Shiver

which only Groves responded by starting to rise from his chair.
    “Hey,” Marco said to Sam as their eyes met. Tyler, meanwhile, ran across the grass to retrieve the ball. Marco was grinning, eyes sparkling, hair mussed, a little sweaty, looking ridiculously carefree under the circumstances. He had shaved last night sometime after she had last seen him, and in the bright sunlight she saw that his jaw was lean and strong. His nose was almost all the way back to normal, his black eye was fading away, and while the bruises on his face were still there the swelling was gone. Apparently he had been telling the truth when he’d told her that he healed fast, because she was able to see now the clean, hard planes and angles of his face. Good looking was an understatement, she thought unwillingly. He was a gorgeous guy, and somebody like Kendra, for example, would be drooling over him.
    Fortunately, Sam thought, she was made of sterner stuff than that: she might notice, but she absolutely did not drool.
    “Hey, Mom!” Tyler yelled. The heads-up was followed by the basketball hurtling her way.
    Sam caught it just in time to keep from getting whomped in the head, pivoted, made a neat two-pointer, and grinned at her son as he whooped.
    “Whoa, swoosh. ” Marco grinned at her, too, clapping just asshe had done for Tyler. “What other unsuspected talents are you hiding, I wonder?”
    A little proud of herself, she flicked a look at him, then found herself caught by something that she saw in his eyes. Suddenly she felt hot all over, and more than a little flustered.
    Things were getting out of hand when just looking at him made her think about sex.
    “Supper’s ready,” she said in a repressive tone, and with Tyler charging ahead of her went back inside the kitchen.
    Groves was happy to eat with them. The conversation centered on sports, particularly basketball and the upcoming NBA championship game. Animosity sometimes darkened Groves’s expression when he looked at Marco, but on the surface at least the atmosphere was friendly enough. Tyler listened intently to everything that was said, and finally piped up with, “My mom used to play on a basketball team when she was in high school, didn’t you, Mom?”
    Sam was saved from having to reply by the arrival of Abramowitz to relieve Groves. In the act of putting his plate into the dishwasher with the rest of them, Groves looked so guilty when Abramowitz caught him at it that Sam almost smiled.
    If Groves was quietly hostile toward Marco while being perfectly friendly to her and Tyler, Abramowitz was evenhandedly terse with them all. After supper, since Tyler had claimed the couch and the TV remote, he set himself up in the den with a book. After Sam had done everything she could think of to keep busy—which, aside from a little laundry, wasn’t much—sheadmitted to herself that she had cabin fever. Being cooped up was getting to her. Outside, twilight was deepening into full dark, and clouds were blowing in from the west, bringing with them the promise of rain. Not used to being cooped up, Sam longed to get out of the house—and by out of the house, she wasn’t talking about stepping into the backyard. But remembering how nerve-racking just going to Walmart had been, which then segued into a too-vivid memory of Mrs. Menifee’s fate and the criminals who were still hunting them, she gave up on any hope of even so much as going for a walk down to the end of the street and back. Instead, she headed back into the great room with the idea of joining Tyler in front of the TV. By now, he would be deep into Escape to Witch Mountain, which she had rented for him a few months before and which they had both loved, and which by happy coincidence had been playing on the Disney Channel. She wouldn’t mind watching it again. But when she saw that Marco was sitting on the couch beside Tyler, Sam hesitated and almost turned around again. More happy-family interaction with Marco was something she just did not need.
    But Tyler spotted her.
    “Have you ever seen Bruce Lee, Mom?” Tyler asked excitedly over his shoulder. Sam’s mouth about dropped open as she realized that the images on the screen weren’t what she had been expecting to see at all. Some kind of martial arts bout was going on, and her gaze shifted to Marco accusingly. “He’s awesome. You want to watch it with us?”
    Marco responded to her look by raising both hands in the airand shaking his head, which she