Page 49 of Bride Under Contract

‘I mean family of the heart.’ Grace smiled. ‘Like Violet is to me...’

She didn’t finish, seeing his attention completely on the nest and intently alert.

‘She’s moving,’ Carter said.

And Grace blinked, remembered why they were there, and remembered that this moment—watching a mother orangutan leave her nest—was what she’d been aching for all week.

It still was.

Yet somehow it was made better because she was sharing it with him.

‘Where’s the baby?’ she asked.

‘Shh!’ he said.

This time Grace didn’t take offence.

‘It will be with her,’ he told her. Then he put an arm around her, pulled her closer as he pointed with his free hand. ‘See beneath her arm? Do you want the binoculars?’

‘No.’

She really was dreadful with them. But, more, she liked seeing things with her own eyes, and, yes, liked being so close to him, hearing his voice, low and quiet, so as not to carry on the still air.

‘I see it.’

Sure enough, she could just make out the infant, clinging on as the mother stretched an impossibly long arm and reached up.

‘She’s coming this way,’ Carter told her, and they both stood in utter silence, watching the mother move from branch to branch with ease, getting closer to the riverbank with each agile swing.

Grace had to press her lips together. It was simply incredible to watch. And there was no need for binoculars, because she came further down, close to the river’s edge, till she hung by one hand, no more than a few arms’ lengths away from where they stood together in the boat.

‘She’s watching us,’ Carter said.

‘I know! I’m trying not to make eye contact,’ Grace whispered.

‘They don’t mind much,’ he said. ‘They communicate that way.’ Then he added, ‘And she’s not worried by us.’

No, the mother wasn’t worried, for she hung there, calmly eating fruit, as the little baby moved onto her chest, boldly peering out at them with huge black eyes, the sun catching on its soft tufts of auburn and gold hair.

‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ Grace whispered.

‘Can’t tell,’ he said. ‘It’s very young.’

‘How young?’

‘A couple of months.’

Then the mother lowered her head, and in the tenderest, simplest gesture she kissed the top of her baby’s downy head, then lifted the little one up high on her shoulder, as if she were about to wind her.

And then it was over.

Almost.

The mother calmly dropped down from the tree and walked into the forest, the little baby peering over its mother’s shoulder back at them.

‘It’s so content...’ Grace said, stunned at what they’d witnessed.

But then she felt Carter’s arm tighten its hold a fraction and she looked up at him, wondering if he was alerting her to something. But, no, it was more as if something had alerted him, for even though he stood right beside her, he looked a million miles away.

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