When life kicked you in the lady balls and you didn’t know whether to be shocked, hurt, or to come up swinging, Tilly only had one solution.

Hokey pokey ice cream.

That food of the gods came with a guaranteed sugar high, an ice cream headache to take your mind off your troubles, and hard little honeycomb pellets that crunched satisfactorily when you ground your teeth together. She’d showered, changed into her pj’s, and spent far too long staring out their hotel room window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Noah on the sidewalk five floors below.

How pathetic was she?

For a writer whose bread and butter was emotional conflict played out on-screen—because what was drama without it?—Tilly wasn’t a huge fan of conflict IRL. In real life. On-screen, everything usually worked out in a predictable, believable fashion. The bad guys got their comeuppance, and the good guys were rewarded. Lovers threw china plates at doorframes then had swinging-from-chandelier makeup sex. People grew old together and had grandbabies. They won lotteries, got cancer that was treatable not terminal, or they bypassed airport security and boarded the plane headed to Costa Rica to intercept the love of their lives.

Tilly snorted and drew the drapes back across the window.

Not so much IRL. And that meant ice cream, stat.

She pulled out her long feather-down-padded coat from the hotel closet and slipped it on, covering the kitten-print top and exposing only her stretchy black leggings from the knees down. Add her winter boots and no one would know she was so distraught over a man that she hadn’t bothered to change out of her jimjams. After tucking her wallet and key card into her coat pocket, she left the hotel room and stalked to the elevators.

At ten to midnight the elevator was empty, and the brightly lit lobby only contained a receptionist chatting into a headset and a couple of diehard night owls discussing Wellington’s art scene on one of the caramel-colored couches. Couches that Noah had made a dirty joke about when they’d checked in, whispering afterward with his deliciously warm breath in her ear that he’d still do her on one any day.

She had to stop thinking about Noah and where he was at 11:51 p.m. since he wasn’t tucked up in bed with her. It hurt, made her ache with both fear and missing him. Part of her was relieved she’d have a little more time to regroup and figure out what she was going to say. Because right then she was clinging with her fingernails to the idea they’d figure out a way to make this work. Figure out how to turn what appeared to be a black-and-white, unresolvable issue into a compromise that wouldn’t strip away their identities. A big chunk of Noah’s identity was his profession. His passion. How could she ask him to give that up? Just so she wouldn’t feel this sick, underlying terror at the thought of him getting hurt or losing him.

Opting for the hotel’s rear entrance which opened onto a less-populated shopping street, Tilly zipped her coat up to her chin and stepped into the night. The infamous Wellington wind had picked up, whisking through the central city skyscrapers and slapping her cheeks with stinging accuracy. She headed in the direction of a twenty-four-hour convenience store she’d spotted on the taxi ride from the airport yesterday, keeping her head ducked down and her shoulders hunched, bracing against the wind.

Hell’s bells, it was cold!

She wasn’t idiot enough not to take notice of her surroundings—maybe some of Noah had rubbed off on her—but there were few people out and about, and she didn’t feel at all threatened being out so late. A little perplexed, maybe, when just before she arrived at the convenience store she spotted two shorts-wearing men bopping along the sidewalk, their lightweight jackets flapping around their torsos as they ran awkwardly into the wind. Joggers gotta jog, she guessed.

She actually managed a small, genuine smile as the automatic sliding doors parted and she stepped under the store’s blazing fluorescent lights. A bored attendant surreptitiously checked his phone behind the service counter, barely turning his head as she crossed through his line of sight to the wall of chilled and frozen goods.

There was a woman in the center aisle, and it took Tilly a second to notice there was a little girl clinging to her leg. She must’ve been only five or six, and she wore candy apple red and white striped pajamas. Tilly had a flash of concern at the child being out so late, until she caught a glimpse of the mother’s face. The woman was exhausted, lines partially drawn across her face as she replaced one bottle of over-the-counter cough medicine and picked up another to study the label. The little girl was out of sight behind the chest-high shelves, but even in the next aisle her raw, barking cough echoed around the otherwise empty store.

The woman looked up, and Tilly offered her a sympathetic smile before continuing past shelves of milk cartons, every kind of juice and soda variety one could possibly want, to the freezer of microwavable meals and ice cream tubs. She briefly debated the merits between a small and large tub of hokey pokey, then decided to compromise by getting the small tub and supplementing it with a packet of cookies.

Small tub in hand, she backtracked around into the same aisle as the woman and the little girl, scanning the shelves for the brightly colored cookie packets. The woman was frantically digging through her purse, searching for something. Beside her the little girl clutched a medicine bottle to her chest while a long string of snot swayed dangerously out of her nose.

Tilly retrieved the small travel pack of tissues she always carried in her coat pocket and approached the woman.

“Tissue?”

“Oh, thank you.” The woman took the packet and peeled open the plastic wrapper. “Her nose is running like a tap and I was sure I had some in my bag.”

From behind Tilly came the soft hiss of the sliding doors opening. “You’re welcome.” She was about to add something along the lines of, “They’re the nice soft ones so they won’t hurt her to blow,” because the poor wee girl’s nose already resembled a mini fire hydrant—when the shouting began.

Tilly spun around, her booted feet freezing to the scuffed linoleum. Where the store had been empty only moments ago, there were now three men circling the service counter, which was almost directly in front of them at the end of their aisle. She’d always believed, put under pressure, she’d be a great witness. Oh yes, Officer, the suspect was six feet two, a hundred and eighty pounds, with light brown hair, a crooked nose, and a tattoo of an aardvark on his right arm.

In reality, not so much.

There were three males, one of them pointing something dark and made of metal at the no longer bored-looking attendant. She couldn’t have reported whether the men were black or white, tall or short, or what they wore. All Tilly saw was A GUN. In capitals and underscored.

So focused on intimidating the attendant and screaming at him to empty his cash drawer, the three men didn’t seem to notice the two women and little girl. That afforded her a few more seconds to gather her wits. And by gather her wits she meant not falling to the ground and trying to fit under the nearest shelving unit.

One of the three men moved closer to the service counter, and Tilly’s breath wilted and died in her throat. It was the mugger. Same dirty blond hair, filthy ragged jeans, and what seemed like a highly inappropriate bad-guy choice of The Simpsons-printed hoodie.

Mugger Guy’s head whipped toward her. His eyebrows seem to rise in slow motion as recognition crossed his face, and his lips pressed together then opened in the word, “Bitch.” At the same time, glass smashed on the floor behind her, immediately followed by a child’s terrified wail. She glanced to the side, peripheral vision catching candy-striped legs and tiny Ugg boots. In the split second it took to glance forward again, the gun barrel had swung around to point down their aisle. Tilly instinctively knew that the barrel would aim at the source of the wail—and she took a giant, lurching sideways step in the little girl’s direction.

A clap of thunder. Firecrackers exploding. A blast of inarticulate sound from rock-concert-sized speakers.

Something punched her so hard in her right shoulder that she spun around, tripped over her own booted foot, and collided with the shelf. Packets and boxes went flying, and she couldn’t seem to break her fall. She bounced off the metal shelves, got tangled in her own limbs, and collapsed to the floor. Hard.

For a moment, tailbone meeting linoleum was the most painful thing in her world.

And then it wasn’t.

And then the screaming began.

Noah couldn’t put it off any longer. He’d powered up the length of Lambton Quay, walked every inch of the harbor walkway along Customhouse Quay, and down to the now silent skateboard park where he’d sat brooding by the abandoned half pipe.

After no particularly brilliant solution had come to him, he set off around Oriental Parade. An incredibly popular spot during the day in summer, late at night it was as cold as hell with the southerly wind skimming across the harbor and slicing into him. He told himself it was bracing. Better than admitting he’d rather suffer even more extreme conditions than return to the hotel to confront Tilly.

Because he wasn’t a hundred percent sure she’d even be there. Maybe she’d cut her losses and run. He couldn’t say he’d blame her.

Once he’d had time to cool off, to force himself to see the night’s events from her perspective, he thought he understood. He’d observed over the past four weeks as she’d insidiously become part of the very fabric of the Oban community. Tilly probably wasn’t even aware of it. Of how Mrs. Taylor looked forward to her dropping in to have a cuppa and a chat. Of how Kezia appreciated her offering to visit her classroom with creative writing exercises for the kids. Of Pete Reynolds mentioning that the reason he had a sparkling clean kitchen was due to Tilly arriving one morning with a bucket of cleaning products hooked over Scotty’s handlebars.

She cared about the people who’d recently come into her life, but he believed—what he wanted to believe—was she’d become invested in him. In what they had together. That a part of her was tied inextricably to him. Those bonds were so fragile and new that it terrified him that they could shatter with one more blow.

He entered the hotel and rode the elevator in silence, struggling to figure out a way to verbalize the chaos in his head. Maybe it really would be better if she was asleep. He keyed open the door, his pulse kicking up a notch at the lights still on in the room.

Looked as if it was game time.

He bypassed the darkened bathroom into the bedroom area. The bed was neatly made and empty. His heart raced faster. He backtracked to the bathroom and flicked on the lights. No Tilly. His gaze shot to the large suitcase on a stand, the one he’d teased her about taking for two nights away. It was in exactly the same condition—clothes and makeup and stuff spilling out of it— as it had been when they’d left for the party. Her unzipped handbag was on the room’s armchair.

With a frown, Noah slid open the closet door. Her coat was missing. He checked her handbag, discovering her wallet was also missing. While not a detective, he figured she hadn’t gone far.

He changed out of his party getup, stretched out on the bed, and hit the remote.

Ten minutes later, when she still hadn’t returned, an uneasy stirring rippled up his spine. He sent her a text. No reply. He called; it went straight to voice mail. He rolled off the bed and jammed his feet into running shoes. Downstairs, he went straight to the reception desk and spoke to the man on duty. Apparently he remembered Tilly leaving the hotel just before midnight.

It was now nearly one.

“What’s open around here?” he asked.

The man glanced thoughtfully at his computer screen. “There’s a convenience store about three blocks down. Nothing else’ll be open at this time.”

Noah thanked him and took off.

The streets were slick and shiny after a rain shower, the tires from the few cars that passed by hissing on the wet asphalt. An empty sidewalk yawned in front of him as he walked in determinedly steady steps toward the convenience store, his gaze scanning both his side of the road and the opposite one. He was overreacting. Tilly was fine—likely chatting with someone she’d run into at the store and lost track of time.

He crossed the street against the flashing red palm since the street remained deserted, and rounded the corner—

Marked police cars. A lot of them. And uniformed officers milling around outside the bright lights of the convenience store.

Noah ran.

Two of the officers saw him coming and swung toward him, one Noah recognized as a detective at the Central station but not one of his father’s biggest fans so he hadn’t been at the retirement party. He and Dennis had gotten along okay, though.

“Dennis?” Noah stopped in front of the two men, both of them instinctively blocking his path to the store. “What happened?”

“Armed robbery with shots fired. You just missed the squad guys.” 

Shots fired? “Anyone injured?” 

“A lone female. The paramedics have come and gone.”

A lone female. A lone female. He couldn’t stop repeating the detective’s information.

“The woman—did she have ID on her?” He tried to keep his voice steady, but he didn’t know how well he did on account of his heart slamming against his vocal cords. Not great, if Dennis’s frown was any indication.

“Daniels, why are you here?”

Calling on all his training to control the sudden urge to push past the two men and into the crime scene, Noah sucked in a calming breath. Except the intake of oxygen flooding his lungs didn’t do anything to calm the first claw of panic raking his gut. “Is her name Matilda Montgomery?”

Dennis’s expression remained impassive, but the younger officer’s face beside him gave Noah an answer. 

“I can confirm that’s the name on her driver’s license,” Dennis said slowly.

“Is she…” Oh God. Tilly. He lost language function and just stared at the detective, willing him to read his scattered thoughts and give him the information he both did and didn’t want to hear.

“She was hit in the shoulder, non-life-threatening, the paramedics think.” Dennis cocked his head. “Who is this woman to you? Your date to Bruce’s retirement bash?”

And that was the crux of his dilemma, wasn’t it? She wasn’t a hookup or a date, but girlfriend sounded too casual, and partner implied a commitment they hadn’t discussed. Why, for the love of God, hadn’t they discussed it? If they had, if he’d had the balls to actually force himself to communicate with her instead of roaming the streets like a cowardly idiot, they could have been tucked up in the hotel’s king-sized bed.

He opened his mouth, expecting the generic and easier to explain girlfriend tag to emerge, but instead he muttered, “She’s my unicorn.”

“Your what?” the officer said incredulously.

Dennis shot the man a quelling look. “She’s important to him, Constable. School yourself on popular terminology. Now, get back to work. I’ll handle this.” 

The constable turned and went into the store. 

Noah moved to follow him, but Dennis slapped a palm on his chest. “Not you. There’s nothing you can do here.”

When Noah continued to just stare at him, Dennis gave him a little shove backward. “Go on now, mate. I’ll get one of the lads to run you to the hospital.”

Ten minutes after speeding through deserted Wellington streets, siren wailing, Noah headed into the Emergency Department and Saturday night chaos. The after-pub-closing drunk and disorderly crowd hadn’t thinned out, and the waiting room was crowded with swearing, stumbling, sleeping people waiting to be seen. He’d deposited his fair share of bloodied, incoherent, and aggressive partygoers to this particular department on Friday and Saturday nights as a beat cop. Not part of his previous job he’d particularly enjoyed.

While waiting his turn to speak to the harried receptionist behind a window, he fired off a quick text to Wade to update him on the situation and to ask him to use whatever means necessary to contact Tilly’s mother in Auckland.

Finally he approached the window.

“Are you family?” the woman asked after he managed to grunt out Tilly’s full name.

Again with the relationship dilemma. At least he had more of a grip on himself now that he could tell the receptionist a little white lie.

“Fiancé,” he said. “We’re in town to meet my family.”

The woman didn’t bat an eye but scanned her computer screen, her brow drawn in concentration. “She’s already been taken up to surgical admissions on level two. There’s a waiting room up there where you can sit in peace.” She gave a pointed glance over her specs, gaze sliding to a spot behind him where someone in a gravelly voice had begun singing “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer.”

Noah thanked her and left his place in the line. He walked out of the Emergency Department and along the corridor leading to the main elevators. The sickening feeling grew stronger as the elevator carried him to the second floor, and he followed the signs to Surgical Admissions.

He explained the circumstances to the second receptionist, who was unable to tell him much more about Tilly but suggested he sit and wait until a doctor could talk to him.

Noah slumped into one of the waiting-room chairs and dropped his face into his hands. His brain raced with possibilities, all of them too bloody horrible to think about, and his chest felt encased in concrete. He wanted to pace, but he doubted his legs would hold him up for very long. He was as weak as a kitten, drowning in the emotions that smashed into him over and over, like storm surge against the Oban wharf.

Tilly had to be okay. She was strong, vibrant, an unstoppable force of nature. She would be okay.

Eons of time passed. Someone laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. He looked up into his father’s face creased with exhaustion. He didn’t speak, just kept his hand on Noah’s shoulder, his gaze steady and unflinching. If Noah wasn’t imagining things, there was sympathy in his father’s eyes.

“Dad?” The word was ripped from his throat. In his tone Noah heard echoes of the child inside himself that once believed his father could fix anything.

“Marcus and Wade are en route with coffee.” His father stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles, settling in to get as comfortable as one could on a hard waiting-room chair. “The waiting’s always the hardest, son, so we’ll wait with you.”

“Thanks.” He offered his dad a wan smile. Maybe the two of them would never see eye to eye, but him being there—having his back when he needed him…it meant something. Everything.

Noah dipped his head, continuing to stare at the multicolored specks of the linoleum pattern, as if in the randomness he could find the five points of the Southern Cross, the stars in the night sky to lead him home. Only home, he’d come to believe, would never feel like home without Tilly by his side.

“You can see her now.”

Noah had longed to hear those sweet words over the past five hours. After several updates from Tilly’s doctors, who were all very positive about the surgery and her recovery time, Noah’s heartbeat had finally returned to normal. He could breathe again. But even though his head told him Tilly was fine, he wouldn’t let himself truly believe it until he could see her, hear her, touch her. Kiss her.

Noah followed the nurse along the ward corridor.

“She’s still a little groggy from the anesthetic and pain management,” she said, then chuckled. “Didn’t seem to remember she had a fiancé, though she responded when we told her you were waiting to see her.”

Noah could only hope it’d been a positive response. “We’re newly engaged, so she’s probably still getting used to the idea. I haven’t had time to get her a ring yet.” Nurses, in his experience, were incredibly observant, and this one was no different.

“Uh-huh.” She shot him a knowing look. “Now’s probably not the best time to re-propose. She likely won’t remember much of what you talk about.”

Noah hesitated outside the door to a private room.

The nurse touched his arm. “Matilda might not remember your words after this visit, but she’ll remember how you make her feel just by being there. That’s often enough.” She bustled ahead of him into the room and briskly pulled aside the privacy curtain around the hospital bed.

Dawn hadn’t yet poked its gray fingers through the night sky, and Noah’s gaze was drawn to Tilly’s reflection in the darkened hospital window. His heart stuttered at the sight of her, small and still and pale against the white sheets. Her features were a ghostly outline surrounded by the soft waves of her hair.

A ghost.

He could’ve lost her. The power of that loss reverberated through his bones and shook his soul.

“You have a visitor.” The nurse smoothed blankets and fussed with the pillows, being careful not to bump the dressings covering Tilly’s shoulder. “Your fiancé, I believe.”

Blood galloped around Noah’s body and pounded a sick, drumming rhythm in his ears. He somehow made it around the bed to the visitor’s chair and collapsed more than sat into it. He reached for Tilly’s hand, but a monitor was clipped to her finger, so he rubbed her forearm instead. Her hair rustled on the pillowslip as she turned her face toward him, an angelically beautiful smile on her lips.

She stared at him a moment then rolled her head toward the nurse. “I call ’m Officer Hottie.” She giggled, then caught her full lower lip in her teeth and shot him a flirtatious glance.

“He’s been very worried about you.” The nurse gave the pillow one more fluff. “Is her mother flying down from Auckland?” She directed the comment at Noah. “She’s been asking.”

“One of my brothers is picking her up at the airport. She’s arriving on the 7:00 a.m.”

“Good. Ten minutes with her now, then she needs to rest.”

The nurse removed the finger monitor and left, pulling the privacy curtain back in place. Now it was just him, and Tilly, and the elephant crouched on the end of the hospital bed with them. She smiled at him again, her gaze wandering over his face.

“You’re pretty,” she said.

High as a kite. He managed a weak smile in return. “Thanks.”

“Sooo pretty that I wanna lick your face.”

Not a ghost. She was his Tilly. His smile grew a little wider. “Do you now?” He rose to his feet and leaned over her. “How about I kiss you instead?”

She stuck out her tongue and waggled it at him. “Pretty please?”

Noah dipped his head, pressing his lips to her forehead. He drank in the scent of her that was still detectable, even beneath the astringent medical smell. She smelled like heaven, and he gently cupped her jaw, stroking her soft skin. He kissed her then, as if she were made of spun sugar and fairy dust. His throat ached with the strain of holding back, of keeping his lips gentle on hers instead of ravishing the sweetness of her mouth like a man dying of thirst. He pulled back and met her dazed eyes.

“God, Til. I’m so sorry,” he said. “I should’ve been there.”

Her dreamy smile vanished like the sun behind rainclouds. “The man—that man with the knife—he was at the store.”

“I know, honey. He’s been picked up and the police’ll have the other two in custody soon enough.”

Her brow collapsed into soft wrinkles. “One of them had a gun. A big gun. He shot me.” Her eyes widened and her mouth parted. “The little girl—there was a little girl, Noah. Is she okay?”

Noah stroked her hair back from her face. “I spoke to the detective in charge. The girl’s fine. She and her mother are both fine, thanks to you.” His hand stilled on the silky strands. “The night clerk and the mother both say you stepped in front of the girl just before the gun discharged.”

“Did I? I don’t remember.” Her nose scrunched up. “I remember ice cream and the little girl coughing and crying, and teeny tiny feathers floating in the air…and you weren’t there with me.”

His gut clenched and tremors iced their way down his spine. “I hate that I wasn’t able to protect you, or reassure you that you were going to be okay.”

“Eh.” She flipped her hand up and down on the bed. “I wasn’t worried about dying so much as I was scared that the last person I’d see on earth wouldn’t be you, but some pimply convenience store clerk.”

She wanted him to be the last person she saw before she closed her eyes for the last time? He lowered his forehead to rest against hers. “You don’t have to be afraid of that anymore. I’m not leaving your side.”

“Yeah, you will. Call of nature and all that.”

He felt the soft drift of her fingers loosely encircle his wrist, and he swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “I’m in love with you, Matilda Montgomery.”

“Sure you are,” she said, sleepiness threading through her voice. “And don’t call me Matilda.”

He drew back, ready to convince her that this time he wasn’t joking around. But her eyes had already fluttered shut, her mouth curving into a small smile. Maybe she believed him after all.

“Wanna ride your rocket ship, Lieutenant Spencer,” Tilly muttered.

Or maybe not.