It was the first small moment of trust between them as parents.
‘I promise.’
She spoke softly, meaning every syllable. She wouldn’t keep Duarte from his son. She would find a way to make this work.
With one final kiss on Liam’s forehead, Duarte nodded at her once and left, closing the door softly behind him.
The rain had finally stopped falling when Nora drove her rented Jeep through the gates of the wildlife sanctuary, her eyes strained from hours of concentrating on the dirt road that followed the bank of the Amazon. She took in the familiar sprawling fields and the tidy rows of fruit trees on the hills. To her, this place had always felt like a world of its own—probably because during the eighteen years she’d lived here she’d rarely left.
She’d spent years hating her mother for keeping her here, and the irony was not lost on Nora. She was now returning to beg her mother to let her stay.
Her mother’s house was a beautiful wooden structure that fitted in perfectly with the tall trees that surrounded it. The architecture student in her took a moment to appreciate her surroundings, how utterly flawless it was in its design.
Dr Maureen Beckett was a fiercely intelligent woman who could talk for hours about the animals she rescued, studied and reintroduced to the jungle. Yet when it came to her only daughter Nora had always found her mother to be distant and far too heavy-handed with criticism. She was not an unkind woman—quite the opposite—but she was known for her matter-of-fact approach and the fierceness with which she protected the large sprawling animal sanctuary she had founded three decades before.
Nora knocked on the door, readying herself for a reunion she knew would be anything but joyous. Likely there would be shock, and judgement of her situation. There might even be anger or, worse, that same cool detachment her mother had shown the day she’d announced she was leaving to live with her father all those years ago.
But when the door opened her mother took one look at her, and the small baby she carried in her arms, and promptly burst into tears, embracing them both in a hug filled with nothing but love.
Once she was safely inside, Nora finally allowed herself to fall apart, telling her mother everything.
Maureen was silent, one hand cradling her tiny grandson in her sun-freckled arms as she listened.
When Nora had finally stopped crying her mother took the seat beside her and drew her into her arms too. Just being held as she cried...being allowed the space to feel everything and not run away...it seemed to make her feel better and worse all at the same time.
And the thing that finally broke her was her mother revealing the thick envelope that had been delivered there a week before.
Nora’s results from university.
She had forgotten that she had given the address of the sanctuary once she’d known she needed to leave.
She opened the envelope with shaking fingers to see that she had passed. She had her degree.
Her tears began all over again, until she thought she might never stop crying.
They talked all night, about all the unspoken things that had stood between them for years. Her mother explained how she’d attempted to follow Nora to Rio, but her father had caught up with her and told her if she ever sent so much as a letter to her daughter she would wake up to her sanctuary in flames. She’d had no choice but to come back and wait, hoping that Nora would get away and come home, even as her absence tore her apart.
Nora felt a fresh wave of love and understanding for this woman who had raised her—along with enormous guilt that she had compared her situation with Duarte to that of her and her mother. Duarte would never threaten to hurt her that way.
She found herself telling her mother everything that had happened between her and Liam’s handsome billionaire father, expecting her to be horrified and warn her off.
Instead, her mother was thoughtful for a long moment. Then, ‘Do you love him?’ she asked.
Nora shook her head sadly. ‘I do, but he doesn’t love me.’
‘Men don’t always know how to say what they feel.’ Her mother pursed her lips. ‘I find his actions are usually the best way to gauge a man’s devotion.’
That night Nora lay in bed, listening to the gentle sounds of rain on the roof above her, and thought of Duarte. Had his actions shown that he felt love for her?
Memories of how he’d courted her at the beach house in Paraty made her insides feel warm. He might not have known the truth about Liam then, but he’d known virtually everything else. And even after her revelation, when he’d been consumed with hurt and anger, he’d still shown her small unconscious gestures of affection—making sure she slept well, ensuring she wasn’t uncomfortable around his family. When he’d kissed her, she’d felt love.
She closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer that she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her life by walking away from him. She knew she was doing the right thing in taking time alone to figure out what she wanted, but it didn’t make being away from Duarte hurt any less.
Birds sang overhead and the smell of moist earth hung in the air from yet another heavy morning rain. As the sun peeked through the clouds the rain turned to a gentle mist over the fields. Nora paced herself, feeling the burn in her shins and silently thanking her mother for lending her the sturdy walking boots she wore. Even in her white cotton T-shirt and cargo shorts she already felt the effects of the heat.
In the week since she’d arrived at the sanctuary she’d fallen easily back into the simple life there. Now she reached the office and set about using the computer there to send some more emails, as she had done every day since the first morning she’d woken here.
She already had some offers of internships in London, but one stood out more than the others. It was near to the town where Duarte’s home was.