I knew he was home before the door opened.
It wasn't a sound. The pups told me. Four heads came up off the back lawn at once, Kimchi's ears swiveling like tiny radar dishes, and then all four of them put their chins back down on their paws, the way you do when the person you've been waiting for finally walks in.
I set my book face down on the counter. It was a little past midnight. The kids were asleep, and the house had that held-breath quiet it gets when everyone in it has finally stopped moving. I had been pretending to read for the last two hours.
I hadn't turned a page since ten.
The glass door slid open, and Duncan stepped into the kitchen.
He looked like a man who had walked a very long way carrying something he couldn't set down. His shoulders were squared out of pure habit. The grey-green of his eyes was dull around the edges, and there was a smudge of something dark at his cuff that I decided not to ask about.
"Lass," he said. "Ye should be sleepin'."
