Their friendship and the reigning hostilities had a clear start, a spot on the calendar. A day each year when Marshall brought Mary a replacement for her whiskey stash. As to his more complicated feelings for her, he somehow missed the hum of his own body. His ambivalence about his job distracted him from other emotional signals. Some days his love and hate for what he did screamed with such emotional noise that he failed to notice his heart sped up when Mary walked into the room.

The only reason he'd paused at all was that case with the dirty cop. While Mary's ire rose at the very hint of a con artist, Marshall's disgust applied to corrupt members of law enforcement. The proper handling of badge and gun was religion in the Mann family, and the abuse of that power was the ultimate sin. He had to restrain himself from flashing his gun when he saw that asshole start sniffing at Mary during his witness briefing. He was hardly the first witness to do so, but something about this guy's interest in her really irritated him. Or maybe it was a climaxing irritation; he'd seen one male witness after another make passes at Mary, some she noticed, some she didn't. It just annoyed him. When the guy practically fell out of his chair trying to keep Mary's ass within view, Marshall hit his limit.

"Hey, don't." Marshall suspected he might be one of the only men raised to behave properly and respectfully around women. God knows his first-marshal-in-the-state grandmother had stories of the crap she tolerated. It made him wonder what Mary didn't tell him about.

"You have a partner that looks like that and you're getting all worked up about it?" Oh charming. This guy used his penis as an excuse to act like a jerk. Men like him felt entitled to attention from women. They also failed to appreciate it properly when a woman actually did grace them with her interest.

Marshall stared him down. Even in Chicago, some cops go their entire lives without ever firing their weapon. Federal marshals, on the other hand, expected at some point, to have to shoot someone. Marshall felt no threat whatsoever from this city cop; he was just tired of the endless sexual arrows directed at Mary.

Stan took him aside later. "So what was with you and the witness? Seemed a little tense."

Marshall shrugged eloquently. "We had different ideas about appropriate behavior."

Stan's eyebrows shut up. "Appropriate behavior regarding?"

"Mary."

"Yeah, some of our witnesses sure do like to try with her." Stan's cell phone rang. As he picked it up, he commented, "But given what she looks like, you kind of get used to it."

A question came to Marshall's mind. "Why am I getting less used to it?" Really, people hitting on Mary never used to register with him.

The next day, Mary seemed off. She looked both more relaxed and more tense at the same time. She also seemed determined to eat an enormous bear claw in as few bites as possible. "How are things with your mom?" To his surprise, he really wanted to know.

Mary gulped down an obscene-sized bite from her pastry. "OK. It'll be awhile before I adjust, but what can I do? Family's family."

Marshall pursed his lips. That was a pretty revealing non-answer from Mary.

She finished chewing. "Do me a favor?"

"Yeah?"

"Next time I decide to starve myself, shoot me."

"Glad to do it."

He sensed that Mary had broken fast on more than just a physical level.