reach her.
He didn’t—didn’t. Two seconds too late—two feet too far…
The boat crashed down on her on a wet clap of thunder that knocked him out of the water. Shock waves rippled out, conspiring with the current to swat him away—away from her—from where she’d disappeared. Jewel, gone underneath that behemoth!
“Jewel!”
The bellow almost expelled his life force. Then he almost burst his chest on an inhalation. If he couldn’t get her out, he’d join her down there and it would be his last.
He dove after her.
He plummeted through the murky waters, desperation and terror propelling his body downwards. She could have already been swept away—the current here was swift, the visibility almost nil…
Deus, Deus… He prayed, wept. Jewel, Jewel, let me feel you, let me connect with you, just one more time, meu amor. I won’t ask or hope or want anything—anything—ever again. Just let me find you now—and I’ll be happy to lose you later…
Tears bled out of him, diffused in the turbid waters, somehow clearing his vision. The depths below the boat’s receding shadow were littered with all the debris that had spilled out of it—down, down on the muddy riverbeds Jewel. Under a huge piece of hull his boat had torn from hers…
The blast of horror knocked him empty of breath. His lungs burned. He had to go up—get enough air to fuel him all the way down, all through freeing her from her trap…
No! More minutes lost. Water filling her lungs, extinguishing her precious life. No.
His watery shroud was turning blacks Losing conscious-ness… Would be no good to her dead. Go up—now.
He kicked his fury and dread, rocketed to the surface, struggled to take one deep breath through the quakes tearing through him, a time bomb ticking in his arteries, counting down the remaining time until Jewel was beyond salvations He dove down again, like a heat-seeking torpedo now he knew where to find her. He clawed his way through the impeding water, pressure building in his head with his fast descent, almost bursting his eardrums. Only Jewel, only Jewel—lying there like a discarded doll, half-buried under that twisted hulk of metal, colorless, bruised, a cut on her forehead radiating a cloud of red in the water. Blood could bring piranhas—he had to get her out of the water—now.
He reached her, tore the debris away, scooped her limp body in his arms and thrust frantically for the surface. He broke it, expending the last of his breath on a loud cry for help. His next breath was poured down Jewel’s lungs.
He saw faces, felt hands, in the water, on board his boat, all urgent, anxious, helping. Jewel wasn’t breathing, her heart beating a sluggish twenty beats per minute. He nearly died with horror every time he emptied his lungs in hers.
He stumbled to place her on the exam table, barking ragged orders.
The instruments were already falling into his shaking hands and he had no idea how but he intubated her, placed a nasogastric tube and emptied her stomach of swallowed water. Madeline and Inácio hooked her up to a pulse oximeter and cardiac monitor then started positive-pressure ventilation and resumed compressions. All the time a litany of begging and love spilled from his lips, his tears a stream splashing all over her beloved face.
Her face. It was bruised and torn again, and it didn’t matter. It never had. She must live…
But, Deus—warm, fresh water submersion was the worst-case scenario. Inhaled fresh water destroyed lung alveoli, passed from the lungs to the bloodstream, destroying red blood cells. And if she’d been down there for longer than eight minutes, everything they were doing would mean nothing. Without oxygen for longer than that, brain cells died and permanent neurological damage resulted, even with successful resuscitation.
Suffocating with dread, he had to know. “How—how long…?”
Madeline understood, rasped, “A bit under six minutes.”
“Are—are you…?”
Madeline gave a shaky nod. “I’m sure!”
They resumed their resuscitation efforts during his ragged supplications for her to fight, to come back to him.
Five lifetimes later, Jewel’s pulse began to quicken. Then she started choking on the ET. He pounced to remove it, replacing the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth at once.
“Por favor, meuamor, open your eyes…” he prayed, begged.
And then she did. Looked him straight in the eyes. He almost fell to his knees to kiss the deck in thanks. This was a lucid gaze, disoriented, feeble, but housing her intellect and uniqueness. She was OK!
Her hand rose to the mask.
“Leave it on, amor,” he implored.
“Wh-wha—?” she wheezed behind the mask.
Pain clamped his body. He hunched over her, needing to contain her, protect her. “Shh, shh, amor, you’re fine, fine.”
Her hand lurched to the angry cut on her forehead and his hand jerked, catching hers before he jumped to sterilize and bandage her wound. Her fingers trembled a trail to another cut on her cheek and he again removed her hand, pressed a kiss to her lips, his rigid with the pressure of emotion. “You’ll be fine, amor.”
Dazed eyes stared at him. Then she closed them.
It had been ten days since she’d almost drowned.
Later on the day that Roque had fished her out of the river and resuscitated her, she’d developed adult respiratory distress syndrome and had almost died again.
For four days afterwards it had been like re-entering her old nightmare. So much so, she’d wondered if she’d ever exited it, if the intervening years, Roque and the full, meaningful life she’d led ever since, had not been an unbelievably complex escape mechanism of an irreversibly damaged mind and body.
Two things had convinced her this was a brand-new nightmare. Her body wasn’t injured, just her face. And Roque.
For why would a diseased mind seeking escape into a dream world give her more injuries of the kind she dreaded? Far worse, why create
such a man as Roque to love, only to have him not love her back and inflict such intolerable torment?
“Here comes another of my culinary miracles.” Her sluggish stare panned to watch Roque pushing into their cabin, a tray high in one hand, his face alight with forced brightness. “Your last breakfast aboard before we arrive in Manaus, amor.”
He’d cut the expedition short. And all the way to Manaus he’d been devoted to her, to nursing her back to health.
He set the tray down on her lap, brushed his lips on hers then straightened and went to continue packing their stuff. Before he turned away she again caught that new pained expression in his eyes.
But it wasn’t new. She now remembered when she’d seen it before. Right after her first accident.
She’d been so traumatized then it seemed she’d blotted it out. Now another trauma had shaken the memory loose. And now she knew why she’d blotted it out. So she’d survive.
His pity had been the one thing she hadn’t been able to bear.
But had that been why he’d pursued her afterwards? Had she moved him so much he’d tried to heal her the only way he’d known how, with the best medicine there was, a gorgeous man’s desire and attention? The notion was weird, but now she knew the motives she’d thought he’d married her for were ridiculous, it seemed like the only explanation. Why else would someone like him have looked at her then? How could he look at her now?
His behavior now only reinforced her pity theory. He’d started to pull away before the accident but was now deluging her in attention again. It seemed compassion was his strongest motivator.
Not that she’d accept it. Or endure it. If she’d been the unwitting object of his benevolence once, she’d never be again. Up till the accident she’d at least been the object of his honest lust.
But if pity had been why he’d married her, why had he been angry when she’d walked out, proving she hadn’t needed or deserved pity any more, when he should have been relieved?
Easy one, that. She’d behaved cruelly. And if her suspicions were correct, ungratefully to boot. He’d had every right to be furious, to lash back.
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