Page 62 of Preying Game

He shot her a quick glance. “It’s that obvious?”

“I know your emotions. I know he means a lot to you.”

Jonah nodded. He had never put his feelings for Frank into words, but Alice’s assessment made sense.

He reached for her hand. “He finds people who are misfits because of their special talents and brings them into the Decorah family. I’m thankful that he found me.”

“Like you found me.”

“Uh huh.”

“What about your real father?” she asked.

He felt a pang of sadness—and anger. “He and my mom were killed by a drunk driver on the highway.”

Her grip on his hand tightened. “I’m so sorry.”

“I was already in college. I’d moved out of the house, but it was still hard. I went from being a kid—to taking care of myself pretty quickly.”

“That sounds rough.”

“I coped.” He swallowed hard, refocusing on good memories. “Dad and I got along. He taught me how to fix cars—and we’d do stuff like camping and fishing.”

“Good.” She was silent for a moment, then asked, “What about your talent?”

“I didn’t really recognize it when I was a kid. Actually, not until I got into police work, and I realized I could tell if people were lying to me. Which was why I got fed up with the department. There was a lot of lying in the administration—on a lot of levels.”

“Oh.”

“Lucky for me, Frank approached me at a conference. He recognized what I had, and when I joined Decorah, Grant and Mack spent a lot of time improving my skills.”

They sat together, not needing to talk, and watched the tourists enjoy the crisp fall day. Finally he said, “We should do some grocery shopping.”

They drove to a supermarket near his apartment, and the place was another surprise.

“So drugstores have stuff you’d find in a grocery. And groceries have stuff you’d find in a drugstore.”

“Right. They both want to take advantage of one-stop shopping.”

Alice pushed a cart up and down the aisles, marveling at the number of products and the variety of produce.

“A lot of this stuff isn’t in season,” she said as she picked up a box of strawberries. We have them on the farm, but only in the spring.”

“They’re shipped in from Latin America. Or somewhere else that is warmer than here. But the later it gets in the year, the less flavor they have.”

She nodded. “So don’t bother with them?”

“Right.”

She reached for a bag of green beans. “These are already snapped.”

“They want to make it convenient. What do you want for dinner?”

“That’s a hard question, since I didn’t get any choices for months. What if I said—pancakes with sautéed apples?”

He laughed. “Fine by me. Should we get pancake mix?”

“You don’t need a mix. It’s just flour, milk, butter, and eggs. And baking powder.”

---