Page 2 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

His gaze was locked to hers, and she wondered if people mistook all that inarguable male beauty for softness, when she could see the gravity in those dark eyes. And a certain sternness in his expression.

But in the next second he smiled, big and wide, and Kate was almost... dazzled.

“You must be Alaska State Trooper Kate Holiday,” he said in a booming voice. “Come all the way out to Grizzly Harbor to sniff around Alaska Force. I’m Templeton Cross, at your service.”

And when he moved, his strides were liquid and easy, two steps to cover the distance and extend his hand to Kate as if he were welcoming her to his home like some cheerful, oversized patriarch. As if he weren’t on the wrong side of an interview with law enforcement.

As if he weren’t very likely responsible for—or complicit in—a string of hospitalizations, explosions, and other dubious events as far away as Juneau, but mostly concentrated in Grizzly Harbor, going back years. With a noted and concerning uptick over the past year.

But being a trooper wasn’t like other kinds of policing, or so Kate gathered from watching police shows based in the Lower48. Alaska State Troopers had to get used to roles that defied proper job descriptions, because anything could and would happen in the course of a shiftwhen that shift took place somewhere out in the Last Frontier. Kate knew how to play her part. She stood, smiled nonthreateningly, and took his hand.

And told herself that she was cataloging how hard and big it was, that was all. How it wrapped around hers. How Templeton Cross, whose military record stated he had been an Army Ranger until he’d moved off into something too classified to name, made no attempt to overpower her. He didn’t shake too hard. He didn’t try to crush the bones in her hand, to let her know who was boss. There was no he-man, Neanderthal moment, the way there too often was in situations like these.

He shook her hand like a good man might, and she filed that away because she suspected he wasn’t a good man at all. And a man who could fake it was exponentially more dangerous than one who oozed his evil everywhere, like a fuel leak.

She angled her head toward the table she’d claimed, removing her hand from his and waving it in invitation. Because she could act like this was her home, too. No matter that the hand he’d shaken... tingled. “Please. Sit down.”

“Right to business,” Templeton said, with a big laugh that jolted through Kate. She told herself it was an unpleasant sensation, especially the way it wound around and around inside her and heated her up from within. “Caradine!”

The unfriendly owner of the café was a woman with a dark ponytail and a scowl, who appeared in the doorway to the kitchen and glared. “I can’t think of a single reason you should yell my name. Not like that. Or at all.”

“Deep down,” Templeton said to Kate, with a conspiratorial grin, “I’m convinced that Caradine is a marshmallow. Just wrapped up in all that barbed wire.”

“No marshmallow. No barbed wire. And no interest whatsoever in being psychologically profiled.”

Caradine came over to the table as she spoke, thenplunked down what looked like straight black coffee at the place across from Kate.

“Thank you for opening today,” Templeton drawled, grinning wide, as if this was all a complicated friendship ritual. Which maybe it was, if Caradine had opened the café for this meeting on a day that she likely wouldn’t see much other business, if any. “And you know you love my psychological profiles.”

Caradine did not grin back. “I love nothing, Templeton, except your money.”

Kate couldn’t decide which one of them was putting on a show. Or was this a coordinated performance for her benefit? Yet somehow, as Caradine stomped back toward her kitchen, she didn’t think so. Caradine struck her as a typical sort of resident found all over the wildest, largest state in the union: happy to mind her own business and downright ornery when someone else attempted to mind it for her.

Templeton struck her as a problem.

She smiled at him anyway as he threw himself down into the seat across from her, taking up more than his fair share of space. And his big arms, clad in a tight henley, showed her exactly how seriously he took his physique.

“Do you think this will make you seem more approachable?” she asked.

He belted out another laugh. “Do I seem approachable? I must be slipping.”

And for a moment they both smiled at each other, competing to see who could be more pleasant.

“You must know that I’m here after the rash of incidents that seemed to stem entirely from your little group,” Kate said, folding her hands on the table and watching his face. His expression didn’t change at all. “You’ve chosen to show up for this conversation late, then engage in what I imagine you think is charming small talk. Your military record goes to great lengths not to say what sort ofclassified things you engaged in after you were a Ranger, but I’m going to guess it was Delta Force.”

“I don’t like that name,” Templeton said, almost helpfully. “It’s so dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Now you’re being funny,” Kate observed. “Which suggests you find yourself entertaining. What interests me, Mr. Cross, is that you think comedy is the appropriate way to handle the situation you find yourself in.”

She knew a lot of things about Templeton Cross. Among them, that he’d achieved the rank of master sergeant—but unlike many people with military backgrounds she’d encountered, he didn’t correct her when she failed to address him by his rank.

“And what situation is that?” he asked instead. “I’m having a cup of coffee with a law enforcement officer. As a former soldier myself, I have nothing but respect for a badge. I didn’t realize there was an expectation that this conversation stay grumpy. But we can do that, too.”

“Fascinating,” Kate murmured, though he was beingevasive, and she was certain that was intentional. “Why don’t we start with you explaining Alaska Force to me.”

“Alaska Force isn’t anything but a group of combat vets who run a little business together,” Templeton said genially. “It’s all apple pie and Uncle Sam around here, I promise.”

“Mercenaries, in other words.”

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