“Hi,” Kate whispered, her throat tightening as she sank into the padded vinyl chair at Tilly’s bedside.

Her gaze raw, Tilly exhaled deeply. “Hi.” Her brow furrowed. “You’re wearing my T-shirt.”

Kate swallowed. “Yeah. Sorry. I just grabbed whatever out of the washing basket.”

Tilly chewed at her bottom lip. “You’re going to stretch it.”

Kate reached for her hand and linked their fingers together. “How are you feeling?”

“Stiff. And filthy.”

“Well, you look gorgeous.”

Above the blanket, Tilly smoothed a hand over her abdomen. “Don’t make me laugh.”

Kate’s chest ached as their eyes locked. Regardless of the other patient asleep across the room, sitting at Tilly’s hospital bedside felt like the most intimate thing in the world. Kate rubbed her sweaty palm on her knees. “Where’s Declan?”

“He has a service this morning.”

Mass? He’d left his fiancée to wake up alone after emergency surgery because he had to say mass? She burned to comment, but the last thing she wanted was for Tilly to feel even more alone. “Tell me what happened, Til.”

Tilly released her hand. “I felt ill all day yesterday, since waking.”

And here I was, obsessing over the fact that she was avoiding me…

“I thought it was just cramping,” Tilly continued. “I’ve never had menstrual cramps like that but I honestly just thought that was what it was. And it just became progressively worse, and quickly. I was in agony, couldn’t concentrate on a word the children were saying, or Declan. And I just passed out at the dining table. Declan called an ambulance.”

Outside Tilly’s room, the hospital was coming alive. A laugh rang out from the nurses’ station at the end of the corridor and the clatter of breakfast trays was close. But in Tilly’s room there was only soft silence. “Did Declan come after the ambulance?” Kate asked. “To be with you?”

“No.” Tilly paused. “It’s difficult. With the children…”

“Right…”

“The nurse said he came by just after I came out of surgery at six,” Tilly excused. “But I was in recovery for so long and he had to leave because he had the children with him and it wasn’t visiting hours.”

“He should have called us last night.”

“I told him not to.”

“He shouldn’t have listened to you. I would have come, Til. I could have been here.”

Tilly turned her cheek into her pillow. Her eyes slipped shut. “I was so scared, Kate. I was in so much pain I honestly thought God was going to take me to be with Him. To be with my parents…”

At the fear in Tilly’s eyes, Kate’s heart broke. Tilly didn’t have a mother, or a father. She was an only child, and she’d lost her aunt, her only relative here in Australia. She didn’t have anybody, and now, the person she was preparing to devote the rest of her life to had just watched on as an ambulance drove her away.

Kate moved from the chair, her breath catching. “Come here…” Gently, she slid her palms beneath Tilly’s underarms and gathered her into her arms. Tilly’s ribs butterflied against her fingers as she sighed shakily, her breath warm against Kate’s jaw. Her chest tugged at the sound. Burying her face in Tilly’s neck, she inhaled the lingering scent of apricot shampoo. The tips of Tilly’s fingers pressed tightly to Kate’s shoulders, and relief grasped her, sudden and sharp. “I love you,” she breathed against Tilly’s neck.