Sergeant's Christmas Siege

by Megan Crane

  Kate’s captain was inclined to make Kate’s cousins pay. And to make Alaska Force a whole lot less secretive, too.

  She was happy to share her thoughts. She was happy to work.

  And it was easy to keep her anger going strong while all of that went on. Even when Will and she attempted to stop treating each other like part of the problem, for a change.

  Because they’d survived.

  And really, they were the only ones who’d survived. Because others might have lived through the Holiday family, but she and Will had escaped them.

  “I guess that means we’re stuck with each other,” Will said, scowling into his beer in one of Kate’s favorite bars in Anchorage. They’d beaten him up, but the bruises would fade. Kate thought he looked like a different man. Because he, too, had fought the family ghosts out there on the water. And, like her, he’d won.

  They’d both changed, maybe.

  “We can be stuck with each other,” she said, fiddling with her drink. “But there will be no rituals of any kind. Ever.”

  “God, no.”

  “I don’t need to visit Nenana again.” She even smiled at him then, and it wasn’t a fake one. “And I’m not getting a wolverine tattooed on my body.”

  Will smiled back. “I think I can live with that.”

  After that, the anger shifted into something heavier. Harder. Kate was working again, but she couldn’t seem to lose herself in it the way she wanted to. At night she would go home and sit on more furniture she hadn’t chosen herself, surrounded by things that weren’t hers and meant nothing to her, and think of nothing but a man as big as a mountain.

  And all the ways he made her feel, which rivaled all the mountain ranges in Alaska. Put together.

  That was the problem.

  “What do you mean you can’t?” Templeton asked now. And he didn’t wait for her to invite him in. He brushed past her, looking around at the apartment and rolling his eyes. “If this is going to work, we’re going to have to upgrade from this sad, lonely, furnished-­apartment crap. It makes my head hurt.”

  “It’s not going to work.”

  “Well, not with that attitude.”

  “Templeton.”

  If he heard the warning in her voice, he gave no sign. He was too busy stripping off his coat, kicking off his boots, and then sauntering over to her sofa and flinging himself down.

  “I’m not built for this,” she told him, and frowned. “And I don’t need an argument.”

  “There’s no point arguing with sheer insanity,” he replied. “You are, literally, perfectly built. For this. For me.”

  There was a smile on his mouth, but it was the intensity of his gaze that made her shudder.

  “I’ve had time to think about this,” she said.

  “You mean you’ve had time to come up with excuses.”

  “That’s your department, if I recall correctly,” she shot back at him before she could think better of it. And knew she’d lost ground when his eyes began to gleam, gold and dangerous.

  “You can come at me all you want, Trooper,” he drawled. “I like it. I like you. I like the whole Trooper Holiday package. I don’t think you’re an alien. I don’t think there’s a single thing wrong with you, except maybe that you’re standing across the room from me.”

  “I’m broken,” she announced matter-­of-­factly. “If I had any doubt about that, I toured every aspect of my family and childhood in the past month, and it was made perfectly clear to me. That’s where I come from. That genetic swamp.”

  “What it should have proved to you is that you’re absolutely nothing like any of them.”

  She shook her head again, because she could feel the emotion sloshing around inside of her. And she knew how terrifying it was. She knew where that led.

  “But don’t you understand? I’m exactly like them.” When he looked like he would argue the point, she shook her head again, insistently. “I never understood it while I lived there, and I didn’t understand it after I escaped. Because all I could see was the crazy. I’d never felt it myself.”

  “Because you’re not crazy.”

  “You make me feel completely out of my mind,” she threw at him, and the proof was there in how she sounded. Too loud. Too uncontrolled. “I was standing on a boat in the open sea in December. Moments from my own death. Do you know what I kept thinking about?”

  “If it’s not me, Kate, I’m going to be gravely disappointed.”

  “Of course it was you.” She threw up her hands. “Who does that? I’m a trained law enforcement officer. I should have been thinking strategy, tactical options, how to save my own cousin. I probably should have saved my mother.”

  “You saved yourself,” Templeton reminded her. “And not for the first time.”

  “When you came down on that rope, I wanted to jump on you and let you carry me away forever.” When he only looked at her as if he thought that was a fine idea, she made a sound of frustration. “I might as well be my mother. She would have followed that man anywhere. She did. And look what happened.”

  He shifted as if he was going to say something, so she kept going.

  “That’s how people love in my family. Into prison, out of prison, through murders and assaults and criminal conspiracies. Until they weigh themselves down with an anchor and drown. That’s what’s in here.” She put one hand over her heart, aware it was beating too fast. And aware that her breathing sounded a little too much like sobbing. “That’s what I have to offer.”

  But Templeton didn’t react the way he should have. He shrugged. “I accept.”

  He said that lazily. Easily. She might have thought that he wasn’t taking this seriously if she hadn’t been able to see the fierce expression in his gaze.

  “You can’t . . . accept,” she sputtered. “This is an escape hatch, Templeton. You need to take it.”

  “I think you just told me you’re in love with me,” he said, in that dark, low voice that shivered around inside her and made her feel like a different woman. One who was really free, not simply . . . no longer trapped. One who was his. “Buried in all that, somewhere. I don’t need an escape hatch.”

  “The only way that I managed to not end up like all the rest of them is by keeping to myself,” she told him, and she was aware that her voice was cracking. That her hands were in fists at her side. “I work. That’s it. That’s the only thing that lets me stay me.”

  Templeton sat up. He leaned forward so he could rest his elbows on his knees and dangle his hands between his legs.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked her, without a trace of a smile on that beautiful, wicked face of his.

  “I don’t really see how that’s relevant.”

  “I think we both know that means that you do, but I want to hear you say it.”

  “I trust you to show up when you say you will,” she said grudgingly. “You keep your promises, I’ll give you that.”

  He dropped his head a little and laughed, but it wasn’t his usual foundation-­rocking laughter.

  Then he came to his feet in that way that never ceased to make her catch her breath. And the only reason she didn’t cut and run when he started toward her was because she knew that he would catch her.

  Or she told herself that was the reason, anyway.

  When he got to her, he took his time reaching down and taking her hands in his.

  And that was unfair.

  Because his hands were so big, and hard, and hot around hers. She could feel his heat, and that electric thing that had buzzed between them from the start.

  And this time, she knew exactly where it went. She knew exactly what he could do.

  She had to remind herself that was the problem.

  “It seems to me that the real problem here is Samuel Lee Holiday himself,” he said after a moment.

  �
��He usually is,” Kate said. Maybe a little dourly.

  “What worries you is that you might be like your mother.”

  Kate shuddered. “Yes.”

  It was one of the hardest things she’d ever said.

  But Templeton didn’t condemn her. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “The real issue is that when your mother fell in love, it was with a psycho. So here’s what I promise you.” His hands tightened around hers. And she was suddenly sure that he could see all the way inside her. Every secret. Every fear. Every scrap of hope she’d ever gathered inside herself and hidden away. “You can love me as much as you want. As big and as wide and as crazy as you like. I can take it.”

  Kate couldn’t breathe. Still, his name was on her lips.

  But he wasn’t finished. “And in return, there will be no whackadoo ritual to prove your worth. I already know that you’re worthy. You’re more than worthy.” He pulled her closer, and she went. Easily. “You’re beautiful. Tough. You make me laugh, and you’re not afraid of me. I have the feeling that if I let you, you’ll make me into a better man. I don’t need you to prove a single thing to me, Kate.”

  “Templeton . . .”

  “Maybe I can’t save you. But I promise you, I will always keep your heart safe. You will never end up on a compound, and I will never end up in prison. Loving me is not going to lead to you with an anchor in the middle of a winter sea.”

  Kate never cried, but she could feel the tears on her cheeks then. One more thing she would have sworn she’d never do, and then did.

  Because of him.

  “I want to believe you,” she whispered. “But I never have believed in anything I can’t see.”

  “Then stick around,” Templeton urged her, his voice low. And, she realized, certain. As if he already knew exactly how this was going to work out, and she would love it. And him. Forever. “All you have to do is stay, baby. I promise.”

  He moved his hands until he could lace his fingers through hers. And she was the one who raised up their linked hands, so she could move closer to the great wall of his chest. Because when she tilted her head up, his mouth was there.

  Right there.

  Templeton looked at her as if he were some kind of sun. Bright enough to make even the darkest December in Alaska feel like summer.

  “And what about you?” she asked, even though she was afraid she didn’t want to know. “What do you get out of this?”

  Templeton’s grin was big and wide.

  “You, Trooper. I get you.” When she scowled at him, she got his real laugh. And it was beautiful, just like him. “You might not need saving, baby, but I do. Pretty much all the time. You think you can handle that?”

  And Kate had never been one for faith. But the difference here was that it wasn’t blind. And better still, she was choosing it.

  She had seen so many of his different facets already. She wasn’t afraid of what others she might discover. He was the most dangerous man she’d ever known, but unlike the other men in her experience, he had only ever used his power to protect her.

  He hadn’t punished her for her own.

  If anything, he seemed to like it.

  He loved it. And her. And he made her feel . . . giddy.

  Which, in turn, made her understand that however much her mind couldn’t grasp the things that Templeton had told her, her heart believed him completely.

  Her heart had loved him from the start.

  “You don’t have to think that hard,” Templeton said. He wrapped his arms around her, and they still fit the way she’d convinced herself she’d only imagined they did. Like they’d been made for this. For each other. “All you need to do—­”

  “Is love you,” she finished for him. “I have that part covered.” She gave into the giddiness, throwing herself straight off that cliff. Straight into his arms. Then she smiled up at him and felt a lot like sunshine herself. “Did anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?”

  His laugh boomed between them, and it felt better than faith. It felt like a promise.

  And when he kissed her, he tasted like forever.

  So Kate held on tight, kissed him back, and set about loving the only man she’d ever known who made her feel safe.

  And better yet, always would.

  He’d promised.

  And Templeton Cross kept his promises.

  Twenty-five

  Six months later, Templeton unfolded himself from yet another SUV he’d had waiting at the airport, stretched, and breathed in the wallop of the Mississippi heat.

  “Are you nervous?” Kate asked, coming around from the passenger side to stand beside him.

  “That’s not the word I’d use,” Templeton said. “It’s a little more layered than that.”

  And she understood him, so all she did was slip her hand into his.

  He’d had half a year with her, and it already felt like a lifetime. Two lifetimes. And not nearly enough.

  They’d both agreed to start things slow. If that was what it could be called when they were both so thirsty for each other.

  “You live almost a thousand miles away,” Kate said one afternoon while they were shopping for furniture. For the unfurnished apartment she’d reluctantly rented, because Templeton had convinced her it was time. “You’ll sit on whatever sofa I buy . . . maybe twice.”

  “Trooper,” he replied, grinning. “Challenge accepted.”

  And they figured it out. Mission by mission and case by case. Kate flew to Fool’s Cove when she could. Temple­ton went to Anchorage.

  “I don’t know how you do long distance,” Blue said one morning while they were suffering together through a heavy sandbag carry.

  “Because it doesn’t feel like long distance,” Templeton replied without thinking.

  But even when he thought about it, it felt true.

  One night, about three months in, they were in Temple­ton’s cabin in Fool’s Cove. It was technically spring, but there was no evidence of that outside. Alaska liked to hold on to her winters. They’d been talking through the raid the Troopers had undertaken on Russ and Liberty’s property the month before and the cache of illegal arms recovered. The children removed from their parents’ custody.

  “I understand why you want things this way,” Kate said abruptly. Templeton eyed her from across his kitchen, seeing his woman, not his trooper. “The fact is, the gift of the Holiday family keeps on giving, and it likely always will.”

  “Baby.” Templeton shook his head. “Your family is noise. You’re the gift.”

  “Things are better separate,” she insisted, scowling at him. “You maintain plausible deniability, and I—­”

  “Hey.”

  He went to her then, pulling her into his arms and trapping her there, so she had no choice but to look at him. But it was Kate, so she glared.

  “We can be realists about this, can’t we?” she asked.

  “I told you a long time ago that I’m an optimist,” Temple­ton reminded her. “What do you think is happening here?”

  “I . . .” And he loved that the only time his strong, smart, capable woman ever got flustered was when her heart was involved. He loved her. Though he had to pick and choose when to tell her that, because the words made her flushed and red and soft, and he preferred to keep that to himself. And act on it. “I’m trying to . . .”

  “You have a job that means everything to you,” Temple­ton said. “So do I. We won’t have them forever. What’s a little travel?”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “It’s as easy as we decide it is,” he told her.

  And then he showed her just how good he could make easy feel.

  A few weeks after that, her captain made Kate the Troopers’ special attachment to Alaska Force. That gave her even more reason to go to Fool’s Cove and
stay there while Alaska Force handled various missions of interest to local law enforcement.

  “Something strange came up,” Kate told him one night in their Anchorage apartment. Not that she called it theirs, but Templeton had his stamp all over it. A lot like the stamp he had on her. “I need your thoughts.”

  And she looked like Kate, but she had her cop face on, so Templeton decided not to see if he could get his hands on her. That moment.

  “Hit me,” he said.

  “After my interview with Caradine in December, I asked for her records,” Kate said. And rolled her eyes at Templeton’s expression. “Like you don’t have Oz run background checks on everybody you see on the street.”

  “That’s different.”

  “You know it’s not.” She wrinkled up her nose. “The thing is . . . Caradine Scott doesn’t exist. She appeared out of nowhere some years back.”

  But when Templeton turned that over in his head, all he thought about was Isaac.

  “Has she broken a law?” he asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  Templeton shrugged. “People come to Alaska to be someone else, far away from anyone who knows better. You know that.”

  “I do. And I like her. I really like her cooking. I just . . .”

  He grinned at her, because she was so cute and she looked so lost. “Welcome to the gray areas of life, Trooper. Complicated, isn’t it?”

  She answered him with a challenge no man could resist, and Templeton made sure that in the end, they were both winners.

  As far as he was concerned, things were moving along just fine.

  Especially on the nights in Fool’s Cove when Kate came back from dinners with Bethan and Everly a little tipsy, shooting her mouth off about red wine and intimate friend time.

  He always took that as an opportunity to experiment with intimacy. On an epic level.

  And it was entirely because of Kate that he found himself in Mississippi. Heading into Parchman to visit a man he’d been pretending was dead his whole life.