Molly pulled her hands away from her face and locked eyes with Kate.

“It’s the getting there,” Kate guessed.

Visibly swallowing, Molly nodded. Her voice was a whisper. “I keep think about saying goodbye to Mum at the airport and I think I’m going to have a heart attack.”

In her peripheral vision, Kate watched as Tilly tucked her legs beneath herself. Kate gripped Molly’s shoulder gently. “So you ugly-cry in the Qantas terminal? So what? You and half the country.”

That pulled a small smile to Molly’s lips.

“It’s two weeks,” Kate continued. “You go there, you learn, and you come home a better writer knowing that you’ve done this for yourself, that you’ve given yourself this once-in-a-lifetime chance. All you have to do is get on that plane, Mol. Once you’ve got your bum in the seat, you’ll be fine. I promise.”

Conflict flickered across Molly’s face as Kate’s words took effect. Finally, she pulled her gaze from the floor and met Kate’s stare. “Can you come to the airport too?”

Chapter Seventeen

She’d almost forgotten.

It wasn’t until the car ferry was docking at Mornington and they were waiting to disembark that a radio advertisement for a concert presale jogged her memory. Sitting forward in the driver’s seat, Kate turned down the radio.

As silence settled, the tension they’d entertained for the past few days sharpened. Tilly pulled her attention from watching the current of rainwater drip from the steep metal staircase that led to the passenger cabin above. She fixed her gaze on Kate. “Is something the matter?” she asked hesitantly.

Well, if we’re being completely honest with each other, tonight you’re celebrating your engagement to somebody else—so everything’s turned to shit. Kate shook her head. “Everything’s good. I just…I remembered that I have something for you.”

Tilly’s lips slipped into a thin line. She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Oh,” she said nervously. “You do?”

Kate rolled down her window. The humidity swept into the van with a deafening roll of thunder. “Jesus,” she murmured lowly as the sky’s roar groaned on and on. The first early morning storm had brought rain so torrential that it had made it impossible for Tilly and the sisters to make it to the mainland for Sunday morning mass. Finally, at ten thirty, the flooded dip in the island road had cleared, making it possible for Kate to navigate the van down to the slipway. Now the storm was finding its voice all over again.

She leaned across the car to open the glove box. The sky growled loudly as her wrist brushed Tilly’s knee. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

She felt into the corner of the glove box. Turning her head, she met Tilly’s curious stare. “Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

As Tilly’s eyes slipped closed, she took a moment to study her face, the way her features tensed for a second as Kate clicked the glove box closed.

Careful to keep the face of the pendant turned up, she lowered the sterling silver chain into Tilly’s cupped hands. “Okay,” she said. “You can open them.”