Sergeant's Christmas Siege

by Megan Crane

  “Please. It’s two thirty-­four in the afternoon. Tech­nical twilight is still the middle of the afternoon in Alaska.”

  “I don’t need lessons on Alaska from an Outsider. I think we’ve already covered this.”

  “This is fun,” Templeton said with that wicked drawl that licked all over her whether she wanted it to or not. “Matching wits with you always is. But I didn’t come here for the entertainment. I have a proposition for you.”

  “I can’t express to you how little interest I have in any propositions that come from—­”

  “Kate.” He shook his head, just slightly. “We’re past that.”

  She had no idea why she wanted to agree with him. But maybe it had nothing to do with him. Maybe it was that she felt so . . . unmoored. What was she supposed to do without work? Who was she supposed to be?

  When he rounded the front of her vehicle, looking relaxed and at his ease and completely incongruous against the backdrop of downtown Juneau, she didn’t know what came over her. But she unlocked her door and let him in.

  And then Templeton Cross was sitting in her car.

  Taking up entirely too much space. It was like a violation—­except she couldn’t pretend that it was anything so negative. It was just that she was so violently, painfully aware of him. All of him. He had to reach down to shove the passenger seat back as far as it would go, then tilt it back even farther in a bid to get his huge frame to fit.

  And there was absolutely no reason that anything about the simple reality of a big man trying to fit into a relatively small SUV should have made her break out into a sweat.

  “I feel like I’m in a mobster movie,” she muttered.

  “Am I the made guy in this scenario? I don’t really think that works. I don’t have the right accent, for one thing.” Templeton nodded toward the office building. “Why don’t you drive somewhere? Before you have to explain to all your cop buddies what you’re doing playing mobsters with a person of interest in an ongoing and active investigation.”

  Now it was more like a cold sweat, and her stomach twisted. “I don’t know why I let you in my car, but that moment of insanity has passed. You need to get out. You need to—­”

  “Kate. I have it on good authority that you’re not on active duty yourself right now. Did they suspend you?”

  “There are absolutely no grounds to suspend me,” she snapped at him.

  “Mandatory leave?”

  “I’m enjoying the Christmas season,” she gritted out, then turned to meet his gaze as blandly as she could. “Ho ho freaking ho.”

  “Drive,” he told her, in that same commanding way, his eyes much too steady on hers. His voice too rich, too smooth, too . . . much.

  But she went ahead and obeyed him all over again anyway.

  Not, she was at pains to tell herself, because he’d ordered her to do something. She didn’t take orders from him. But because he wasn’t wrong about sitting there outside a building filled with law enforcement officials, practically begging them all to see what she was doing. And with whom.

  She didn’t take him back to her apartment. Instead, she drove up Starr Hill to one of her favorite spots in Juneau. It had a great view over the channel to Douglas Island when the sun was out. But the sun barely came up at all here at this time of year, and it disappeared quickly behind the mountains to the west when and if it did. By the time she got to her preferred place to park and sit awhile, the sky was dark and there was no view of any mountains or water. Just the lights from the houses tucked away up on the hill around them, and the city below.

  And it occurred to her that either she was extraordinarily stupid to isolate herself with this man—­again—­or she actually did trust that Templeton was the man he said he was.

  Or her gut trusted him, anyway, no matter how the rest of her tried to argue.

  It irritated her, deeply, to admit that, even if her version of trust was fairly anemic. It had been beaten out of her early.

  She turned to face him, scowling across the few inches between them in the dim interior of her car, with only the light from the dashboard to illuminate him. Like he was her own personal mountain.

  “Well, you got your clandestine meeting. Here we are, like a couple of drug dealers.”

  “I don’t think drug dealers hang out and talk,” Temple­ton drawled. “I suspect that probably gets in the way of the whole moving product and sampling their wares thing.”

  “If you say so. I have no experience dealing drugs myself.”

  “Nice. Now I’m a drug-­dealing mercenary. I keep on impressing you, don’t I?”

  She felt the hitch in her chest and told herself it was acid reflux. Stress. Something vaguely medical and having nothing to do with him. “Are you trying to impress me?”

  Templeton turned and wrapped one big arm on the back of her seat as he moved, but she chose to interpret that as him making space for his big body, not . . . any­thing else. And the look on his face was an odd mix of stern­ness and what she was tempted to call surprise, mixed up with all that wicked sensuality that was just . . . him.

  “You want to know if I’m trying to impress you?” he asked. “Are you sure we’re not dating?”

  The grin in the corner of his mouth and the way he said that made it clear that he was joking, but somehow, the air in the car between them was too stiff. Too tense. Too ripe with something Kate didn’t want to understand.

  But she’d dreamed about it.

  Stop it. Now.

  She pulled herself together. Or tried. “Why are you in Juneau? And why did you seek me out?”

  “To ask you for a date, clearly.”

  “If you don’t plan to answer my questions, fine. I’ll turn this vehicle around, return you to my office, and you can explain to a roomful of Alaska State Troopers who want to date you as little as I do exactly what you’re doing lurking around cars in parking lots at dusk.”

  “Sexy as that sounds,” Templeton said, his grin deeper than before, “I’m here because of you. Because of who you are.”

  “You knew who I was in Grizzly Harbor. I’ve been an Alaska State Trooper for—­”

  “I don’t mean your job. I mean you.”

  And she knew where he was going. Where people were always going when they were suddenly so interested in who she was.

  This had happened so many times before that she’d taken to telling herself she was used to it. That it didn’t matter. Ancient history that happened to also be a matter of public record was still history. She didn’t have to talk about anything she didn’t want to talk about, and she certainly didn’t have to feel a damned thing.

  But it felt different here. In the dark, again. With nothing in front of them but glaciers and frigid bays. Nothing around them but the looming mountains she couldn’t see but knew were there.

  And still there was nowhere to hide from her family.

  Maybe, she thought darkly, this was how everyone felt during the holidays.

  Templeton was studying her face. “Your father is Samuel Lee Holiday. The Samuel Lee Holiday.”

  “I know who my father is.”

  “The Samuel Lee Holiday who, with three of his brothers and two of his cousins, packed up all their wives and children and took them off into the interior of Alaska. Where they created a doozy of a little cult that was chiefly notable for sending explosive packages through the mail to a whole host of politicians some fifteen years ago. And might have kept on doing it if it weren’t for his oldest daughter, who walked out of the Alaskan interior in subzero conditions, directly into an Alaska State Trooper office.”

  “The walking out of the interior part is always exaggerated. I stole a snowmobile and rode it until it ran out of gas. I walked for maybe ten minutes, and it wasn’t that cold.”

  It had been negative twenty. She’d been dressed well for the
elements. And lucky.

  Templeton kept going. “When they went out to see what was happening in your father’s compound, there was shooting. Two troopers died.”

  Kate had their names emblazoned on her memory, more potent and lasting than any tattoo. If she did any good in the world, if she made any kind of difference, it was to honor their sacrifice.

  “Trooper Timothy David Gerard,” she said quietly. “And Sergeant Jacob Anders Tolliver.”

  Templeton’s gaze was too warm. Too bright. “You not only turned your father in, you endured each and every trial of your father, mother, uncles, and other relatives as the chief witness for the prosecution. While other kids were going to high school, Kate, you were going to court.”

  She stared back at him, somehow keeping her expression impassive. “Congratulations, Templeton. You have succeeded in telling me a great many things I already know.”

  “So here’s what I have to ask myself,” he said. “And what I need to ask you.”

  “If this is where you out yourself as some kind of ghoulish junkie of cult leaders, I warn you, I might shoot you.”

  “You can always try.” His eyes gleamed, and she hated that she could feel it . . . everywhere. “But here’s the thing. You’ve already distinguished yourself as somebody who took down groups like that when you were in your teens. I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that you followed the same path as an adult. From what I understand, when there are strange groups led by potentially dangerous men, you’re the one they send. For going on five years now.”

  She wanted to argue that, but it was true. Or it had been true until today, when she’d been sent off on leave anyway.

  “I have a lot of experience, that’s all.”

  “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”

  Kate realized in that moment that she was seeing the business side of Templeton, right there in front of her. Not the public relations act. Not the flirt. But the man who had a thick file as full of medals and commendations as it was of redacted, classified material that all added up to a man who was remarkably good at what he did.

  “If it’s common knowledge that you’re the one who’s going to get sent out there when there’s a questionable group that needs looking into, why are we assuming that the arson attempts, which are lame and annoying more than anything else, are aimed at Alaska Force?” he asked, his voice quiet but intense. Almost as intense as the way he focused all of his attention on her. And still not nearly as intense as the way her body reacted, with a shiver she had to fight to repress. “And why are we thinking that a body in your plane is somehow a message to us, or about us? Because the more I think about it, the more I think that this is all about you.”

  Seven

  To say that Alaska Force didn’t like it when people messed with Grizzly Harbor was an epic understatement.

  Templeton hadn’t liked it much when that lunatic preacher had come at them last spring. He really hadn’t liked it when some hired muscle had neutralized Rory and helped himself to Mariah, their client. He took it pretty personally that someone was going around lighting their stuff on fire, and he hadn’t much cared for it when that boat had gone up in flames at the beginning of the month.

  But it was amazing to him how much less he liked it when it was all aimed straight at his trooper.

  He studied her face in the dim shadows of the front seat of her car while Juneau did its early nighttime routine all around them. And the darkness might have felt endless at this time of year, but Templeton found he didn’t mind much when Kate was there beside him, looking fierce and stubborn. Just the way he liked her.

  “Of course this doesn’t have to do with me,” she said dismissively. As he’d expected she would. “And it certainly doesn’t have to do with my father.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  It had taken them a few days to circle back around to Kate. They’d waited out the troopers and their initial investigation. They’d smiled politely and pretended to agree when told—­repeatedly—­to leave it alone.

  Templeton was the one who’d done a deeper dive into Trooper Holiday’s background. They’d already known she was the go-­to for questionable groups. They knew all about her history with the Troopers, how she’d been rapidly promoted, and the cases she’d been involved with. That had seemed like sufficient information to have on hand for an initial interview.

  But Templeton had wanted more. Not entirely because of the case, he could admit. But nonetheless, he’d dug in and found gold.

  “The last time I spoke to any of my relatives was something like ten years ago,” Kate said now. “I have nothing to do with them anymore. An arrangement everyone involved is perfectly happy with. Especially me.”

  “You think they’re happy with you?” Templeton laughed, though he knew it wasn’t his normal laugh. This one landed a lot more hollow. “I can tell you from experience, whenever prison is involved, there are bad feelings. That’s just a fact.”

  Kate shrugged. “I’m sure they have bad feelings. I don’t have any feelings. About them, about my childhood, anything. That’s a closed chapter.”

  As usual, he had the urge to touch her.

  And as usual, he didn’t.

  His halo was so bright by now he figured he could light up even the early Juneau night.

  “Is that how it works?” he asked, his drawl a little too edgy. “You decide a chapter’s closed and that’s that? You must be the one person alive who gets to choose not to be affected by their childhood.”

  Her smile was thin, but he noticed it wasn’t that same impenetrable cop smile he’d gotten used to back in Grizzly Harbor.

  “Of course I’m affected by my childhood.” Kate’s expression became one of exaggerated patience. “It made me who I am today. But I don’t flail around, constantly looking for reasons to be upset about things that happened more than half my life ago. I understand that’s all the rage these days, but that’s not me.”

  “Okay, fine. Great.” His fingers curled around the headrest of her seat, taking what he could get. For God’s sake. “But just because you’re so psychologically sound, it doesn’t mean they are.”

  She frowned and opened her mouth—­no doubt to protest. Then she closed it again.

  And Templeton waited as she thought her way through it. If he was surprised at how fascinating he found watching this woman think, well . . . He wasn’t the sort of man who fought his instincts. He never had been. No matter what the rules were.

  You have a crush on this trooper, Blue had said, laughing, in one of their morning briefings.

  I don’t have crushes, brother, Templeton had drawled. I operate on intent.

  That had gotten him a lot of rolled eyes and muttered insults regarding his character, which he’d chosen, out of the goodness of his heart, to ignore.

  I think that means that, yes, Templeton has a crush, Griffin had chimed in from across the room, where he liked to stand with his back to a wall, as if the enemy—­any enemy—­might crash through all their safeguards and be upon them at any moment.

  Templeton has rules, Templeton had said, grinning broadly, as if he thought it was all a big joke. Unlike some people in this room, I don’t break those rules every time a pretty face shows up in Grizzly Harbor.

  Blue and Griffin had sized him up as he lounged there with his chair tipped back, like they were trying to figure out the best way to bum-­rush him. He’d really, really hoped they would.

  Isaac had called them all to order, but it wasn’t the first time Templeton had enjoyed making the point that there was a difference between him and a number of his Alaska Force brothers. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen the same dark stuff they had. And then some. He had, but he hadn’t brought the dark out with him.

  He figured it was because he’d gone in broken and the army had fixed him. He’d done what was necessary, and
he didn’t let the nightmares he had from time to time—­because there were some things that a man couldn’t forget if he tried—­wreck his days. He didn’t forget what he’d lived through, but it didn’t own him.

  And he didn’t pretend he didn’t want something when he did.

  Wanting something was one thing. Taking it was another, especially when he knew better.

  “Various family members made threats, particularly during the court cases,” Kate said, snapping Templeton back to the cab of this SUV with the engine running to keep them warm. While the early night pressed in tight all around them.

  Not the time, in other words, to be thinking this hard about all the ways he’d like to get his hands on this woman. And not only because it was against his rules. Or because he doubted she’d appreciate his thoughts in that direction. But, more practically, because he was entirely too large for any shenanigans in a closed car.

  “Credible threats?”

  She shot him a look. “I didn’t think so. And even if I had, nothing came of them. It was years ago. Over a decade, in some cases.”

  “But not all of them are still in prison.”

  “I know who’s behind bars and who isn’t,” Kate said in her steady, matter-­of-­fact cop way. “I said I hadn’t talked to them myself, not that I didn’t check in on what they were doing every now and again. As far as I can tell, they’re all living exactly the squalid sort of lives they always wanted to live, only with less power over helpless family members, fewer death threats against national figures, and a whole lot more oversight from parole officers.” She shook her head. “Mostly, they’re just drunk and angry. But so are a lot of people.”

  “What we kept coming back to is the fact that they chose your seaplane as a stage for the body,” Templeton said. “If this is about Alaska Force, how does that work? We literally had an Alaska State Trooper checking out our facilities when it happened, so we couldn’t possibly have done it ourselves.”