Tilly sat at the conference table and watched Jonas’s mouth open and shut.

He must still be using his super expensive lip balm, and she suspected he’d had his teeth whitened since she was last at work. His droning voice sandpapered her nerves, and she shifted on her chair, wincing at the ache in her shoulder. Her mum was right; it was too soon for her to return to work.

But after Noah had walked out, after enough hokey pokey ice cream to put herself into a diabetic coma, after crying so hard she’d started to choke on her own snot—nice image, right?—she needed the distraction. Even if the only distraction was Jonas’s blah, blah, blah.

It was during his suggestion that they have one of the supporting cast involved in a robbery gone wrong that Tilly realized she didn’t care half as much about these fictional characters as she did about the real characters on Stewart Island.

She missed her chats with Mrs. Taylor. She missed Piper, Kezia and the girls, and old Smitty, who always made her laugh with his tall tales. She missed surly-at-times Ben, Ford, who had the singing voice of an angel, and sarcastic Del, who had given her the recipe for a melt-in-your-mouth beef stroganoff. She missed Erin’s muffins, Holly’s to-die-for scalp massages, and even Pete Reynolds’s gruff but humble gratitude when she stopped by to help out.

But most of all, she missed Noah with an ache that was beyond any of the pain she’d experienced from her injury. Yes, it was a cliché, but it felt as if she was missing a limb. One that she didn’t necessarily need in order to survive, but a part of herself that made her happy and whole.

“Tilly? You’ve been very quiet this morning. Is your shoulder bothering you?” Jonas asked.

Everything was bothering her. She was bothered beyond belief.

She’d thought this past week away from Noah should’ve given her the headspace to center herself and come up with a solution. The only solution, or rather decision, she’d made in the past few days suddenly became under-her-nose obvious.

In a gesture Jonas frequently made at her, Tilly held up a wait for it finger, then hit send on the email she’d composed earlier. “Actually, Jonas, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking during this meeting.”

Across the table, Jonas’s phone pinged with an incoming notification. Her resignation that she’d CC’d him on the email sent to Christophe.

His lip twitched up in a sneer, exposing one blindingly white incisor. “Let me guess, you’re going to protest about my idea of an armed robbery because it triggers you?”

She aimed the sweetest screw you smile at him she could muster, which was pretty lackluster because she honestly didn’t care anymore. “If my life is inspirational to you, if you need me to replace your own creativity, knock yourself out.” She stood, shut her laptop screen, and slid it into her satchel.

“What are you doing?” Jonas rose out of his cocky, I am the boss slouch to sit bolt upright. “You can’t just walk out of this meeting.”

“Watch me.” Tilly zipped up her satchel and swung the strap over her good shoulder. “Oh, and you might want to check the email that’s just landed in your in-box.”

While she turned to pick up her handbag, which Marjorie sitting next to her passed to her with a smile, Jonas scrolled through his messages.

His perfectly plucked eyebrows shot up. “You can’t resign.”

“I can do whatever the hell I like. An unexpected bonus of being shot is that it knocked a good deal of sense into me.”

“Tilly,” he said in the patronizing, cajoling tone that once used to drive her fricking insane. “You’re not thinking clearly. Resigning is a terrible decision.”

Walking away from this job, this leaking ship of a job that would drown her muse if she stayed any longer, was the right decision. The only decision. A decision her father would’ve wholeheartedly approved of.

“It’s my decision to make.” She stepped out from the conference table and met each of her colleagues’ gazes individually. “Best of luck, you guys.”

And then to Jonas, because she refused to give in to her baser instincts and flip him the bird, she said, “See you later, alligator,” knowing that particular adage, which he used to claim was childish, would piss him off more.

As she left the conference room, Tilly liked to believe she could hear Jonas’s perfect white teeth grinding together.

A thirty-minute cab ride later, Tilly arrived at her mother’s house. Might as well get all the drama-llama parade over in one fell swoop. Her mum opened the door with a confused but affectionate smile.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” she asked, but stepped aside so Tilly could enter.

“I finished early.”

She followed her mum into the living room, which had become a kind of a shrine to her dad with the covers of his most famous novels blown up to poster size and framed on the wall.

Tilly kicked off her heels and curled up in her father’s favorite armchair. Her mum took the couch, a slight frown on her face. “I would offer to make you lunch, darling, but I’m going out with the girls soon.”

“I won’t stay long.” That her mum had since renewed and strengthened all her former friendships that had fallen by the wayside in the past few years gave Tilly some sense of relief. “I just wanted to tell you, before you heard it anywhere else, that I resigned today.”

“Good. About time.” Her mum folded her hands primly on her lap. “They never did treat you very well. And as for Jonas”—she gave an eye roll worthy of a big screen actress—“I always thought you were too good for that douchebag.”

“Mum!” A snort of laughter burst out of Tilly and she clapped a hand to her mouth. “Language.”

“That became one of your Aunt Mary’s favorite expressions in later years. Though we didn’t always see eye to eye, Mary wasn’t afraid to call a spade a spade.” Her eyes slitted in consideration. “I suspect you’ve also come to tell me you’re considering a career change to a B&B owner.”

Tilly’s stomach flip-flopped. “And what would you think about that? I’d planned to sell the property so that you could afford to move into Greenhaven Retirement Village if you wanted to.”

Her mum poked out her tongue. “No retirement villages for me in the near future, thank you very much. I’m far too busy to sit around in a dusty corner growing moldy with a bunch of geriatrics. I’m not that old, my girl.”

“You don’t think I’m crazy to even consider it?”

“I think your father and I have raised a daughter strong enough to take the necessary measures in order to have a happy and fulfilled life no matter where she is in the world or what she chooses to do.”

“I’m not moving for a man,” Tilly said. Well, not just any man.

“Noah’s the cherry on top, isn’t he? Now, your cop—him I approve of.”

“I might have blown it with him, and I still don’t know…” Tilly’s flip-flopping stomach plummeted to the soles of her shoes. “I’m scared.”

“Of rejection? Oh, angel, that man loves you.”

She still wasn’t convinced about that. “Not of rejection.” Not only of rejection would be more accurate. “I’m scared of losing him.” A tremor ran through her and her eyes stung, tears forming in the corners. “Like we lost Daddy. Like you lost him, the love of your life.”

“Mortality is an unbearable thought,” her mum said with a sad smile.

“Noah’s been hurt on his job before.” Tilly’s throat clogged and she dug her nails into the seat cushion of her dad’s chair. “He doesn’t think anything bad could happen to him because of the intensive training he’s been through. But all it takes is someone with a gun or a knife and everything changes. Look at what happened to me.”

Her mum leaned forward, pinning Tilly to the armchair with the sharp conviction in her gaze. “Yes, let’s look at what happened to you. Your fear of losing Noah has nothing to do with his job. It’s a completely normal fear, but if you love him you’re going to have to find a way to live with that fear.”

“I don’t know if I can—”

“From what I know of your young man, it isn’t his job that puts him at risk, it’s who he is. He’s the type of person who will always protect those in harm’s way. And do you know what?” Her mum tapped a pointed finger in Tilly’s direction. “You’re that type of person, too. With no thought to your own safety, you protected that little girl in the convenience store from a gunman’s bullet.”

“That’s different. It was a one-time thing, a freak reflex.”

Her mum chuckled. “Don’t you remember the times we were called into your school because you were fighting with the bigger kids? Only you weren’t fighting, you were putting yourself between little schoolyard thugs and the kids they picked on. When you got older, it became less physical fights and more psychological warfare against catty teenagers. I bet, even now, you wouldn’t stand by while someone vulnerable got hurt.”

“Um.” She didn’t know quite how to respond to that. “Okay. Maybe I do have a touch of the superhero psyche, but it doesn’t change how each of us reacts to the situation. I was distraught when Noah ended up with a black eye—”

“You think he didn’t react when you were shot?” her mother interrupted. “Goodness, girl. I have never seen a man look more upset, unless I count your father when we were told I needed an emergency C-section. The man was a hot mess, as you young people would say. He was beside himself, bugging the hospital staff for updates, wearing a groove in the waiting room linoleum, all but wringing his hands.”

“He was?”

The image of a panicked Noah didn’t seem to fit with his reactions afterward. She crumpled up her face, trying to recall the glimmer of a memory of him when she’d first woken. Rigid muscles wired under control in his arms as he’d bent over her, as if he were struggling not to wrap his arms around her and squeeze her tight.

“Did you not hear the part about me saying that he loves you?”

Tilly’s heart thudded in her eardrums, a wash of unease making nausea swirl around her stomach. “He told me he loved me. I didn’t believe him.” She shot her mother an apologetic glance. “I thought, emotionally, he was more like Jonas and Dad. Not in an arrogant, noncommunicative way like Jonas, but in a less passionate way”—heat crept rapidly over her cheeks—“the way Dad loved you.”

Her mum’s eyes widened, then she burst into gales of laughter. She laughed so hard she toppled sideways on the couch and lay there looking at Tilly, her eyes glistening with tears. She finally sat upright, still making chuffing sounds of amusement.

“Less than passionate way.” She shook her head, snorting a sigh out of her nose. “I guess it’s the nature of the child-parent relationship to think the parents’ marriage is all about bill paying, raising kids, token anniversary cards, and heaven forbid, occasional sexual intercourse in the missionary position only.” A raised eyebrow and another mirthful snort. “Angel, your dad and I had a wonderful, intimate, and passionate marriage. Don’t let Dad’s quiet way about him fool you. While he wasn’t one for a dozen red roses or soppy declarations, I could show you some love letters he wrote me that would singe your eyeballs.”

“I don’t know if Noah feels that way about me.” But aside from the cringe factor of thinking about her dad penning pornographic missives, her mother’s words settled around her in a comforting blanket.

“So instead of pulling up your big-girl panties and keeping him around long enough to find out, you pushed him away.”

Big-girl panties? Mum was definitely spending too much time with these new friends of hers. She felt like a little girl who’d had a squabble with her best friend and needed her mummy to step in to save the day.

“Maybe,” she muttered. Bubbles of excitement and nerves fizzed in her veins. “And maybe you should clear your schedule to help me pack.”

It was amazing how much clearer the air seemed on Stewart Island. How crisper the smells, how much brighter the jewel greens and sapphire blue colors of ocean, sky, and land. Tilly stood on the ferry’s deck, waiting with growing impatience for Oban’s wharf to come into view. She hugged herself in a new heavily padded jacket draped over her sling-covered arm. This would’ve been the same view Aunt Mary saw so many years ago when she crossed Foveaux Strait to be with Jim. She suspected they shared many of the same emotions as the ferry’s bow sent up another plume of crystalline water.

Trepidation. Excitement. A sense of destiny. Hope.

And not only Noah drew her back to the island. She had to find out how Mary’s story continued.

After storing her suitcase at Ford and Rob’s workshop—Ford promising to run it up to the B&B after he finished work for the day—Tilly headed straight to Mrs. Taylor’s.

“About time you came home,” Betsy barked when she opened her door. “We’ve all been worried sick about you being shot by a posse of gangsters.” Her wrinkled face split into a huge grin. “Shouldn’t you be hunting down a certain Officer Sexy-Britches?”

“Later. I need to ask you about my aunt first.”

Betsy nodded somberly and gestured for her to come inside. Tilly trailed after her into the warmth of the kitchen, delicious smells of homemade soup bubbling on the stove. A sense of peace came over her as Betsy bustled around preparing her usual tea and cookies. She’d been such a good friend to Mary, so it was strange that now the elderly woman had become one of Tilly’s closest friends.

To her embarrassment, Tilly’s eyes filled with tears. Betsy turned, catching her sniffing surreptitiously. She set the plate of cookies on the kitchen table, narrowing her lilac-powdered eyelids.

“You’re not knocked up, are you?”

“No!” But the thought sent nervous but pleasurable flutters through her belly. “Betsy!”

The old woman didn’t look at all perturbed. “Thought it might have been pregnancy hormones making you snivel. Guess it’s just man trouble.” She sat down and pushed the plate closer to Tilly. “Here, have one. Though not even my macadamia and raspberry cookies seem to have cheered Noah up this week.” She raised her eyebrows in an aren’t you going to ask me why Noah needed cheering up? wriggle.

Nope. Not going there. Not if she wanted to keep from dissolving into a puddle of tears.

“I finished reading Aunt Mary’s journal before I left for Wellington. It ended quite abruptly, saying she was really happy and in a relationship with Jim again. But they never got married?”

Betsy slid her an unreadable glance and poured the first cup of tea. “No, they never married. The time never seemed to be quite right. Jim wanted to be respectful to Maata’s relatives who still lived in Oban and not flaunt his relationship with Mary. And Mary wanted to ease slowly into the lives of Jim’s children without traumatizing them any more than they already were.”

Tilly blew on her teacup, steam drifting off it like airborne white ribbons. “Did Jim’s kids not like Mary?”

“Oh no, they adored Mary. All the local kids loved her.” Betsy poured her own tea then wrapped her fingers around the cup. “Jim was always promising they’d be together forever like they’d planned, in just a little while longer.”

“He kept stringing her along? Putting her off so nobody would figure out they were involved?”

Betsy’s mouth pursed. “Everyone knew, but we all played along with the pretense since that’s what they seemed to want.”

“Was it what Mary wanted?”

“She wanted him. Any time she could spend with him, she told me, no matter how short, was precious.”

Tiny hairs rose on the back of Tilly’s neck at the thread of remembered grief in the older woman’s tone. “Tell me the rest of their story.”

“Jim was a fisherman, like his father and his grandfather. The sea is a fickle mistress, so they say, and one day when he went out early in the morning as he usually did, she turned on him. A rogue wave capsized their boat, authorities think. They found the bodies of Jim’s two crewmates, but they never recovered Jim. The sea took him. Every fisherman in the area, plus the authorities, scoured the strait and beaches for his body so that his family could lay him to rest.”

Hurt and shock at her great-aunt’s loss speared through Tilly. She’d already guessed something had gone wrong in their love story, but it never occurred to her it would be something so tragic.

“How old was he at the time of the accident?”

“In his early thirties, I reckon.” Betsy met her gaze. In her sad eyes was eight decades of wisdom and the acceptance that sometimes life wasn’t fair. “Mary was cheated out of the life they’d planned. But she told me once that grief was a small price to pay for loving each other so well in the time they were given.”

Tilly set her cup back into the saucer with a rattle. “I sent Noah home from Auckland.”

“I guessed something like that must’ve happened, though I’m surprised you didn’t have to use a crowbar to pry him away. I could tell he was sweet on you right from the start.”

Tilly pressed her lips together. “I’m pretty sweet on him, too.”

“But you got cold feet.”

“I completely flipped out at the thought of losing him,” she admitted. “And I didn’t believe it when he told me he loved me—in his own Noah-ish way.”

Betsy snorted and sipped her tea. “Goodness, girl. I’ve never known Noah to say anything he didn’t mean. He’s a straight-up fella, that one.” She crinkled her nose. “Bit of a fixer-upper in the communication department, but if anyone can get him to spill his guts, it’d be you.”

“I love him.” God, it felt good to say that aloud. “And Mary’s inspired me to risk it all on the chance that he loves me, too.”

Betsy reached across the table and gripped Tilly’s hand. “My dear, your aunt would be so proud. Now, finish your tea and go find your man.”