Page 18 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

“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.” Templeton 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 likehewas 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.”

“Are you afraid I told the mean trooper nasty things about your little club?” she asked in the usual tone she used when she discussed Alaska Force. The kind of disrespectful tone that a small man might take issue with.

But Templeton only grinned. “I’m not afraid of you, Caradine. I’m interested in what she asked you, that’s all.”

“She’s very interested in my relationship with Alaska Force.” Caradine sniffed. “And didn’t seem particularly swayed when I told her that I’ve gone out of my way to avoid having relationships with anybody or anything, as is my right and privilege here in the Land of the Midnight Sun.”

“Did you get a sense—”

“I don’t work for you.”

And the thing about Caradine was that she didn’t raise her voice. She was reliably unfriendly, but she was not harsh. The look she leveled on him then was steady. Intense, maybe. But she wasn’t kidding around.

“I don’t care one way or the other if every single one of you ends up in a jail cell. What I do care about is the fact that letting you into my café has brought me to the attention of the Alaska State Troopers. That doesn’t make me happy, Templeton. And when I’m not happy, I don’t like cooking. So any way you do the math on that, it doesn’t matter what she asked me or what I said or what the hell is going on. What matters is that you’re all banned.”

And this time when she slammed the door in his face, Templeton let her.

He headed back down toward the dock where he’d moored the skiff yesterday. He could tell his brothers right now that Caradine had banned them again—but where was the fun in that? It would be far more entertaining to have her share that information with each and every one of them herself. Right when they most needed coffee.

He entertained himself imagining those conversations all the way down to the docks through the weak new light of the lazy December sun, which cast the village in foggy blue before it cleared the mountains. He nodded at some of the fishermen he knew and the villagers waiting for the ferry to come in on its single stop per week this time of year. But his eyes instantly went to his trooper in her winter-ready gear, standing straight and tall next to the little building that functioned as a ferry terminal.

“All aboard, Trooper Holiday,” he said merrily as he approached. “I hope you’re ready for the bracing December seas.”

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