Kate broke the kiss. Clarity settled as she focused on her swollen mouth, her darkened gaze.

“Til—”

“Don’t say anything. Please.”

As though trying to burn it into memory, Tilly focused on her own thumb, watched as she swept it over Kate’s chin.

Tilly smiled softly, sadly. “Happy New Year,” she breathed, and with one last look, she was gone across the rooftop.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I missed it. The thought was hard to swallow. But as Kate rested her palms against the ledge of the nursery window and stared at her two-and-a-half-kilo newborn niece swaddled in a pale pink blanket, she couldn’t bring herself to care. There’ll be other houses, she thought, other auctions. This was what mattered. And maybe, she thought, some things just weren’t meant to be.

Kate sighed tiredly as she looked at the clock on the far wall of the hospital nursery. Seven o’clock. It had been twelve hours since her sister had been admitted, fifteen since she’d gone into labour. After a day split between hospital rooms, labour suites and entertaining Karlie in hospital cafés, the day was catching up with her. She couldn’t imagine how her sister was feeling.

With Beccy resting in her room down the hall and her Mum having already taken Karlie home, Kate had taken the opportunity to see her sleeping infant niece one last time, to say goodnight. Inside the nursery, Beccy’s nurse looked up from the desk and waved, said something to the other nurse and gestured warmly for Kate to come inside. Kate shook her head. She was on her way out, she mimed.

She wandered down the hall and took the elevator down to the main floor. In the back pocket of her jeans, her phone vibrated. For a split second, she hoped it was Tilly. A sudden impulse to tell Tilly about her perfect newborn niece gripped her. It had been six days since their last contact—a brief chain of text messages—and it hadn’t been enough to satisfy the longing that had consumed Kate since they’d said goodbye at the airport almost a month ago.

The text was from her mother, with an attachment of two pictures. They wouldn’t load. Kate wandered from the elevator lobby to where she’d found a stronger signal earlier that day when she’d phoned Beccy’s best friend. As the picture of her two nieces loaded—Karlie holding her baby sister for the first time—Kate’s heart clenched. A bundle of joy swaddled in soft cotton, baby Madison was a sister for Karlie to love forever.

As tears sprang to her eyes, Kate swallowed against the well of emotion. A want bubbled inside her that she couldn’t name, an incessant, all-consuming need for something.

Thank you, she typed to her mother. And Happy Birthday, again, Mum. January 23^rd is definitely a day for the books, huh?

Starting back down the hall, Kate stopped at the door of the hospital chapel. A feeling akin to homesickness beckoned, offered a respite before she went home to her mother and Karlie. I suppose I could just pop my head in, for a second…