Page 52 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

Blue and Everly had left for Chicago Friday morning. Griffin and Mariah had headed off to tour their respective hometowns together on Saturday. Because they all might be elite special operatives, but some of them had families. And normal families did normal things come Christmastime, which usually meant congregating in groups. Together. This Kate already knew from a thousand movies and all the online reports of happy, glowing scenes involving iced sugar cookies, twinkling lights strewn over evergreens, and hapless reindeer statuary.

“I didn’t expect Alaska Force to be the sort of place that closes down for the holidays,” Kate said, possibly more grumpily than was necessary, at the briefing on Sunday morning. Saturday had been the winter solstice and the longest night of the year, which meant that today was the first day in the long climb out of the dark.

But it was nine in the morning and cloudy, so Kate was going to have to take that on faith.

Her trust was anemic. Her faith was nonexistent.

“We don’t shut down,” Isaac told her. “Ever.”

“You said you were going to Anchorage,” Kate pointed out.

Or threw in his face, to be more precise.

And no one actually gasped out loud at her temerity in talking back to their commanding officer. But they didn’t have to. Kate knew better.

Isaac smiled. And the room around her changed almost imperceptibly. Kate reminded herself that Isaac Gentry was a wolf in sheep’s clothing at the best of times. Above and beyond that, he was also not her friend. She hadn’t served with him. She’d come here in the first place to find a way to arrest him, not befriend him.

All those thoughts chased through her head as he smiled at her, and she wished that she’d slept a bit more and fought off her Templeton memories less. Also that she’d kept her mouth shut.

“Yes,” he said, with that endless amiability that she now knew enough to find alarming. “I have family to visit. But the good news is, I can take point on what’s left of the separatists and their farm commune, since I’ll be up there anyway. You’re welcome.”

She did not point out that she hadn’t thanked him, though it was on the tip of her tongue to do so. Because apparently, Kate on a forced vacation liked to live dangerously.

And it wasn’t until they’d left the lodge together, as ordered, that Templeton shook his head at her as if she’d had a narrow escape. As if she didn’t know she’d had a narrow escape, to be more precise.

“I wouldn’t lose focus and mess with Isaac,” Templeton said out on the deck outside the lobby. Below, the waves were making a ruckus on the shore, and Kate wasn’t sure she liked the fact that she was starting to find that soothing when she’d always preferred to admire the ocean and its raw power from a safe distance.

It felt like another metaphor she’d rather not poke at.

“I wasn’t messing with him,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even. “It was a valid concern. Bear in mind that I’m here, ready and willing to work. Perfectly focused on the task at hand. I thought we all were.”

Templeton studied her a moment, and there was no smile on his face. No gleam in his dark eyes. Kate knew that once again, she was seeing his real face. And maybe it should have scared her that he didn’t do anything to conceal that fact.

Maybe what Kate really didn’t want to admit was that it did scare her.

“I would follow that man anywhere.” Templeton’s voice was as serious as his expression. “But I don’t ever forget who he is. Or what he’s capable of. Neither should you.”

Kate accepted that she’d been duly chastised and decided the best course of action was not to dwell on it. She nodded once, jerkily. She said nothing. She turned and went off to her cabin, packed her go bag, and met Templeton back down on the docks.

It had started to rain, but that hardly mattered. Because they were headed north, where rain would be the least of their problems. Everyone in Alaska Force had agreed that anyone could handle traffickers or religious separatists, but whether she liked it or not, Kate was best suited to deal with her own family.

And when she set aside her own revulsion and considered it the way she would if she were advising someone else on how to handle the situation, Kate knew they were right.

Which meant Kate and Templeton were headed to Fairbanks. To see a cousin she hadn’t seen since they’d both been teenagers. Kate had been testifying against their parents in court. William had been two years younger than Kate and not exactly supportive of herposition. Or her willingness to discuss, in open court, the things they’d been repeatedly told were private and for family only.

Kate and Templeton flew to Juneau first, then caught a ride on a private plane to Fairbanks. The sun was already setting as they flew in a little before three o’clock that afternoon. She’d put in a year or two as a brand-new trooper here, but it was the winters of her childhood that she remembered the most vividly, with sun dogs in the morning and afternoon, when ice crystals in the atmosphere made the sun into art against the ever-present snow.

It was already snowing when they landed, and the snow kept coming as they climbed into the waiting car, then headed toward one of the less desirable neighborhoods within the city limits, which contained Kate’s cousin’s last known address. He’d gone from the compound outside Nenana to Anchorage, where he’d spent the remainder of his adolescence, then moved farther and farther north every time he’d changed addresses until he’d ended up in Fairbanks a couple of years back. And as far as Kate could tell, he’d been here ever since.

“You seem tense,” Templeton said cheerfully as he navigated along the road, leaving the relative traffic of the Fairbanks airport behind and driving along streets that Kate recognized from the years she’d been stationed here. “Want to talk about sex?”

Kate laughed despite herself. “Why would I want to talk about sex?”

“Why wouldn’t you want to talk about sex? I always want to talk about sex.”

And for some reason, his outrageousness struck her as so ridiculous that she forgot to be angry. She shifted in the passenger seat, shaking her head at him as he drove the way he did absolutely everything else. Lounging there, one hand draped lazily over the steering wheel,looking like he might drift off to sleep at any moment when what he was actually doing was navigating a fairly treacherous road through inclement weather.

“So while sitting there, right this minute, you thought to yourself,I know. While on the way to meet up with a family member who might actually express his disinterest in seeing her, violently, what Kate really wants to do is discuss sexual escapades that didn’t even really happen.”

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