Shiver

desire.
    “So what should we do today?” Tyler piped up, directing the question at Sam. She almost jumped. She was glad of the interruption, of the chance to redirect her thoughts before they couldtravel any further down the road they seemed hell-bent on taking. Tyler’s question was one that they always asked each other on weekend mornings, and it helped her to get her bearings. The very normalcy of it underlined the absolute abnormality of the situation. Pushing away the last of her breakfast (pancakes and bacon were Tyler’s favorites, not hers; she actually preferred something like half a peanut butter sandwich, peanut butter having been a staple food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when she was growing up), Sam looked at her son and found herself at a loss for words. She had no idea what rules governed this new existence they had been thrown into: was going to a park, or a swimming pool, or for something as ordinary as a walk, even an option?
    “You can help me clean house,” she countered with a playful smile, because on weekends at home cleaning house was one of the things they did. Not that Tyler liked being part of what she called the Jones family cleaning crew. But he did it.
    “No way. We’re on vacation. Anyway, it’s not even our house,” Tyler objected.
    Vacation? Sam didn’t say it aloud, but her eyes shot to Marco, because she was pretty sure that there was only one place the idea that they were on vacation could have come from and it was from him. He was chomping down on the last of his bacon when their eyes met and she frowned suspiciously at him. His reply was a wry half smile, and a shrug.
    Translation: guilty.
    “It’s like a vacation. Kind of,” he replied to the look in her eyes.
    Except for the whole everyone-wants-to-kill-us thing. But Sam didn’t say it out loud. She gave Marco a narrow-eyed look instead.
    “We’ll make it a vacation,” he promised, sliding a significant look in Tyler’s direction.
    Given her son’s presence, what could she reply to that?
    “Sounds good,” she said.
    “Is it okay if I go check out the backyard, Mom?” Having finished his breakfast, Tyler slid from his seat. From where she was sitting, through the not-quite-completely-drawn blinds, Sam could see several slices of well-cut green lawn and a large, leafy tree. The backyard looked like the perfect place for a four-year-old to play. The whole thing seemed to be surrounded by a six-foot-tall wooden privacy fence, but she had no way of being sure it was safe.
    Automatically she looked at Marco for guidance. Tyler did, too. Annoying to realize that they both assumed he was the one with the authority to decide, to tell them yes or no.
    “Why don’t you check out the rest of the house first?” Marco suggested. “I bet there are all kinds of nooks and crannies you haven’t seen.”
    “Okay,” Tyler agreed, and hopped up from his seat. With a quick look at Sam, he picked up his plate and glass and carried them to the sink. She smiled at him: that was something he always did. She gave herself a mental high-five for having raised him well.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    “I’ll be back in a minute,” he told her, and ran off.
    Left alone with Marco, Sam felt every bit of discomfort she’d managed to push out of her mind earlier return in a rush. Desperate to find something to do, something to focus on besides the two of them alone at the table, she started to gather up the plates and silverware, preparatory to standing up and carrying them to the sink.
    She was just reaching for the syrup bottle when his hand descended on hers, closing around it, holding it trapped against the smooth wood.
    Her eyes shot to his.
    “We need to talk,” he said.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
     

     
    T alking was not what Sam wanted to do. Escaping was more like it. But Marco picked her hand up from the table, holding it in such a way that she doubted she could have pulled free without a determined jerk.
    A jerk that would reveal how uncomfortable she was with having him hold her hand.
    Even as she hesitated, she very unwillingly registered the size and strength of his hand—way bigger and stronger than hers—and its masculinity, and the warmth of it. She remembered the way he had kissed her knuckles in the trunk. Then he ran his thumb over the silky skin on the back of her hand—shades of that thumb running over her nipple!—and her insides turned to mush.
    Sam’s heart was beating a mile a minute. She was