Page 19 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

“According to your file, you’re from the South,” she replied in a voice that was clearly supposed to tell him how unamusing she found him. Funny how he got the exact opposite from her.

“Guilty as charged, ma’am,” he drawled, throwing some deep, slow, Mississippi vowels in there for good measure.

“Then let me assure you that I don’t need preparation for Alaskan weather, Alaskan seas, or anything Alaskan at all. I was born right here.”

It seemed to occur to her that she wasn’t here to get in sparring matches with a man she suspected of criminal activity. He saw something flash over her face, then a little bit of heat in her cheeks that really could have been temper. Though he didn’t think so. Whatever the cause, all she did was stand taller.

She nodded her head down the length of the docktoward his skiff, and Templeton was fully aware she was issuing an order. “Are you ready?”

He took his time to pause and really grin at her like his life depended on it. “Kate. Don’t you worry. Rangers are always ready.”

And he didn’t wait around to see her reaction, though he was pretty sure he could feel her roll her eyes at him. He sauntered down to the Alaska Force boat, then indicated that she should climb aboard before him.

“I’m going to need you to stay right there,” she said cheerfully. “Both feet on the dock, and none of your body on this boat. Can you do that?”

“I can do it. Why would I want to?”

“I appreciate your assistance, Mr. Cross. I’m going to conduct a quick visual sweep of this boat. I’m sure you understand.”

And the look she gave him was fully cop, no trace of Kate. Templeton waved a lazy hand, settled in to wait, and opted not to question himself as to what exactly the difference betweencopandKatewas or when he’d decided he could tell the difference.

Because that led nowhere a wise man let himself go. Especially when the man in question had decided never again to mix business with pleasure.

It didn’t take Kate long. She climbed on board, and he figured the point of her inspection was as much to make sure there was nothing on the boat that shouldn’t be there—and no one hiding below deck in the tiny cabin—as it was for her to make it clear to him that she was in contact with her department. She got on her comm unit and broke down her inspection for dispatch, responding to several queries, and when she was finished; she kept her hand on her weapon as she beckoned for Templeton to join her on his own damn boat.

“Do I pass your test?” he asked her as he climbed aboard.

“Your boat passes muster,” she said coolly. “I’m not prepared to make a judgment on whether or not you do.”

But he was making a study of her expressions. And he was sure he could see the hint of the humor she didn’t want him to know she had lurking there in her gaze, no matter what she said.

Templeton liked to think that he could pilot any vehicle on land or in the air, but what he really enjoyed were boats. Even at this time of year, when the sea was swollen and brooding in turn, he found it exhilarating. He liked the challenge of the swells. The dance between what he could see with his eyes and what his instruments told him as he piloted their way out of Grizzly Harbor, then around the rocky, steep, and inhospitable shore of the island toward the little cove he called home.

He expected Kate to fire more questions at him, taking advantage of the fact he had to concentrate on the water and the weather to interrogate him further. But instead, she was quiet. She stood next to him in the pilothouse, keeping her body at an angle and her hand resting casually enough on her hip, where she had her weapon strapped.

But she didn’t say a word. Every time he snuck a glance her way, she had her gaze on the crashing Pacific all around them, as the uncertain daylight cast the world in gray and green.

And Templeton had lived in Alaska for years now. But she was right—deep down, he was still a Southerner, marked by the slow drawls and soft seasons of the land he’d come from, the damp heat of the summers, and the wide, brown Mississippi River that marked the eastern border of his part of Louisiana. He could tell that the woman beside him had been forged from this place instead. The resilient islands, the formidable mountains. Cool like the glaciers, and endlessly shifting like the sea.

Sweet Lord, he thought in amazement. He was coming over all poetic. Next thing he knew, he’d break intosong and bring the rocky cliffs down around them with his tuneless voice. And then it wouldn’t matter what rules he broke, because he’d be dead.

But the idea of him making like a troubadour had him laughing out loud, which had the added benefit of making the woman beside him jolt a little bit.

“Private joke,” he told her, and grinned when she frowned at him.

He was still laughing to himself when he rounded the rocky outcropping and made his way into Fool’s Cove.

He knew that the minute he powered around the bend there would be eyes all over his boat no matter the gloom of the morning. And he supposed that the Troopers weren’t wrong to be worried about the kinds of things that could potentially be going on in a place like this. Fool’s Cove was inaccessible to most of the world simply because of where it was. There was only one road in from Grizzly Harbor, though it was only passable every now and again over a tricky bastard of a mountain pass that the locals called Hard Ass Pass. Mostly, the road was washed out, and people who attempted to take it over the mountain didn’t come back.

In fact, the only person in recent memory who’d survived it was Blue’s fiancée, Everly. And the part of Templeton that leaned toward poetry liked the fact that the woman worthy of his brother Blue had proved herself in that way.

Something he said out loud only when he wanted to irritate the former SEAL.

The cove itself wasn’t all that welcoming, should a person make it there. Isaac’s ancestors had built themselves an out-of-the-way fishing lodge and hadn’t done much to make anything about it appealing, because its draw was its location. Over time, they’d added cabins here and there. The lodge was a ramshackle, rambling set of connected buildings up above the high-tide markover the water. It ran along the shore, with wooden walkways connecting the different buildings and cabins together. And there were separate cabins deeper in the trees, going up the side of the mountain, where the members of Alaska Force lived. Templeton’s cabin wasn’t hidden away in the woods like many of his brothers’ were. He lived near the beach and what they called Isaac’s box of pain, which is where they did their killer workouts every morning. He could see it as he got closer.

And it still felt like home, every time he laid eyes on it. Something Templeton didn’t take for granted after his years being shuttled from one foster placement to another.

He navigated his way into the cove, headed for the docks below the lodge.

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