Shiver

know.”
    At what she saw for her there in his eyes a hard little knot that she hadn’t even realized existed inside her melted away, like a snowball in the sun. It had been a long time since a man hadlooked at her like that, she realized. Not with lust, but with—tenderness? With maybe a little respect mixed in? Whatever, it was intoxicating. Her breath caught. She was conscious of a warm glow starting to build in the region of her heart.
    “Sam—” Marco’s voice was deeper, and she thought that he was starting to lean toward her. Then the sound of a chair squeaking from the den made him shoot a look in that direction and stop. Sam heard it, too, and pulled her hand from his. The idea that Abramowitz, or any of the marshals for that matter, might see her holding hands with Marco struck her as not smart. Just why, she couldn’t have said, but . . .
    “So you played basketball in high school, huh? What high school?” Marco’s tone had changed. It was lighter, faintly rueful. He was firmly unmoving now, back on his end of the couch, just as she was on hers.
    “St. Clair County Alternative School.” Not altogether sorry to put the intensity behind them, Sam made a face at him. “Just to be clear, there were only six girls who wanted to play basketball, so we all made the team. It was a last-resort high school for kids who had problems with the system, so it wasn’t very big.”
    He was looking at her with interest. “What kind of problems?”
    “I missed a lot of school. I was rebellious.” She gave a small shrug. “By the time I graduated, I had lived in six different foster homes, all right? Going to school wasn’t my top priority. Hey, I was a kid. What can I say?”
    “Where were your parents?”
    “My dad was kind of like Tyler’s: he was never around. Andmy mom—she remarried when I was in fourth grade. My new stepfather wasn’t interested in having a daughter. She took off with him, moved to Florida. I lived with my grandma and my great-aunt for a while, until my grandma died and my great-aunt had a stroke. Then there was nobody left who wanted me, so I went into foster care. I was in eighth grade.”
    “That sucks.” His tone was matter of fact, but his eyes had darkened.
    Sam nodded. “Yeah, it did. I guess I kind of went off the deep end for a while after that, nothing too bad, just being a little wild and wanting to have fun and blowing off school. When I met Justin—Tyler’s dad—I thought everything was going to change.” She smiled wryly. “Which it did: I got Tyler.” The glance she shot him as soon as the words were out of her mouth was fierce. “For the record, he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
    He smiled at her. “He’s a great kid.”
    “Yeah, he is. He totally turned me around, too. Once I had him, and I knew it was just the two of us, him and me against the world, I grew up fast.” Feeling uncharacteristically shy suddenly from having revealed so much, she shot him another look. When she spoke again, her voice was slightly gruff. “So there you have it: the story of my life. If you’ve got any, I’ll take questions now.”
    “I do have one.” His eyes gleamed at her as he followed her lead into less emotional territory. “Who’s Carl?
    Whatever Sam had expected—maybe a request for a definition of what “a little wild” entailed—it wasn’t that.
    “Carl?” She gave him a puzzled look. “Carl works at A+ Collateral Recovery. How did you hear about Carl?”
    “When Tyler called you and I answered, he asked if I was him.”
    “Oh.” The smallest of pauses. “Carl’s been calling me lately, trying to get me to go out with him.” At the inquiring look Marco gave her, Sam shook her head. “Not going to happen. I’m careful about the men I bring into my life now that I have Tyler. In fact, I don’t bring men into my life now that I have Tyler.” Which, proving the previous conversation had not been a completely useless whine-fest, brought her to the point she’d been wanting to make to him: “As a matter of fact, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you would kind of cool it with him. He likes you a lot, and . . .”
    The ninety-second warning beep of the alarm in the kitchen interrupted. Both Sam and Marco stiffened and looked toward the doorway. A heartbeat later, clearly drawn by the same thing, Abramowitz came out of the den. For a moment all three of them waited, looking toward the kitchen. Then the sound of the