Shiver

there’s plenty. Don’t kid yourself: if there wasn’t, no way would you catch me giving you my breakfast.”
    That made him smile. Because she found it sexy, and charming, and it made her want to smile back, his smile earned him another quick frown.
    “Don’t you like Trey, Mom?” Tyler asked through a bite of pancakes, looking from her to Marco with a flicker of trouble in his eyes. For about the millionth time, Sam was reminded of the truth of the saying that little pitchers had big ears and vowed to watch what she said and how she said it around him, especially now. Keeping things calm and unterrifying for Tyler had to be the name of the game for her at the moment. If she had an issue with Marco, it was something to be dealt with between the two of them when Tyler wasn’t around.
    “Sure she likes me.” The wickedly teasing look Marco sent her made her long to dump the glass of milk she had just poured for him over his head. “Don’t you, Sam?”
    What could she say? “Of course I do,” she said to Tyler. Sitting down at the table and eating breakfast with Marco and herson was not something she wanted to do under the circumstances, but there didn’t seem to be any way around it.
    “So sit down and eat.” Marco nodded at the other side of the table.
    Every instinct she possessed warned, bad move.
    How breakfast might be rescued from turning into a cozy, pseudofamily meal with just about the last man she wanted to encourage either herself or Tyler to think of in that way burst upon her then in what felt like a brilliant flash of insight. Acting on it, Sam said, “I’ll be right back,” and walked out of the kitchen in search of whatever marshal was on the premises. She found him almost at once. Clean-shaven but grim-faced, wearing what looked like the same clothes he’d had on since she had first set eyes on him, Sanders sat reading the newspaper in one of two rust-colored recliners on either side of a tan leather couch in the great room. The seating arrangement faced a big stone fireplace with a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall above it. Coupled with the usual tables and lamps, a few pictures on the white-painted walls, and more of the beige carpeting on the floor, the furniture was both comfortable and practical. To her left, Sam could see the front door, solid wood, painted white, hopefully equipped with something on the order of a triple dead bolt. It opened into a tiled entryway that was separated by a half wall from the great room. Directly opposite the door were the stairs that led to the second floor. Despite the brightness of the day outside, the heavy, brown burlap-looking curtains in the great room were closed over the two smaller front windows and a large window that, Sam thought, must look out overthe backyard. The lamps plus track lighting overhead provided ample illumination, but Sam preferred natural daylight, and under other circumstances she would have swept open the curtains as soon as she could. The reason that the curtains were drawn on this gorgeous, sunny day hit her almost as soon as she pictured herself opening them: no one was supposed to be able to see in. Why? Because they were in hiding from a pack of vicious killers who at that very moment were doing everything they could to hunt them down.
    At the reminder of the very real and immediate nature of the danger she and Tyler were in, Sam felt a chill run down her spine. Why it had taken the closed curtains to drive it home she couldn’t have said, but they did and her stomach knotted even as she transferred her attention from the curtains to the marshal whose job it was to keep them safe.
    Sanders hadn’t even looked up as she entered, nor did he acknowledge her presence in any way now, although she was looking at him from only a few feet away. Sam knew that she and Tyler were unimportant to the marshals—Marco was the reason for all the protection—but at least the others were reasonably friendly. Sanders didn’t even bother to be minimally polite.
    Yeah, well, she loved him, too.
    “I made pancakes,” she said, striving to sound at least slightly more enthusiastic about the prospect of him eating them than she was feeling. “There are plenty, if you want some.”
    Glancing up at her at last, he shook his head. “I’ve eaten.” There was no smile on his face. He barely even seemed to seeher, and Sam was reminded once again that in terms of importance she and Tyler were barely a blip on his radar