Page 54 of The Old Boat Shed

Tilly turned the disc over in her fingers. 'I love you too. The thing is, I had a whole plan about how I came here to be on my own, and youcompletelyruined it. I had plans, Otto Carrington. No men, no neighbours, no anything. I was going to be a hermit with nice bedding, and then you turned up shouting at me on a mudflat, and that was that.'

'Technically, you turned up on my mudflat.'

'Details. I've loved you since the oyster night, if you want the truth of it. Possibly since the yellow hat episode on my first day.'

Otto chuckled. 'So, I could have saved myself the cost of that necklace.'

Stanley thumped his tail against the boards, the candles flickered, and Tilly Bloomwood, once of hotel bars and waiting, sat on the deck of her shed as the fireworks gave Sydney’s New Year’s Eve show a run for its money.

On the deck of her old boat shed, on a foggy little island, with a spinning disc of gold, a chocolate Labrador's head on her lapand an oyster farmer across a café table, Tilly smiled. Once upon a time, in another life, she’d been controlled and had waited in bars on the other side of the world for something to begin. She touched the little disc and smiled out at the water.

The waiting, it appeared, was well and truly over. Thank heavens for that.