Page 16 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

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 fewhostages 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’ttry 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.

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