Free Playing the odds by Nora Roberts

caught with a gasp in her throat as she could almost see the blade slicing into flesh. "That was a stupid thing to say. I'm sorry." She glanced at the scar again, nearly sick from her own careless words. "It must've been serious."
    Justin thought of the drugged two weeks in the hospital ward, then shrugged. "It was a long time ago."
    "What happened?" She couldn't prevent herself from asking, perhaps because some intimate part of her shared the pain without knowing the cause.
    Justin studied her for a moment. He didn't think about the incident anymore. Perhaps he hadn't given it more than a cursory thought in fifteen years. Still it was, like the scar, a part of him. It might be better if she knew. Taking a towel from the deck, he wiped his hands.
    "I was in a bar in eastern Nevada. One of the regulars didn't care to breathe the same air as an Indian. I had a beer to finish, so I suggested he breathe somewhere else." A very cold, mirthless smile touched his mouth. "I was young enough to find some enjoyment in the prospect of a brawl. At eighteen a fistfight relieves a lot of frustrations."
    "But you didn't get that scar from a fistfight," she murmured.
    Justin lifted a brow in acknowledgement. "Most things tend to get out of hand when liquor's involved. He was drunk and feeling mean." Almost absently, he ran a finger down the line of the scar in a habitual gesture he thought he'd conquered years before. "It started predictably enough—words, shoves, fists—then he had a knife. He was probably too drunk to realize what he was doing, but he had it into me."
    "Oh, God." Automatically, Serena reached out to take his hand. "That's horrible. Why didn't someone call the police?"
    It flashed through his mind that despite the wealth, the extensive education, and travelling, she'd lived a sheltered life—perhaps because of it. "Things aren't always done that way," he said simply.
    "But he stabbed you," she said with a mixture of logic and revulsion. "He must have been arrested."
    "No." Justin's gaze remained as calm and steady as his voice. "I killed him."
    At the fiat statement, Serena's hand went limp in his. Justin could see her eyes grow wide and shocked behind the tinted glasses. He felt her instant, automatic withdrawal. Then just as quickly, her fingers tightened on his again. "Self-defence," she said with only a trace of a tremor in her voice.
    He said nothing. All those years ago he had needed that kind of simple, unquestioning faith—during the pain of his hospital days, the cold, solitary fear in his cell awaiting trial. There'd been no one then to believe in him. No one to give him back any portion of the hope and trust he had lost during those endless, empty days. As she cupped his hand between both of hers, something moved inside him and crept out of a long-closed lock.
    "I grabbed for the knife," Justin said at length. "We fell. The next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital, charged with second-degree murder."
    "But it was his knife." There was quick outrage in her voice and no question. "He attacked you."
    "It took a while for that to come out." Justin could remember every hour, every minute of the waiting—the smell of the cell, the faces in the courtroom. The fear and fury. "When it did, I was acquitted."
    With how many other scars? Serena wondered. "No one wanted to testify for you," she said instinctively. "The others in the bar that night."
    "I wasn't one of them," he said flatly. "But they stuck to the truth when they were under oath."
    "It must have been a frightening experience for a boy to go through." When Justin only lifted a brow, Serena tried to find a smile. "My father would say that a man's not a man until he's thirty, or maybe it's forty. He isn't always consistent."
    How well he knew, Justin thought. He was tempted to tell her then and there about his relationship with Daniel, but made himself stick with his original plan. Justin Blade was consistent. "I told you about this because if you