Wolf Tracks - Bianca D'Arc Page 0,31

might be at the airport to meet us. I’m not sure. I do have an information request in to his sheriff, and I’m hoping they’ll have more intel for us when we land.”

“Do you want another sandwich?” Helen asked, stowing the napkin and paper plate she’d used for lunch in a garbage sack she’d brought with her from the galley. She reached for the refuse off Jim’s tray, as well.

“Maybe just another bottle of juice, if you have it,” he replied. “I’m looking forward to a good meal in Big Wolf when we land. Their barbeque is known throughout the area and by pilots all over the country. I’m hoping we’ll have time to sit down and enjoy a meal there before we have to be on the hunt again.”

That sounded nice to Helen. The past twenty-four hours had been jam-packed with tension and stress. She would enjoy a chance to wind down and sit in a restaurant for a little while, even if it meant she’d be surrounded by werewolves. She was getting to like being around shifters. They were so healthy, her gift rarely activated, which was a blessing. Normally, going out in public meant being pulled in multiple directions when her gift demanded she help everyone within a certain radius.

Which was the main reason why Helen didn’t leave the farm much. Not that she minded healing people who would never know what she’d done for them. Her gift was freely given and happily used, but it did drain her. Sometimes, it drained her too much. Simple shopping trips to the grocery store had almost killed her, more than once, when she encountered someone so ill that she gave way too much of her personal energy to help them.

At those times, she would barely make it back to her car, where she’d call one of her siblings for help. Usually, her brothers would come to get her, taking care of the groceries and driving her car back to the farm where her mother and sisters would fuss over her until she regained a bit of strength.

Helen stayed in the galley for a bit, tidying up before she returned to the cockpit with Jim’s bottle of juice. Leslie had packed a tray of cookies, so Helen brought a couple up front with her on a napkin. She figured Jim might want some, but if not, she wouldn’t mind eating them all. Sweets were her downfall.

She offered Jim a cookie, but he declined, and she grinned. “More for me,” she murmured, taking a big bite out of a chewy oatmeal raisin cookie. There was also a sugar cookie and two chocolate chip in the napkin.

“Interesting,” Jim said, looking over at her with a grin.

“What is?” she asked, feeling a little defensive. Her brothers had often teased her about her love of sweets, to the point of real annoyance. Well, she was away from home now, and she wasn’t going to take any guff from a guy who’d just wolfed down four humongous sandwiches.

“That you have a sweet tooth,” he answered without rancor. “I find that intriguing.”

She narrowed her gaze. “What? No comment about how I’d better watch myself eating so much sugar? How I’m going to blow up like a cow if I keep eating all the cookies?”

Helen wanted to stop the words coming out of her mouth, but something about Jim invited honesty. She realized only at that moment, how fed up she was with her brothers’ snide comments. As if they had any right to pass judgment on what she ate or didn’t eat.

Jim’s expression sobered. “Aw, hell. Who’s been saying such mean things to you?” he asked, right away, as if he would rush to defend her. She just shook her head. “For the record, I think it’s cute that you like cookies. Sweets for the sweet. And you are, Helen… Sweet, that is.”

His voice had dropped low, and his words sent shivers down her spine. She looked up at him from under lowered lashes, barely able to believe how the atmosphere between them had changed so sharply, so fast. From a teasing conversation about cookies, they’d jumped right into an intimate exchange where he was telling her how sweet he thought she was.

Didn’t that just beat all? He thought she was sweet. She wondered how to take that. Sweet like sugar? Sweet like a little sister? Sweet like the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted…and wanted more?

There were a few different ways to interpret what he’d