Kate’s eyes snapped upward. “Sorry,” Tilly said shakily. “I was expecting your hands to be cold.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re sorry that your hands are warm?”

Kate swiped the tiny scissors from the top of the vanity. “Can we not tease each other while I have a sharp object so close to your skin?”

“Later then,” Tilly played.

Against the back of her hand, Tilly’s skin was hot from her bath. Kate slipped the blade of the scissors under the lower stitch and sliced through the thread on one side of the incision.

“Didn’t feel it,” Tilly assured her.

“This isn’t the part I’m worried about,” she mumbled, slicing another stitch open. “Are you sure you don’t want to tweeze them out yourself?”

Tilly settled a warm hand on her shoulder. “I just need you to do it. Please.”

Drawing a deep breath, Kate took the tweezers from Tilly’s hand and, careful as ever, pinched the thread and pulled.

Tilly’s nails dug crescents into the bare skin of Kate’s skin. “Keep going,” she encouraged when Kate stilled. “It’s just the pull that hurts.”

“Almost done,” Kate whispered, her hand unconsciously reaching out to grip the curve of Tilly’s hip in her concentration.

When she was finished, she encouraged Tilly to stay where she was—practically straddling Kate’s knees—while she dusted antiseptic powder over the scar.

As Kate washed her hands in the sink, their gazes met in the reflection. Tilly smiled warmly and Kate thought back over the past two weeks. Since that first night, time had passed slowly. The students had been understanding, following Kate’s strict instruction not to bombard an exhausted Tilly with visits to the cottage. In turn, Kate had taken on a heavier workload, accepting any and all essays Tilly had set prior to falling ill. Quickly realising double the work meant one a.m. bedtimes for Kate, for the first time in her life, she didn’t feel so very fortunate to have such conscientious students. Now, with Tilly returning to work tomorrow, Kate was glad it was drawing to an end, and that for the most part, Tilly had returned to her energetic self.

Kate reached for the hand towel. “All over now,” she said. “All healed.”

It was on Tilly’s first day back at work, a Friday, that it happened.

After lunch, Tilly returned to the cottage to rest. That morning, there had been a brief mention of the possibility of Declan visiting in the afternoon, this time without the children. His last visit, just days after Tilly’s surgery, had been exhausting for Tilly. When Kate had returned from driving Declan and his children down to Lords Pier, she’d found Tilly in a deep sleep on the lounge.

So when Kate opened the cottage door at the end of the day, she expected to find Declan with Tilly. What she found instead, was entirely unexpected.

On her way from the bathroom to her bedroom, Tilly halted before the lounge, the long, ivory skirts of the wedding dress gripped in her hands as their eyes locked.