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“No one has to cry alone.” My heart breaks for him, especially that he believes he can’t cry about this in front of me. I wrap my arms around his back and rest my cheek on the spot where his heart beats inside his chest. “Please stay with me.”
He doesn’t move. His entire body is stiff, so I take his hand and tug gently to guide him back to the hammock. Keeping hold of his hand, I clamber in, and he follows my lead. He curls up beside me, his head on my shoulder. I take his hand and place it on my lower stomach. “No matter what, we will always love you.”
“I buried that life a long time ago and refuse to be that person,” he croaks. “I know what you’re thinking, though I’m more disgusted with myself than anyone else could be. Telling you, the one person who loves me for me…” his voice cracks. “With everything else going on in my head, I’m not ready to tell you everything.”
I keep stroking and holding him, but my mind is whirling. How can I do this—give birth to a child with a man I’m still getting to know?
Closing my eyes, I force the thought out. Of course, I can do this. I don’t need years behind us to know he’s the man for me. His past will not dictate our future. I also refuse to go back in time to being the weak woman I was before I met him. Together, we’re stronger, and I can handle all he has to reveal. I need to if we’re to move forward—together.
5
SAMUEL
Eden has bewitched Samuel.
He always knew the power of her love. Only tonight, she unearthed a crippling memory of his former self he’d kept locked away for years. Eden tried to pry it from him with loving tentacles, and the metal walls surrounding his heart melted like mercury. Raw and exposed, he wanted to run to his safe place in the shaman’s garden and curl up in a ball until the sound of the shaman’s voice released him from the hell playing over in his mind.
A time will come when he’ll need to confess the horror of his past and why he was so screwed up living in his entitled world. He’d like to think he was brainwashed, but it wasn’t so simple. He made choices and openly followed his friends and acted just like them without remorse for the consequences.
UntilInesa. She opened his mind and heart. Only it was too late to make it up to her. His apologetic words were meaningless. Her friends called her Nessie, and he had no right to call her by an affectionate title known to a select few. Yet, he hears Nessie’s voice over and over in his head. He relives the tears and hears wails when her friends mourned her name. It took every ounce of his courage to attend her funeral alone. Samuel’s friends declared their innocence to fuel any thoughts of her mental destruction. In the brief time he got to speak with Inesa, he could see how wrong they were.
Inesa instilled the power in him to change.
Eden has greater control over his soul, more so than anyone, including himself. Her power scares him more than any danger that lurks in the rainforest, not even the jungle herself.
* * *
“Stay with me tonight. I’m not up to eating any more yuca. Can I just have pizza?”
Samuel chuckles. “Capsicum and pineapple on flat yuca bread?”
“Funny.” Her hand lingers at the curve of her pregnant body.
“Is everything okay?” He lifts her chin and directs her gaze to his.
“Yeah. I’m tired.” Her hands wrap around his body. Her soft cheek presses against his chest, so he’s forced to release her and rest his hands lightly on her shoulders.
“Would you like to lie down? I can fetch some fruit so you can snack on some food here.”
“I’d love some fruit, please. And can you check if Kaikare has some of her special tea?” She walks to the hammock. Samuel assists her by lifting her feet for her to settle in the swing.
Samuel leaves to gather the fruit and bread and finds Kaikare. “Eden is eating in our hut and asked for some of your special tea,” he says in their native tongue.
Kaikare’s eyes convey concern. Samuel places a hand on her shoulder understanding the two of them are close and explains she’s tired, and it’s natural for her to be so.
He returns with loaded palm leaves, including one carrying warmed fish, yet he can’t shake the concern at the back of his mind that Eden isn’t getting enough nutrition with her body being unacquainted with the rainforest. He’s proud of her determination to be like the other Ularan ladies. The moment it conflicts with her well-being and their baby’s safety, he’ll intervene.
Eden pushes up in the hammock and uses her stomach as a table to rest some of the food on. “Do you remember the young couple? The lovers I told you about?” She bites pieces of fruit and waits to swallow before continuing, “I’ve noticed them together on several occasions and yesterday saw them holding hands near the fields. I think she was crying.”
“Kapeá Tapire was crying?”
“Is that her name?”
Samuel slides in next to her, holding the palm leaf with the fish. “Yes, it is. And you should eat this.”
“I don’t think I can stomach it.” She lifts a hand to her mouth.
“You don’t have to eat it, although you haven’t eaten protein in a while, which furthers my argument about us taking a trip to Ciudad Guayana for blood tests.”
