Sergeant's Christmas Siege

by Megan Crane

“Kate,” he said, and made a meal of that sharp, sweet syllable. “Can I call you Kate?”

  “You may not.”

  “The thing is, Kate,” he said lazily, because it wasn’t a crime to call her by her first name, and he sure was finding those hints of temper in her addictive, “you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I’m not a threat. Alaska Force is not a threat. There can actually be good in the world, even out here in the middle of nowhere, and even if it involves a collection of military veterans you’re suspicious of, for some reason.”

  Her head tilted slightly to one side. “I can’t think of anything more dangerous than a group of militaristic individuals, armed to the teeth, who are convinced not only of their own strength but of their own righteous goodness. Can you?”

  Templeton shoved his headlamp back on his head and considered her, there before him on the step, dressed for a cold run and not in her uniform. He figured she’d take a dim view of it if he touched her the way he wanted to, so he kept his hands to himself.

  And sighed. “I think you might want to ask yourself why, when you look at a forest, you see a logging cult. When it’s just trees.”

  “Thank you for that, Mr. Cross. You truly are a philosopher.” Her smile was sharp. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to return to what I was doing. I have your cell phone number. I’ll call you when and if I want to see you again.”

  And he should have let her go when she turned and started climbing the stairs again. He should have trotted back down to the village, but there was something about Kate Holiday that dug under his skin and hummed there. It wasn’t that she’d followed him last night. He understood and respected the move. He’d clocked her when he’d stepped out of the Fairweather and had been impressed with her stealth as she’d tracked him through the fog to the little house that his Alaska Force brother Griffin had just moved into.

  Are we going to do something about that? Griffin had asked, without looking toward the window.

  Not a lot we can do, Templeton had replied. Lazily.

  They’d both known when she’d melted away again. Later, he and Griffin had done a perimeter run of the village to make sure everything in Grizzly Harbor was as it should be, with no boats or storage sheds about to blow. And he’d spent longer than he planned to admit looking at the faint crack of light in the upstairs window at the Blue Bear Inn. Just making sure she made it through the fog, he’d told himself.

  He’d come out this morning to run until he got his head on straight. To remind himself he’d given himself rules on purpose, and that he shouldn’t have spent far too long last night coming up with reasons why she was an exception.

  And then here she was. As if he’d conjured her.

  Templeton wasn’t one to look a holiday gift in the mouth, rules or no rules.

  So for the hell of it, he followed her up the stairs hacked into the side of the hill, matching his stride to hers, step for step.

  And he could swear he saw the fury come off her in waves, bright and hot.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Mr. Cross, but I would strongly advise you to stop. Now.”

  She was huffing a little bit as she threw that at him without stopping her jog, which he found a lot cuter than he should have.

  “I take the safety of local law enforcement officials very seriously, Kate,” he replied merrily, and kept going right alongside her. “I wouldn’t want you to come to any harm here in Grizzly Harbor.”

  They still weren’t at the top, but she stopped and whirled on him. And he was only one step below her just then, so that meant she was forced to look up at him. Which he liked. A lot.

  “Again, that sounds a lot like a threat. What harm can I expect to come to, Mr. Cross? Do you think this is a game?”

  “I think it’s a run. A little morning workout to get the blood flowing. But we can make it a game if you want. I like games.”

  And he had spent his entire adult life strategizing. Calculating odds, assessing situations, reacting with pinpoint precision to the slightest alteration. He’d been taught to expect the unexpected. He reveled in conquering the unknown.

  Yet he still had no freaking idea what it was about this cop that was making him act like he was still an eighteen-­year-­old kid, hopped up on hormones and a sense of his own immortality.

  Isaac had told him to charm her, not flirt with her. Templeton couldn’t seem to tell the difference.

  “What do you think is happening here?” she asked him, but she’d lost that cop voice. She sounded . . . husky. Scratchy. Almost as rough as he did.

  And Templeton knew they were standing on the side of a mountain, smack down in the middle of the great Alaskan wilderness, with only a few lights in the vil­lage down below to suggest that they were anywhere near civilization—­but it didn’t feel that way. The dark hemmed them in. The thickness of the air made it . . . intimate.

  Or maybe that was his own blood, raising a ruckus in his veins and making him at least sixteen kinds of a fool.

  “I know exactly what’s happening, Kate,” he said, his voice too deep and too low, no matter how much he wanted to tell himself that he was talking about Alaska Force and the people who were very clearly gunning for them. “I think the real question is, do you?”

  And he didn’t lift his hands and put them on her. He didn’t smooth his hand down the length of her ponytail or adjust the bit of fleece she wore wrapped over her ears. He didn’t put his hands on her shoulders or run them down the length of her arms. He didn’t get a grip on her, letting his fingers test the lean muscle in her arms, and he certainly didn’t pull her up on her toes so he could finally taste that mouth of hers that was driving him crazy.

  He didn’t do a single one of those things, because he’d put his personal set of rules into play for a reason. He had no intention of making the same mistake twice.

  Templeton stood there like a saint, halo shining brighter than his headlamp, and reminded himself he was one of the most highly trained military operatives in the world.

  He’d handled the collapse of governments, the brink of any number of disasters, and the so-­called end of the world so many times he usually entertained himself and others by cracking jokes en route to the latest apocalypse. Just last week he’d been jumping out of a plane into a miserable jungle to relieve a nasty cartel of a few hostages and a caravan stuffed full of product, and he’d found the operation entertaining.

  He could handle a girl. Even one with a badge and a dim view of his life’s work.

  Of course you can handle her, he growled at himself.

  Her breathing changed as they gazed at each other in the light from the lamps they wore. And he knew that if he reached out and put his fingers in the crook of her neck, he’d feel her pulse. He knew that it would be clattering around, causing a commotion, just like his.

  In addition to her cool-­cop look, he’d seen flashes of amusement here and there, and maybe even temper. What he was not prepared for was the flash of something he would have sworn was vulnerability, making her eyes seem even darker out there in what was left of the night.

  She didn’t argue with him. She didn’t try to brazen this moment out. Instead, she turned on her heel and raced toward the top of the stairs as if her life depended on it.

  Every single cell in Templeton’s body urged him to follow her. But he didn’t. He waited.

  He and Griffin had traded off watch patrols throughout the night, because who knew where or when the next strike would happen? When Griffin had relieved Temple­ton this morning, the temperature had been hovering around thirty-­six, which made it perfect for working up a sweat and clearing his head. The last thing he’d expected was a little one-­on-­one time with his trooper.

  But he couldn’t deny that he liked it. He liked her.

  Liking her wasn’t the same thing as crossing the lines he’d drawn, he
assured himself. Repeatedly.

  And he didn’t know what it said about him that the more she scowled at him, or tried to put him in his place, the more he liked it.

  Nonetheless, standing still in the dark, frigid morning was as good as the cold shower he clearly needed. Better, maybe. He made himself breathe, long and deep. He didn’t try to hide from the cold; he leaned into it, and hoped like hell that would make his body settle down, too.

  And when he heard Kate’s footsteps coming toward him again, he had himself under control. Or close enough.

  She didn’t stop when she got to him, so Templeton fell in behind her, which meant slowing himself down, given his size and stride—­but not as much as he might have expected. Because, as he’d noticed yesterday, Trooper Holiday took her fitness seriously.

  Almost as seriously as Templeton took the view of her from behind as she took the steps back down to town at a decent clip.

  When they got to the main street, she started toward the inn, but wheeled around before she’d gone too far and glared at him. She reached up to pull the headlamp off her face now that there were all the Christmas lights twinkling on this and that building to illuminate them both.

  “Was it my imagination, Mr. Cross, or were you fixated on my ass all the way down the stairs?”

  “Is your ass a permitted topic of conversation? I can rustle up some commentary, if you like.”

  “I don’t like.” That flash of vulnerability he’d seen was gone now. She folded her arms over her chest, and the fact that she was wearing cold-­weather running gear instead of her uniform did absolutely nothing to take away that cop vibe. “I’m less entertained than you might imagine by your antics.”

  “Impossible. I’m delightful. Everyone thinks so.”

  “I can only assume that I’m meant to flutter about, blushing and giggling every time you look at me, and forget the reason I came here in the first place.”

  “I’ve seen the blushing. When will the giggling start?”

  “This isn’t going to end well for you, Mr. Cross. You can call me Kate. You can make suggestive remarks. All it does is paint a picture of a man who thinks he can break the rules on a whim. A man who feels beholden to absolutely nothing save his libido and his pride. There’s only one place that’s going to go, and it’s not the bedroom of your juvenile fantasies. It’s a prison cell.”

  “It’s okay if you think I’m hot,” Templeton assured her in his mildest drawl. “You don’t have to make it all about handcuffs and domination.” He couldn’t help his grin. “Unless that’s what you’re into.”

  “Hilarious. You’re digging your own grave.”

  “It’s okay, Kate. I think you’re hot, too.”

  If a person could explode without actually moving, she managed to do it. He was sure he could see flames dancing around her head while all she did was take that death glare of hers to another level.

  Predictably, he found that just as appealing.

  “I can’t express to you how little I care who or what you find hot,” she said, so icily it was like a storm front moved in while she clipped out the words. “The weather reports suggest that wind conditions will shift and the fog will ease around eight. Enough to allow us to travel to Fool’s Cove without risking our lives. I’ll be ready to go at that time. I suggest that you make yourself ready, too, and if you have any sense of self-­preservation whatsoever, I’d leave your inappropriate remarks at home.”

  And he watched as she turned—­without any hint of temper or emotion even when he’d seen it all over her, because she really was good—­and walked calmly up the street to the inn. Dismissing him as if he were neither the least bit interesting nor a threat to anyone, which should have offended him.

  Maybe it would have if he’d believed her.

  Templeton stood there awhile, letting himself get good and cold again because his body wasn’t listening to a single thing he told it to do. Not where she was concerned. And given he was a highly tuned instrument that could be used as a weapon at a moment’s notice, and often was, he found that . . . alarming.

  He ran a loop of Grizzly Harbor, out along the hiking trail that led past the hot springs out to the point, then back. He lifted his hand in the direction of the place he knew Griffin was stationed, though of course he didn’t see a single sign of him. Griffin was like smoke. Most targets never knew he was there at all. They just went down.

  When he came back into town, Templeton let himself into the in-­law addition off to the side of the house that Griffin used as an office. He had a shower and a couple of extra beds, where his Alaska Force brothers could crash when they found themselves staying in Grizzly Harbor overnight instead of making their way back across the water to Fool’s Cove.

  Templeton showered, then dressed again quickly. He realized as he did that he no longer stopped to wonder how, of all of them, someone he would have said was as closed off as Griffin had managed to find himself tucked up in all this domesticity. Griffin’s Mariah had been a client on the run from her ex when she found Alaska Force, and had hidden out on the island for a while. And Griffin wasn’t the only one who’d found someone, surprising everyone else in their tight little unit. Blue Hendricks, former Navy SEAL and all-­around hard-­ass, was actually engaged to a girl he’d grown up with, who’d tracked him down all the way out here when she found herself in some trouble back in Chicago.

  Templeton would have bet real money that neither one of them would ever settle down. With anyone, ever. Or even pretend to. And Templeton wasn’t used to being wrong.

  He chose not to question why he was thinking about his friends’ romantic relationships, because that was obviously heading nowhere good.

  He called in, getting Isaac on the first ring.

  “Incoming,” Templeton said. “I’m meeting our trooper Holiday at eight, and we’re headed straight for Fool’s Cove.”

  “Affirmative.” Templeton was sure he could hear Isaac roll his eyes. “What’s your take on this?”

  Templeton’s take grew increasingly more X-rated the more he thought about his personal trooper, but he’d already handled himself in the shower. He certainly didn’t need to share his upsetting lack of focus with Isaac, who, in his role as Templeton’s best friend, would shamelessly exploit that weakness.

  “Hard to say. I’m going to swing by Caradine’s to see if I can get a sense of how her interview went yesterday after I left.”

  “I don’t think you need to get a sit rep on Caradine.” Isaac’s voice changed, the way it always did when the topic of Caradine came up. Because the two of them had so much tension it could clear a room. And had. Templeton wished they would handle it already, but he only said things like that to Isaac when there were drinks around. And therefore less likelihood that his best friend might take his head off for mentioning that tension in the first place. “You can bet she was rude. The end.”

  “Still, I’d like to triangulate this a little bit, so we can see where the trooper’s coming from.”

  “What I don’t understand is how she failed to succumb to the patented Templeton Cross charm. Did the world end yesterday while I wasn’t paying attention?”

  That was even funnier when you knew, as Templeton did, how very close the world had come to ending in one way or another over the years but hadn’t, thanks to Isaac Gentry’s attention and interference. But that wasn’t why Templeton laughed.

  “Oh, she succumbed,” he said. “What she didn’t do was change her position on Alaska Force. Two different things, brother.”

  “Maybe try making them one thing, then,” Isaac suggested. “Didn’t you used to be better at this?”

  “Now, Isaac,” Templeton drawled. “You know there are rules.”

  “That’s never been my takeaway from what happened.”

  “I called in a report, and you’re trying to talk about ancient history.” Templ
eton kept his voice light, though he wasn’t amused. “Are you my commanding officer or my sorority sister?”

  Isaac laughed. And Templeton knew that laugh. It meant there would be a reckoning—­likely in the form of the physical challenges Isaac liked to set for their community workouts every morning, which Templeton would pretend to find exhilarating, just to irritate him.

  “Go handle the trooper, please,” Isaac said. “With or without pledging her to a sorority. Your choice.”

  Templeton would have loved nothing more. But instead of chasing down his trooper and continuing to polish his halo, he went over to the Water’s Edge Café. And it was still dark this side of the tardy December sunrise, so the café part wasn’t open. He went around the side and jogged up the outdoor stairs to the apartment that sat up over the restaurant.

  His first knock went unanswered. His second did, too, but he got that prickly feeling he always did when someone was watching him. But Caradine herself didn’t appear until his third knock, when she wrenched open the door and stood there in the crack with the chain still on, glaring at him.

  “Is someone dead?” she demanded.

  Her hair was standing up in places. She was wearing an oversized black sweatshirt that could have fit three of her, obnoxiously patterned flannel pajama bottoms, and what looked like knockoff Uggs. And still she was glaring at Templeton like he was the one looking like he’d just crawled out of a swamp.

  “Would that make you happy?” Templeton asked. “Wait. Let me guess who you’d most like to be dead.”

  “If you guess yourself, congratulations.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “I hate you, it’s early, and yet you’re here. Do something about that. Oh, wait. I will.”

  She went to close the door, but Templeton held it open with one hand. She stared at his hand. Then she lifted her gaze to his face.

  “Keep your hand there and I’ll start cutting fingers off.”

  Templeton believed her. He removed his hand. “I want to talk to you about your interview yesterday. I don’t want to lose fingers.”