Julie's thumb pressed into his knuckle. When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper.
"I keep thinking I just got lucky. That I got out, and it could just as easily have been me on the wrong end of..." She shook her head. "And now a girl who did nothing is..."
"Ye didna get lucky," he said in a low and fierce voice. He must have startedled her because she looked up. "Ye got brave, and then ye got loved. The second is no' a theft, Julie. Dinna let anyone, least of all yerself, tell ye otherwise."
Her eyes filled. This time she let them.
He waited until she had breathed through it. Then, because she was Julie, she wiped her face with the heel of her hand and lifted her chin.
"What do we know about him?" she asked. "Not what he did. What he is. You've gone quiet in a particular way, Duncan. You do it when something doesn't fit."
He had been dreading this part. Not because he meant to hide it from her. Because he did not yet have the right words.
