by Megan Crane
“I can remedy that right now,” Tracy said, and lifted her gun.
Kate aimed the flare gun directly at her mother’s face.
“Go ahead, Mom,” she said. “See if you can shoot me before I light you up like a Christmas tree.”
Tracy scoffed. “Have you forgotten I’m the one who taught you how to shoot?”
There was no shame, no guilt, no second thoughts. Kate had spent too much time this month indulging her inner child, that poor kid. But here, now, she was the policewoman she’d made herself out of that kid. She had already risen like a phoenix once. She would damn well do it again, if necessary.
She couldn’t say she particularly wanted to kill her mother. Of course she didn’t.
But she would.
“You taught me a lot of things,” Kate replied, keeping herself balanced and her hands steady. “But I got over that a long time ago.”
Tracy screamed like a banshee. Bloody murder, rage, and all that crazy besides. She lunged forward and brandished her weapon at Kate as if she wanted to pistol-whip her, then maybe get around to shooting her a few times.
But Kate saw her opening. Tracy overbalanced and nearly toppled into the water. Kate shifted to the side, then reached across the bench seat where she and Will had huddled, and smacked the handgun out of her mother’s hand.
The gun clattered across the boat’s floor. It skated around, then hit Will in the side. And Kate had to hope that Will was the one who picked it up, not their grunting, bellowing second cousin. But she couldn’t concentrate on their fight. Not when Tracy was screaming even louder now, grabbing her hand as if Kate had cut it off.
“Give it up,” Kate advised her. “You can’t win this.”
The spotlight picked them up as the helicopter flew closer, lower. The boat rocked wildly. Tracy jerked her head up, as if she couldn’t believe her own eyes. Kate wanted to look up herself, but she could tell where the helicopter was by the look on her mother’s face and the way she swayed.
“You’re going back to prison,” Kate told her. “For good this time. You might as well accept that here and now.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw ropes dropping down from above, with men on the ends of them. A figure jumped into the water to go after the cousin who’d fallen overboard. But the man on the other rope moved closer.
It was dark, she was looking only with her peripheral vision, and she still knew it was Templeton.
She felt him, like a natural disaster, deep in the core of her. Like that ritual that really, she’d survived twice.
And once again, he’d proved that she could trust him absolutely.
Something in her stuttered at that. But she shoved it away, slammed the lid on it, and compartmentalized it with the strength of years’ practice.
In the back of the boat, Will was holding the gun on their remaining second cousin. His face was beat up and he had a bloody nose, but the look he threw Kate was proud.
Because this time, he knew who he was. Not a traitor. Just done with this Holiday family crap once and for all.
Kate knew the feeling.
Templeton came closer, hanging at the end of the rope over the brooding, dangerous December sea the way other men might take a casual walk on a flat road.
But that was Templeton.
Always a freaking light show.
“You’re not worthy,” Tracy shouted at Kate. “You never were. But I know I am.”
Kate snapped her attention back to her mother. And when Tracy moved, Kate couldn’t make sense of what she was doing. She leaned down and screamed again as she sort of squatted.
“What are you doing?” Kate demanded. And then she saw what she was doing. “Put down that anchor!”
She braced herself, waiting for her mother to swing the anchor at her—calculating how much it would hurt and whether it would knock her overboard or not—
“I know my worth!” her mother screamed at her.
Then, holding the anchor tight to her chest, Tracy threw herself overboard.
And sank like a stone.
Twenty-three
They tried, but they couldn’t recover Tracy Holiday’s body.
Templeton was inclined to think that was a good thing. Because when a person chose their grave, they should be left to it.
But he had no idea how Kate felt about it.
“Are you okay?” he’d asked when he’d finally gotten to her. When he’d finally put his hands on her in that small, swamped boat. Where she was already too damp and risking exposure by the second.
But she was Kate. So she’d scowled at him while he pulled the emergency blanket around her shoulders, as if he were the one who’d assaulted her.
“I’m fine.”
“Kate, you watched your mother—”
“I said I was fine,” she’d snapped at him. “That wasn’t your mother. That was the lunatic who raised me, who never should have had a child in the first place. I’m not crying. I’m not going to cry.”
“Kate—”
“Did you come here to save me?” she’d thrown at him while the wind from the water and the helicopter rotors churned all around them. “Guess what, Templeton? I saved myself. Again.”
And Templeton’s personal tragedy, aside from the burn of her words, was that he’d had his comm unit on when she’d said that. Loud and clear, so that all his Alaska Force brothers could hear it, internalize it, and use it to mock him forever.
That was exactly what they did. Starting right then, with a low, dark, delighted laugh that Templeton didn’t recognize at first as it lit up the comm channel. And then realized that the reason he didn’t recognize it was because it was Jonas doing the laughing. And Jonas never laughed.
Terrific.
But then the practicalities took over. There were dirtbags to handle and the authorities to call to the scene. Troopers and paramedics and anyone else who wanted to come to the party. Isaac was already on his way, having mobilized out of Anchorage within minutes of that first explosion.
They brought everyone to the Blue Bear Inn, bad Holiday cousins and good Holiday cousins alike. Kate disappeared briefly to change her clothes, then came back downstairs with that same blank expression that Templeton remembered from the first afternoon they’d met.
All Alaska State Trooper. No Kate.
And he was so happy she was alive, it didn’t matter which one she was.
But he was revising that opinion even before the Troopers arrived. There were statements to give, the usual bureaucratic nonsense to wade through. Medical checks to undergo.
All of which intensified when Isaac showed up, because it looked like he was ready, finally, to stop pretending to the Alaskan authorities that he was nothing more than a local boy with a gun collection and some similarly enthusiastic friends.
Christmas night wore on.
Caradine, the grouchiest Good Samaritan Templeton had ever encountered, kept appearing at intervals. She dispensed coffee and her trademark glares and usually left behind a plate of this or that to keep everybody’s strength up as they sorted through what had happened tonight. And in the months leading up to it.
Tracy had blown up her own plane. Kate had seen her do it with her mobile phone. The blast had been bright but largely self-contained, which cut down on the property damage.
Everyone’s best hypothesis was that she’d wrapped the anchor chain around herself as she sank, so that even when she let go when her air ran out, she couldn’t come back up to the surface.
“If she let go,” Kate said when the theory was advanced to her. “Which I doubt.”
Templeton kept waiting to get another moment with her. For her to seek him out and maybe smile at him the way she had when it was just the two of them, driving on those mountain roads on the Seward Highway. He kept waiting, but she didn’t come t
o him.
And even when her eyes met his, it was like the Kate he knew wasn’t there.
It wasn’t until the troopers began to pack their things up, many hours later, that it occurred to him that Kate was going to . . . just leave. Without a word.
And he couldn’t accept that. He couldn’t believe it.
He caught up to her in the upstairs hall of the inn. This was Grizzly Harbor’s most eventful Christmas since the year a moose got into the general store, and folks were still milling around near the smoldering remains of Tracy’s plane. The Fairweather was doing a brisk business, well into the night, as locals gathered to tell ever more fictionalized tales of their bravery tonight.
If Templeton squinted, he might mistake the crime scene for one of the typical Alaskan festivals that the locals loved so much they threw them all the time. Bundle up well enough, after all, and even a cold December night could feel downright jovial.
But his attention was on the woman who came out of the guest room at the top of the stairs, her bag on her shoulder and not one thing he recognized in her cool brown gaze.
“Did you want something?” she asked him.
“That’s how you want to play this? Like you don’t know me?”
“Maybe you should call me baby,” she suggested. “That worked so well the last time.”
“Kate,” he began.
But she shook her head. “I’m not doing this.”
“Having a conversation?”
“A conversation. The rest of it. Whatever it is, I don’t want it.”
He started to argue, but she shook her head. And her thousand-yard stare was what cut at him the most.
“Tonight was actually validating,” she said, sounding as if she were already gone. “All this time, I’ve been beating myself up for not getting the things that everybody else seems to. For not understanding the world. But it turns out, I understand it fine. I know who people are. And I know what they do.”
He couldn’t understand why that sounded like good-bye.
“The fact that you can trust me should be a good thing, shouldn’t it?”
“I trust you to do what you do, in your corner,” she said, which wasn’t the same thing. “If tonight proved anything to me, it’s that I do best in my own corner, doing my own thing. That’s what I’m good at. That’s what I know.”
“That’s an interesting takeaway.” He wanted to reach out and touch her, but he didn’t. Somehow, he kept his hands to himself. “Meanwhile, what I learned tonight is that I’m falling in love with you.”
She smiled at that, and it broke his heart.
“No, you’re not,” she said, with a quiet certainty that broke the pieces of his heart all over again. “You like a damsel in distress. It’s in your blood. It’s who you are. But that’s not me.”
“Kate.”
He could hear how torn he sounded. How destroyed. He knew she could, too. He didn’t care if his comm unit was on and the whole world heard him.
And still, when she walked away from him, she didn’t look back.
* * *
• • •
It took four days for Templeton to come to a decision.
One day to get pissed. Another to drink. A third day to analyze the situation the way he would a tricky op.
On the fourth day, he and Isaac were lying on the floor of the so-called box of pain, down by the water’s edge. The brutal morning workout had left everyone gasping. They’d all staggered off when it was done, cursing Isaac’s name in that way that brought him his greatest and deepest joy. That was why Templeton refused to do it himself.
Instead of heading back to his cabin to sit in silence and further contemplate his life choices, Templeton had decided to do a little cash-out instead. He pushed his body until his muscles couldn’t take it anymore, and he nearly crushed his own foot with his kettlebell. Only then did he drop down to the floor himself. And then lie there, waiting for his heart rate to get back under control and his breathing to even out.
And to see if the clarity he’d gotten would fade.
But it didn’t.
He lifted his head and looked around, but it was still only Isaac sprawled on the floor a small distance away from him. And Horatio, Isaac’s entirely too smart border collie, who was never too far away from his master.
“I’m going to need some time,” Templeton said.
Isaac lifted his head. “To recover from your workout? I know you’re only an army man, but I expected better, Templeton.”
Templeton grinned. And then gave his best friend and superior officer a one-fingered salute.
“I need some vacation.”
Isaac laughed and rolled up to his feet. “Didn’t she blow you off?”
Templeton took his time rising. He stretched. Then he went and rubbed Horatio’s ears, because he knew exactly how to do it to make the canny dog roll and kick like a silly little puppy. It was their little secret.
“I didn’t ask you for your commentary on my romantic life,” he told Isaac. Genially enough. “I’m informing you that I’m going to take some of the time I have coming. I know you want to assign me to that extraction thing, but I’m going to have to pass.”
“That’s a lot of pushback,” Isaac pointed out. “Especially when I’m the one person—the only person—around here who hasn’t been all over you about that I-saved-myself thing.”
“We both know that’s not out of the goodness of your heart. It’s because you don’t want to hear what I have to say in reply.”
The name Caradine hung there in the air, the way it often did. Templeton thought it was further evidence of his sainthood that he didn’t say it out loud. And a few choice other things while he was at it.
“It doesn’t matter why,” Isaac said loftily. Also not saying her name. “I’m pointing out what an excellent friend I am. And how maybe I don’t deserve you talking to me like I’m a redheaded stepchild.”
“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” Templeton said, grinning. He did not apologize for his tone. “As long as it takes, I guess.”
He gave Isaac a real salute then and headed for the door of the gym.
“She seemed pretty definitive,” Isaac said from behind him. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Templeton looked over his shoulder and grinned even wider.
“Isaac. Buddy. I know you’re only a marine, so this probably won’t make any sense to you. But I’m an Army Ranger. We get what we want, or it can’t get got.”
He headed to Juneau first.
But when he got to Kate’s building, he found her apartment open, empty, and undergoing an intense cleaning.
“The last tenant moved out,” the woman cleaning the place told him. “The day after Christmas.”
She didn’t know where to. Or care.
It took Templeton one call to figure out that Kate was probably headed back to Anchorage, her usual base of operations. And a second call to get himself on the next plane. But once he landed in Anchorage, it took a little doing to figure out her whereabouts.
Because his trooper liked to live in throwaway furnished apartments that she could trade in at a moment’s notice. Which meant he had to wait until she showed up at her office, then trail her home. It was old-school but effective.
When he finally made it to her door, it was New Year’s Eve.
She swung open the door before he knocked on it and stood there, her arms crossed over her chest. Those pissed-off, go-to-hell eyes on his like a pair of daggers. And a welcoming scowl on her face.
Oh yeah, Templeton thought. He was head over freaking heels for this one.
“I knew that was you.” Her voice was just the way he liked it. Calm, unimpressed, and 100 percent his favorite Alaska State Trooper. “You might want to reconsider a career as a covert operative when you i
nsist on renting the flashiest, highest-tech SUV you can find everywhere you go.”
“Baby,” he drawled. “I got to be me.”
“Go be you in Grizzly Harbor,” she replied.
But she didn’t slam the door shut. And Templeton smiled.
“Here are the facts, Trooper,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb. “I’m in love with you. And you didn’t slam the door in my face, which, as far as I can tell, is your version of a sweet nothing. So I’m feeling pretty good about the whole love thing.”
He expected her to snap at him. Maybe punch him, which should be fun.
But instead, all she did was shake her head. And he watched as those cool brown eyes filled up with what looked like sadness.
And how he managed to keep from hauling her into his arms and making sure she was all in one piece, he would never know.
“Don’t you understand yet?” she asked softly. Almost defeated. And yet very, very certain, because that was Kate. “I can’t.”
Twenty-four
Templeton was the most beautiful thing Kate had ever seen, but then, he always was.
She’d been angry in Grizzly Harbor. That anger had carried her all the way to Juneau. She’d packed up her pitiful selection of possessions, informed her landlord that she was moving on, and been on her way back to Anchorage the next morning. In her plane, released at last from police custody.
Kate had taken a couple of days to fly herself back to Anchorage, keeping that anger kicking all the way.
Her mother had been declared missing while they waited to see if a body turned up, though no one was optimistic. And Kate tried her best to mourn, she really did.
But she’d grieved her mother a long time ago.
Her two second cousins were arrested and booked. Kate’s captain called her in, behaving as if her leave had never happened because he needed her advice as her relatives confessed to all the arson, the murder, and the break-in at Kate’s apartment. And it was as Kate had thought. Tracy had spearheaded the whole thing. She wanted Kate and Will to pay—but especially Kate. And they’d settled on Grizzly Harbor—and Alaska Force—as the perfect trap after a dishonorably discharged friend of theirs had come back from the navy with a story about the secretive ex–special forces group that was still running missions out of the Panhandle.
