“I had to do it. That damned Veith was taking you to José Calderon. He’d know you weren’t Marco the minute he set eyes on you. Anyway, you were supposed to be dead.”
“Again, sorry about your luck.”
Crittenden glanced toward the woods. “Where the hell is that girl? How long does it take her to pee?”
“I think I see her coming right now,” Danny said, and lifted an arm in a big wave.
Almost immediately, an army of FBI agents in black covert attire came out of the trees, their weapons trained on Crittenden and Marco. Directing them was Mayhew.
“Drop your weapons!” came the roar. “Hands in the air!”
“Surprise,” Danny said gently as the agents advanced.
Crittenden and Marco dropped their weapons and put their hands in the air.
“How the hell did you get them here?” Crittenden growled.
Danny put his hand into his pocket and pulled out the cell phone Crittenden had provided him with.
“I made a call,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A few days later, Tyler was practically hanging out the window of Kendra’s second-floor apartment. Watching him, Sam felt a wave of thankfulness so strong that it almost brought tears to her eyes. When she had been brought down off that mountain—Danny had stayed behind to do whatever it was FBI agents did—she’d had the agents escorting her take her straight to Tyler. He’d been with Sanders and Groves and O’Brien in a back room in the FBI office in Pocatello. When she had walked in, he’d yelled, “Mom!” and rushed into her arms. Hugging him like she was never going to let him go, Sam thought about how close she had come to never seeing him again and sent a profound thanks winging skyward.
Sometimes, apparently, prayers were answered after all.
“We looked out for him,” Sanders told her, and she smiled at him as she finally let Tyler go. “He’s a smart kid. He came right to us, told us what had happened. Otherwise we probably all would have died trying to pull you guys out of the damned fire.”
“I’m sorry about Abramowitz,” she said, and he nodded in acknowledgment.
“He was a good man.” He glanced around, lowered his voice. “Goddamn FBI. Glad this mess is their screw-up and not ours, though.”
“You know that you weren’t guarding the real Rick Marco, right? His name is Danny Panterro. He’s an FBI agent.”
“We just got filled in.” Sanders’s tone was sour. “Not saying I’m happy with your boyfriend, mind you. I don’t like that we were duped one bit. But at least he’s a cut above the real dirtbag.”
“Is Trey your boyfriend now, Mom?” Tyler piped up, looking at her with interest and hope and a whole host of other things in his eyes. Sam was once again reminded of how true the saying was about little pitchers and big ears.
She sighed, admitted to it, and told him who Danny really was, along with a highly edited version of what he had been up to since he’d entered their lives.
When Danny joined them, in a guarded hotel suite hours later, Tyler had walked into Danny’s arms right along with Sam.
“I brought you something, buddy,” Danny had said when he let them go, and reached into his pocket to pull something out: Tyler’s teddy bear. It had been in her pocket, Sam remembered, and realized that she’d lost it in the crash. Danny must have found it up there on the mountain and brought it back for her son.
“Ted!” Tyler grabbed the bear and hugged it, beaming at Danny. Sam smiled at him. Bringing the bear back was a small gesture, but it told her that he knew what it meant to Tyler—and cared.
“I love you.” She mouthed the words at him over Tyler’s head.
“I love you, too,” he responded, and didn’t bother to mouth the words.
Later, when Tyler and Sam had arrived back in East St. Louis to find that their duplex was still a crime scene, Kendra had invited them to stay with her. Which had worked for Sam: no way was she going to be able to face living in that place for even one more night, she had discovered as soon as she saw it again. The memories were still too fresh, and still too horrific. Anyway, they had other interesting options, and she had decided to explore them.
Because you only live once, right?
So here it was, 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday, and Tyler was expecting someone special. Sam was, too, and she had dressed accordingly: in a deep blue silk dress she had borrowed from Kendra. They were the same size, same height, same age. The only difference was that Kendra had hazel eyes and blond hair that she wore straight to her shoulders. But as for swapping clothes, well, they did that all the time.
When the car pulled up at the curb across the street, Tyler, still hanging out the window, let out a yell.
“Trey!” he shrieked, waving wildly.
Sam and Kendra, both of whom had also been waiting, although they hoped not as obviously as Tyler, looked out the window, too.
Dressed in a dark suit and tie because they were going to dinner in some fancy place he’d booked across the river in the big-time St. Louis, looking so handsome he took Sam’s breath, Danny was crossing the street. He was waving at Tyler, and as he saw Sam and Kendra looking out at him he grinned.
“Oh, my,” Kendra said, impressed.
“Told ya,” Sam said smugly.
Tyler was already tearing out of the apartment. Really, the dignified thing to do would be to wait, but Sam found she couldn’t. She headed for the door, too, and ran down the stairs in Tyler’s wake.
Danny already had an arm around Tyler as she met him at the downstairs entrance. As she approached them he gave her a classic male once-over, and grinned.
“You look gorgeous.”
He held out his other arm to her, and when she walked into it pulled her close for a kiss. The quick kiss hello she’d meant it to be was turning into something a whole lot hotter when she recollected Tyler, and Kendra, and broke it off.
But from the way Danny grinned down at her, she knew her cheeks were pink.
“So you guys all packed?” Danny asked as he escorted them inside.
See, they were moving to the D.C. area next week. To live with him. Because he said he loved them both, and because they loved him, and because Tyler was over the moon at the prospect, and Sam wanted to give it a try. She was going to sell Big Red, and use the money to finish up her EMT classes fast. That, plus a scholarship Danny’s friend Mayhew had hooked her up with as, in his words, a thank you for her service to the FBI, meant she didn’t have to be financially dependent on Danny, and he didn’t have to feel responsible for Tyler and her.
She had been excited and a little scared when she had realized that the only thing that was left to bind them together was love. He’d asked her to marry him, and she was thinking about it.
Maybe she would, one of these days.
Because hard as it was to get her head around, maybe she was starting to believe in happy endings after all.
KAREN ROBARDS is the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty books, including the romantic thrillers Justice and Sleepwalker, and the historical romance trilogy Scandalous, Irresistible, and Shameless. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her family.
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JACKET DESIGN BY LISA LITWACK
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN VELLENCHENKO
COPYRIGHT © 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER
THE BANNING SISTERS TRILOGY
Shameless
Irresistible
Scandalous
OTHER TITLES BY KAREN ROBARDS
The Last Victim
Sleepwalker
Justice
Shattered
Pursuit
Guilty
Obsession
Vanished
Superstition
Bait
Beachcomber
Whispers at Midnight
To Trust a Stranger
&n
bsp; Paradise County
Ghost Moon
The Midnight Hour
The Senator’s Wife
Heartbreaker
Hunter’s Moon
Walking After Midnight
Maggy’s Child
One Summer
Nobody’s Angel
This Side of Heaven
Green Eyes
Morning Song
Tiger’s Eye
Desire in the Sun
Dark of the Moon
Night Magic
Loving Julia
Wild Orchids
Dark Torment
To Love a Man
Amanda Rose
Forbidden Love
Sea Fire
Island Flame
We hope you enjoyed reading this Gallery Books eBook.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Karen Robards
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books hardcover edition December 2012
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Robards, Karen.
Shiver / Karen Robards. — 1st Gallery Books hardcover ed.
p. cm.
“Gallery original fiction hard”—T.p. verso.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Single mothers—Fiction. 2. Violent crimes—Fiction. 3. Drug traffic—Fiction. 4. Abduction—Fiction. 5. St. Louis (Mo.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.O196S55 2012
813'.54—dc23
2012037437
ISBN 978-1-4516-7867-3
ISBN 978-1-4516-7869-7 (ebook)
Shiver Page 31