She nodded, her eyes wide with surprise, like she couldn’t quite believe he’d understood this about her. “More than anything, I just want one place I can be myself. I just want a home.”

“Home is worth finding,” he said quietly. “Even if it takes a while.”

“Did you?”

He’d known that was coming, but still, all the muscles in his body locked up. “Yes. I did.”

She didn’t say anything else for a while, and when she did, her voice was soft. “Why did you leave Belfast?”

There had been a time when the idea of opening up to her had been absurd, but now he found that he wanted to. There were truths he hadn’t told her, and they lived in a hollow space inside his chest that echoed with guilt and regret, but maybe this was one truth he could share.

He let out a slow breath, and looked for the least thorny path through his past. It helped that she wasn’t looking at him, that she’d turned her eyes to the window. “My dad was a rough, burly man,” he said. “Rough like he was scruffy and salt of the earth-ish, not rough like he was mean. He was the gentlest, sweetest man you’ll ever meet. And you’ve met Ken.” She smiled. He rolled his shoulders, trying to unknot the tension in them. “I have two older brothers, but I was his favourite of the three of us. I’m not sure why, because Ryan and Matt were burly, boisterous copies of him, but they didn’t have his heart. They were a fair bit older than me. They never liked me. It was partly because I came along late, and partly because I was small, skinny, and preferred to stay indoors with a book rather than go outside and play football or rugby with the other boys. More than anything, though, it was because Dad liked me best. He preferred playing football and rugby, but he’d stay in with me, let me ramble on about my favourite books.”

“It sounds like he loved you very much.”

“When Dad was alive, Ryan and Matt pretty much just pretended I didn’t exist. Then, when I was twelve, Dad died. It was an accident at work. He was a builder.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure losing him just about killed you.”

“Well, it didn’t,” said Jamie, with dark humour. “So my brothers did their best to finish the job.”

Dark, long-lashed eyes grew wide.