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W ith a whopper of a blizzard predicted to hit White Bear, Alaska and the surrounding areas in a matter of hours, State Trooper Andy MacMathan joined his family at his parents’ tavern for breakfast before needing to rescue stranded motorists.

Andy grabbed a couple of highchairs for Daniel and Jenny, Andy’s cousin Rob and Alicia’s two-year-old twins. All the children were special, but Alicia always said she thought the twins would have some special abilities like she and Rob had.

Rob and Alicia had premonitions of future events and could see past events by touching something. So far, nothing had surfaced with the kids as Andy sat Jenny in her highchair, and Alicia helped Daniel in his. Both the kids had their parents’ dark brown hair, but they had their mother’s blue eyes.

“See, Rob, I told you Andy has been working out. Look how strong he is,” Alicia teased.

Smiling, Rob was helping his brother Edward and sister-in-law Robyn settle their brood at the table, getting their seven-month-old twins, Lucas and Sawyer, into highchairs. Immediately, the six-year-old twins, Garrett and Bryan, began arguing over who got to sit next to their daddy.

Garrett and Bryan looked just like Edward when he was their age, with dark brown hair and eyes. But Edward and Robyn’s seven-month-old twins were redheads like Robyn, with the same sparkling blue eyes.

“You got to sit with Dad last time, Bryan.” Garrett folded his arms and tapped his foot on the floor, his face a mutinous pout.

It was way too early for the tyke to be up. Bryan wasn’t budging. He also wanted to sit by Daddy.

Edward sighed. “Now you’re making Mommy sad.” He finished belting Lucas into the highchair.

Robyn was securing Sawyer while Rob put her unicorn bib on. “We could always just go home and back to bed.” Robyn spoke sweetly, not as a threat.

The skin beneath Alicia and Rob’s eyes was darker and baggier than usual. They needed more sleep. But they wanted to gather with the family before the blizzard made the families with children housebound.

Andy gave them breaks by fishing with Garrett and Bryan in the summer, building snow forts, and having snowball fights in the winter. It was a free-for-all in the fall, raking the leaves into a mountain and jumping on them. When spring came around, Andy was the best egg-hider of them all.

Six-year-old Garrett finally gave up the grudge and quickly climbed onto the seat beside his mom, looking up at her as if hopeful she wasn’t disappointed that he had wanted to sit by his dad. She smiled down, hugged him, and kissed him on his forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you, Momma.”

They’d already preordered their breakfasts and had the staff come in early to expedite things. So once everyone was seated, the food was served.

Still, before anyone could ask Andy’s brother Craig and his mate, Margot, if there were any babies on the horizon, a usual scenario for the family gatherings, Alicia said, “Ohmigod.”

When they stopped to hear what she said, everyone was forking into maple syrup-covered pancakes, omelets, sausages, or spooning into cereals.

Alicia looked straight at Andy. “You’re off for a week from trooper duty, right?”

Andy’s nerves tingled with a strange apprehension. “I would be, but with the blizzard coming in, the police force needs me. My boss will adjust the time to compensate me. Why?”

Alicia twisted her lips. “Okay.” She took another spoonful of oatmeal, topped with blueberries and whipped cream.

No one resumed eating. Even Garrett and Bryan were waiting in anticipation of what their aunt would say since she had told them they would lose their favorite soccer ball in a snowstorm if they didn’t put it where it belonged.

Did they listen? Nope. When they lost it, they knew she had special powers.

“Rob?” Andy asked since Alicia didn’t seem forthcoming about a future premonition.

Rob shook his head. “This is all on Alicia, it seems. You know how hazy the events we can see are. We both don’t get them about the same situation always, either.”

Alicia and Rob didn’t know the exact times or settings, but they could sometimes catch glimpses of snapshots of what was happening.

Then, everyone slowly began eating, but continued to glance in Alicia’s direction.

Andy knew she wasn’t trying to make this more dramatic than he already felt it was, but she was attempting to make sense of whatever she had seen or could still be seeing.

Then she ate another blueberry and swallowed it. “You’ve met her before. A female polar bear.”

Andy raised his brows. He had met lots of female polar bears before. “A name?”

Alicia shook her head. “I don’t know. She appears angry when she has some business to attend to, and you want to thwart her. She must reach her goal, but you’re an impediment.”

Ben laughed.

The others all looked at him reproachfully.

“You’ve never been with her intimately. I’ve never seen her before, but I know, as if I’m in her body, that you are a problem for her,” Alicia said.

Everyone looked at Andy.

Hell if he knew what any of that meant, but he assumed the worst—he would meet the woman he’d met before in a current traffic accident, since the blizzard was coming—and they would disagree about how things would go.

Great . That’s all he needed—an uncooperative accident victim whom he knew when all sorts of other trouble could be brewing.

Ben shook his head. “Whenever my cousins or brothers have major issues with a female, they mate. So it can’t be all that bad, can it?”

“I’m sure it will work itself out,” Alicia said confidently.

Most of what Rob and Alicia envisioned was dire. With the soccer ball scenario, any parent could assume that a soccer ball left outside before a snowstorm hit White Bear could be buried and disappear.

Even though Ben was trying to make light of the situation, he wore a worried frown. In fact, everyone was.

“Everything will be fine.” Yet Andy was now thinking it wouldn’t be.

In an unmarked car, FBI Special Agent Monica O’Connell watched the heavyweight kidnapper drag his ten-year-old female victim in through the front door of a white wood-framed house while the snow began coming down.

Weather reports had warned of a blizzard of epic proportions hitting the area soon. She needed to rescue the girl pronto.

Monica called for backup, but every minute counted.

She wasn’t waiting for anyone to show up.

As soon as she told them where she was, she left her car, raced around to the back of the house, found a glass door, and peered inside.

The giant of a man forced the girl down on the brown leather couch, tied her wrists in front of her, and left her to enter the kitchen.

Monica wished she could shift into her polar bear and take him down.

She knocked lightly on the glass door to alert the girl that she was there for her.

Sherry Tuttle glanced in that direction, and her eyes widened.

Monica pointed at the door lock. Sherry glanced at the kitchen, then dashed to the door.

She unlocked it, and Monica pulled her outside.

Putting her finger to her lips, Monica told her to be quiet and then closed the glass sliding door.

Her heart and Sherry’s were beating frantically as Monica motioned for Sherry to move to the side of the house where she prayed the girl would be safe.

Sherry ran off through the snow. The kidnapper came out of the kitchen with a sandwich on a plate, saw she wasn’t sitting on the couch any longer, and glanced at the glass sliding door.

When he saw Monica with her gun readied, his eyes widened.

He dashed for the kitchen. Monica moved away from the door so he couldn’t shoot her through it.

Now that the kidnapper didn’t have Sherry under his control, Monica didn’t barge into the house to try to take him down. She would wait for backup. His significant figure filled the glass door before he jerked it open.

“Down on the ground, now!” she shouted.

He changed his mind and returned to the house, slamming and locking the door. She peered in to see what he was doing next. He headed out through the front door, and Monica raced around to the side of the house to make sure Sherry was still there and out of his sight.

Tears were running down Sherry’s cheeks, and Monica pulled out a knife and cut the rope that was binding her wrists. Sirens wailed, headed in the direction of the house. Thank God.

“Stay here, all right? We’ll get you home soon.” Monica called her boss. “Sir, I’ve got Sherry. The kidnapper is getting into his pickup truck and attempting to flee. Police are nearly here.”

“Keep me informed.”

“I sure will.”

She motioned for Sherry to stay at the side of the house and checked around the corner to see where the kidnapper was. He was gassing the engine of an old blue Ford pickup, but it wasn’t moving out of the driveway.

Then, four patrol cars drove up and blocked him in. The officers piled out of their vehicles, using them for cover. With weapons pointed at his truck, they shouted at him to get out of the vehicle.

Monica waved her badge at them. “FBI Agent Monica O’Connell. I’ve got Sherry over here. She’s safe.” She had to let the officers know that the kidnapper didn’t have Sherry in the truck where he could use her as a hostage.

“We’ve got you surrounded. Come out of the truck!” the officer shouted to the kidnapper.

He opened the driver’s door.

“Come out slowly. Out of the truck now!”

He didn’t move. She was poised with her gun, but she didn’t want to shoot him if she didn’t have to.

An investigation would result. They would take her gun.

They would likely have a psychologist talk to her about how she felt about shooting the man.

Perhaps they would even put her on paid leave until they determined how it all unfolded.

Because her body cam was on, at least investigators could see everything that had happened.