Page 11 of Can She Get Home for Christmas?

Crossing to the carry bags, she got out the cookie tin, put it on the table, and gestured toward the contents.

He took a cookie, bit in, and chewed—his expression going dreamy. “This is wonderful.”

“Thanks.” She took a cookie and sampled her own work.

As she ate, she kept her gaze on him, tension curling through her. The easiest thing would be to just keep her mouth shut, but she knew she couldn’t do that. She was in a small cabin with a strange man, and she needed to know more about him. “I think it’s time you told me about that special talent you don’t want to discuss.”

Chapter 5

Jax dragged in a breath and let it out. He could have pretended to be watching for the water to boil. Instead he crossed to the table, pulled out the chair opposite Sam, and sat down. He eyed the cookies, but since Sam didn’t take another, he didn’t either.

All the way here, as they’d tramped through the snow, he’d been thinking that if they were going to be cooped up together, he was going to have to come clean with her.

His “okay” of agreement made her visibly relax, and he figured she’d probably thought he was going to keep stonewalling her. Of course, he wasn’t going to tell her that a bunch of his friends were werewolves. But there were plenty of other talents he could mention among the group of Decorah operatives.

“Let me start with some of my coworkers.”

“Why?”

“It might make it easier to understand where I’m coming from. Frank Decorah is the founder of our agency and still runs the shop. He looks for men and women who have extra abilities that can help in our detective work,” he began.

“Extra training?”

“No, extra intuition.” He heard himself say, “Like one of us can communicate mind to mind with strangers, at least under certain circumstances.”

She seemed to mull over the claim. “I guess I’ll have to take that on faith.”

“When you meet Jonah Raider, you can get a better explanation straight from him. The woman who later became his wife was being held captive by a serial killer. He was able to reach out to her in her prison cell. Or better yet, you can ask Alice about it.”

Before Sam could comment, he went on. “Another of our agents can pick up objects and get information about the owner. Two of our guys are twins and can talk to each other without speaking—over distances.”

His gaze flicked to her face. She looked like she was taking his word at face value—for the moment.

“And you?” she asked.

Well, they’d finally arrived at the moment of truth. “I told you Frank Decorah assigned me to this case. I started staking out the road where the UNSUB . . .”

“What’s an UNSUB?” she interrupted

“An unknown suspect. Frank was hoping I’d get enough insight into his next victim to keep it from happening again.”

“And you had to be out here so you’d be nearby when it happened.”

“Yeah.”

“I still don’t get how you knew it was going to bemespecifically.”

He swallowed hard. “Okay, after I got the assignment, I started trying to focus on the next victim. At first nothing happened, and I was going to tell Frank it wasn’t working. Then I started dreaming about you. I didn’t know your name, but I knew you were going to end up on this road—in danger. After a week of the dreams, I started being able to tune in on you during the day.”

She reared back. “Let me get this straight. You were spying on me?”

“No!”

“What would you call it?”

“I saw flashes of your life. I know you’re a teacher—of little kids. I know you love your job.”

“How?” she demanded.

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