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about who she was. Who she really was.
    Not a chance. No one knew who really lived behind her ever-changing exterior. No one ever had—not since those early years when she’d learned to hide her true self and to give her parents what they wanted to see and hear in a daughter, all to get a glimpse of approval—that kiss on the cheek, that simple caress on her arm. A parental smile of pride. Oh, she’d learned all right. And after a while the real Sam never came out to anyone. Never risked that disapproval.
    “All right,” she said, mind made up. She could ditch him any time she pleased—so it was, for a chameleon. And she had no worries about spilling information to him…he might not believe she didn’t have any, but it would be his problem when he learned she’d been straight about that. “My car is a couple blocks from here. I hope you can drive a stick.”
     
    Sam shouldn’t have been surprised when he pulled to the curb a mere block from Sheltering Arms, the women’s shelter that sent the Captain the most referrals. She shouldn’t have been, but she was. This whole system ran on secrecy, and their contact at Sheltering Arms was no less dedicated than anyone else. There’s no way anyone here would have talked—not unless she’d been threatened somehow—and threatened badly. Those here were used to dealing with domestic violence, with how quickly it ratcheted out of control and with how deeply the aftermath scarred its battered victims.
    Threatened. Threatened badly.
    Sam shot Jethro Sheridan a sideways look.
    She wished she had more than just her mousegun with her this evening. The Kel-Tec snugged nicely into her back pocket, but it wasn’t a gun that could be brandished. It was a gun to be used from point-blank range, before its target even knew the threat existed. It wasn’t a gun that offered second chances.
    And nonetheless, it was what she had. She gave Jeth a warning look—one he certainly wouldn’t be able to interpret, and if he actually needed the warning then she was a fool to give it. But she did, and then she sighed and fumbled in the backseat for her lined windbreaker, holding her hand out for her keys at the same time. And though she winced inwardly in anticipation of that cold metal hitting her abraded palms, it didn’t happen. Jeth carefully hung the keyring off the end of her undamaged pinky so she could slide the keys into her pocket.
    Well. All right, then.
    They got out of the car at the same time, hit the locks, and stood up to regard one another over the roof. He looked like he might have something to say and she felt words hovering on her own lips—unformed words of further warning, words looking for reassurance that he might actually be telling the truth about Lizbet being his sister.
    Then again, even if that were the case…it meant he knew his sister had been beaten, knew and hadn’t given her the safe harbor or support she needed to resolve the situation without going underground.
    That’s probably not fair.
    No, of course not. And exactly how fair was anything about this situation?
    Sam nodded at the shelter. Her breath gusted a light cloud against the sharpening chill in the night air. Snow, maybe, even this early in the season. Whatever. She said, “Lead on.”
    He surprised her then. He pulled a pair of gloves from his sweatshirt pocket, fine deerskin half-finger gloves with slightly padded palms. “My biking gloves,” he said, holding them out to her. “They’re probably big, but they might help.”
    She hesitated, looking up at him. Searching his eyes for signs of a man who might have threatened someone at this shelter into talking.
    He smiled crookedly at her. “Not the gesture you expected from a man who takes his problems out on women?”
    She was supposed to be embarrassed, but she didn’t look away. She took the gloves and murmured, “Just for the record, Jeth, I’m not personally worried about it.”
    He took the warning for what it was. “No,” he