Chapter 4

After discussing the situation with their friends and Jane's father, the young couple thought it would be best to get the uncomfortable confrontation over with as soon as possible. Slowly, they began to make the long trip back towards the Trading Post in silence.

Jane wished she could know what Tarzan was thinking. He had seemed to take the news about her past relationship in stride, but she knew he had to feel at least a little hurt about what was going on.

"I'm . . . sorry," she hesitated before going on. "I should have told you about Logan sooner . . ."

Her husband simply shrugged, keeping his eyes on the path in front of them. "It was a long time ago, and besides," he paused to glance up at his wife, smiling. "You're here now."

"Tarzan!" a familiar voice called.

Jane and Tarzan turned to find Hugo and Hooft waving at them as they appeared around a tree. The couple returned the wave in a happy greeting, until Logan came into view.

"Logan . . ." Tarzan whispered in a low growl.

Surprised at the hostility in his voice, Jane turned to see the muscles in his jaw tightening. Obviously, he wasn't as okay with this as he said he was.

"Jane."

Looking up, Jane's eyes made contact with her ex-fiancé just a couple feet in front of her. Jane could tell that the jungle was already starting to get to him. Logan's face was slightly red from the heat and his shoulders were slumped. He looked hot and tremendously uncomfortable with his surroundings.

"Can we talk?" he begged.

Feeling the tension in the air, Hugo and Hooft shuffled over to stand with Tarzan to watch as Jane and Logan moved a little ways off to talk.

It had seemed like forever since Logan had been this close to Jane. He couldn't help giving her a quick look over from top to bottom. She looked great.

"Jane . . ." he sighed, reaching out a sweaty hand to caress her cheek, but Jane quickly pushed the gesture away and took a small step back. This wasn't going at all like he had planned. "Jane . . . I've been so worried about you. Are you okay? When you didn't return home as planned, I . . ." he stumped over his words, everything coming out in one breath.

"I'm sorry," the woman replied. "I was planning on coming back, but . . ." She glanced in Tarzan's direction, a small smile appearing at her lips.

Following her gaze, Logan saw the wild man that had attacked him earlier. The man was squatting on his hands and feet next to the two men that had guided him into the cover of trees. Logan couldn't help sending a glare in his direction.

"You stayed here for him?" he questioned.

Turning back to look at Logan, Jane gave a small shrug. "Tarzan was raised here by the gorillas. When my father and I first arrived here, he rescued me and . . . afterwards, we started spending some time together. He would come by our camp practically every day and I taught him how to read and speak . . . Somewhere along the way . . ."

"You fell for him?" he asked. He gestured towards the wild man as he went on. "He's dirty, a savage. Animals raised the man! He's not suitable to be a husband, not for you."

Jane gawked at the man in front of her. She had expected him to be persistent and insist that she return with him, but she didn't think the conversation would progress this fast. He was already starting to sound angry.

"At least he cares about me," she prompted. "He doesn't try to boss me around or control what I do all the time."

"He doesn't care what you do? You're telling me that this man lets you run around the jungle by yourself?! It's dangerous out here, Jane! Anything can happen to you! It doesn't sound like he cares about your safety at all." Irritation was growing in Logan's voice. Why couldn't Jane see that she didn't belong here? "And when have I ever tried to control you?"

When has he tried to control me? she thought. Flashbacks started to go around and around in her head. Every time he took control of situations or disregarded her opinions. He would tell her all the time that something wasn't ladylike for her to work on or participate in. She tried to express to him all the frustration he had caused her over the years, but he just shrugged it all off.

"Tarzan has been helping me, teaching me some tricks to survive in the jungle when he's not around. I can handle myself well enough," Jane explained. "And you're right. It's not your fault; it's civilization. There are so many rules back in London about what men can do that women can't. When we were planning our wedding, you wanted us to blend in as a typical English family, but I didn't want that. I never wanted to live like that."

She never saw the slap coming. One second Logan was glaring daggers at her, and the next a sharp pain pierced the side of her face. Staring back at the man in shock, she slowly reached a hand up to touch her throbbing cheek.

Getting into her face, Logan started to thrust his index finger at her, as if he were scolding a child. "You don't talk to me like that! You – "

Something suddenly rushed passed Jane, and Logan was thrown back against a tree. Blinking back a couple tears that had been threatening to spill over, Jane focused her attention on Tarzan's back as he pinned a shocked Logan by the shoulders.

"Bloody hell – ?" Logan cried, struggling in Tarzan's grip. "Let go of me, you savage!"

"You hurt Jane!"

Logan froze, breathing heavily as he stared up at the wild man.

Tarzan was furious. He had never witnessed someone physically hurting his wife before. The idea of her being in any pain made him feel sick. There was much about civilization that he did not understand, but this was the most confusing thing yet. Why would this man, who supposedly cared about Jane, hit her?

"Jane is my fiancée!" Logan exclaimed. "She belongs with me! This place will kill her!"

"No," Tarzan growled. "You hurt her. She belongs here. She married me, not you. I'm not going to let you take her away, especially if she doesn't want to."

"You don't know what she wants," Logan argued, licking a bit of sweat from his lip, "or needs."

As anger coursed through Logan's veins, he attempted once more to force his way out of Tarzan's grip, but it was no use. Tarzan wanted to tell this creep off, maybe leave him with a couple dozen bruises, but he knew Jane would be upset at him for taking it that far. Besides, this scum wasn't worth it.

"Hugo! Hooft!" Tarzan called to his friends, not taking his eyes off of his victim. "Take Logan back to the Trading Post. Make sure he leaves on the next ship out."

"Sure," Hugo replied, as the pair approached the two men. They were both clearly shocked about how fast things had escalated.

Tarzan roughly shoved his wife's ex-fiancé in the direction that the trio would be heading in, causing the man to stumble slightly, but he managed to stay on his feet. With one last glare from the abuser and apologetic looks from their friends, the group moved out of view on their way to their destination.

"Jane," Tarzan called, getting her attention. The man stepped in front of her and placed his hand gently on the skin that Logan had injured. "Are you alright?"

A few of the tears that Jane had been fighting against found their way down her face. Nodding her head, she said, "I'm fine."

Early the next morning, Tarzan squatted with his hands and feet digging into one of the branches of a tree that was located at the top of the hill. Below him to his left laid the Trading Post, and the vast ocean spread out before him. From his place in the tree, he could just make out the workers moving around on the deck as they loaded boxes onto a boat; the boat that was going to take Logan Eddington back to London.

"Has he left yet?"

Tarzan didn't need to look to know it was Jane who had joined him from below.

"Not yet. They are still loading the ship," Tarzan explained. He started to make his way down the tree, stopping at the lowest branch that lay just above his wife's head.

A couple minutes passed in silence as they watched the boat being prepared to leave.

"There is something I don't understand," Tarzan stated slowly, breaking the quiet.

"What's that?" his wife asked, keeping her eyes locked on the people moving below them.

"Logan . . . likes you, right? He cares about you?" he questioned, glanced down at the top of the woman's head.

Jane simply shrugged in response.

The man turned his gaze back to the ocean. "Then why did he hit you?"

The woman sighed. "It's how some men show their love. They get jealous or angry. It makes them feel powerful and in control over something in their life." Jane turned to look up at her husband. "If someone continually hurts someone else like that they call it abuse."

Tarzan jumped to the ground to sit with her in the grass. "He has hit you before?"

Jane could hear a raspy hint appear in his voice, telling her that his anger was building even at the thought of Logan hitting her, and she quickly shook her head to reassure him.

"No, nothing like that had happened before. Yesterday was the first time Logan had ever hit me." She turned back to look out at the sea. "But, it does give me an idea of what my life could have been like if I had gone back to him instead of staying here."

Tarzan turned to follow Jane's gaze as they sat side by side in the tall grass. Their arms lightly brushed against each other as they silently watched the waves roll in.

"I'm sorry," Jane eventually added.

"You're sorry? Logan is the one that should apologize," Tarzan explained. "You did nothing wrong."

"No . . ." she agreed. "But I still should have told you about Logan. There's actually a lot about my life back in London that you don't know about."

"Why don't you talk about it?"

Jane shrugged. "It's a different world over there. Being here . . . it feels like none of it matters. But now," Jane gestured towards the Trading Post before continuing, "Logan has broken through that barrier. A part of my old life found a way to sneak into this one."

Tarzan nodded, turning back to look at the ocean. He may not have grown up in civilization, but he had seen plenty of pictures that showed what its people and places looked like. Life did appear to be quite different where his wife came from.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

Jane nudged her husband's arm with her elbow to get his attention, giving him a small smile. "I want to tell you."

The past that had been haunting Jane for months may have caught up with her, but that didn't mean she was going to let it affect the rest of her life with Tarzan. As she began to pour her heart out to her loving husband, the pair watched as the ship set sail into the ocean, taking what was supposed to be her future with it.