Logan leaned an arm across the back of the couch and blew out his cheeks. “Good question. She says she’s fine, but… I don’t know. What do you think?”
Shona looked down at the tray of chips, picked out a couple, and gave one to the dog. “I don’t know,” she said.
“No, I know. But… If you were to put yourself in her shoes. How do you think she’ll be holding up? After everything she went through. Being taken and held like that.”
“I mean… God. I don’t know,” Shona said. Her voice sounded younger. Smaller, maybe. “I suppose… she’ll be scared. About… everything. Or, not everything, but anything. Random stuff. For a while. Even when she knows it’s stupid. She’ll probably panic a lot. Overthink stuff. See things that aren’t there sometimes. Jump at her own shadow.”
Logan said nothing. Just listened for once. Shona was still fixated on the tray of chips. Even more so than Taggart, which was saying something.
“She’ll probably doubt herself. She’ll wonder if she was to blame somehow. She’ll know she wasn’t, of course. Deep down. But she’ll have doubts. She’ll think… if she’d done things differently. If she’d been quicker. If she’d been stronger.” Shona ground the heels of her hands into her eyes and sniffed. “She’ll need help. She might not say it. She might never say it. But she will. She’ll need help, and she’ll need support, and patience and understanding.”
She smiled faintly, and met Logan’s eye for a moment. “I suppose… I suppose that’s what I think.”
“She’ll get it,” Logan promised. “All of it. That’s a promise.”
Shona placed her hand on his much larger one, and their fingers locked together.
“I’m sure she appreciates that more than she can say.”
“And I suppose… if she was really worried being at home…” His eyes darted around the room. “…she could always move in here.”
Shona pulled a concerned face. “Sure, that’s a bit creepy, she’s not even twelve. Not sure her parents would—”
He kissed her, his fingers brushing back her hair, his hand warm against her cheek.
When it broke off, they rested their foreheads against one another, and Shona’s voice cracked as she offered her response.
“Oh, go on, then.”
Logan leaned back, eyes widening as he looked at her in surprise. Shona winced.
“Was I not supposed to say yes to that?” she asked. “Was that like one of those, ‘I’ll make a nice offer and hope she turns it down,’ sort of things?”
“What? No. No. I just… I mean, I didn’t expect you to say…” He shook his head, like he was annoyed at himself. “So, is this happening? Are we… shacking up together?”
“Such a romantic turn of phrase. You’re like a poet,” Shona said. “But, like, a really shite one.” She shrugged, playing down her keenness. “I mean, if you want the company, or whatever, I could come and crash here. Or not. Or just, you know, whatever.”
Logan smirked. “Such a romantic turn of phrase,” he said, then he reached for another chip and found the tray empty.
Down on the floor, Taggart licked his chops and pointedly refused to make eye contact.
Logan had just begun to call the dog a thieving wee bastard, when his phone rang.
And then, a moment later, Shona’s rang, too.
They both checked their screens. They both sighed.
“It’s the office,” they said, almost simultaneously.
Shona sprang to her feet, headed for the door, and pointed to her mobile. “I’ll go take it in your bedroom.” She stopped to think about this. “Or… I mean… our bedroom?”
“I said you could stay here, I didn’t say you were getting to share my room,” Logan replied.
He watched her laugh at that, and felt a surge of something that couldn’t quite be explained in words.
Taggart jumped up onto the spot on the couch where she’d been, sniffed around, then flopped down against Logan’s side. He stroked the dog’s head as he answered the call.
“Benjamin. To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked. He listened for a while, then once DI Forde had finished, he nodded. “Right, then,” he said. He glanced through to his bedroom.
Their bedroom.
“We’re on our way.”