Page 6 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

Her intense expression only cooled further. “And who do you think would go to the trouble of framing a bunch of men with violent, antisocial predilections when it seems clear to me you and your friends are good at doing it on your own?”

Templeton was good at charming people. It was one of the reasons he’d succeeded in his chosen profession. Well. He hadn’t so muchchosenthe army as he’d been advised by a judge that he’d better get right with the Lord, Uncle Sam, or any combination thereof, because if he showed his face in the courtroom again he’d end up doing hard time.

He might have been basically feral at that point of his life, having been shuttled from one foster care placement to another after his mother died—because Templeton had already been gaining on six feet and was calledscaryat twelve years old when really, he was half-crazy with grief—but he’d had no interest in being yet another brown man behind bars. Like his own father. No, thank you. He’d introduced himself to Uncle Sam down at therecruiter’s office later that same afternoon and had changed the course of his life forever.

And now here he was. All these years later, telling lies to another cop.

At least this time around, he was better at it.

“If we knew who was framing us,” he said, pleasantly enough, “we’d probably go on out and apprehend them.”

“And by ‘apprehend them,’ can I assume you mean something along the lines of what happened that night last spring out in the sound when yet another boat blew up?” Her voice was as cool as her gaze. And it made Templeton remember being smaller, skinnier, angrier. And so much less in control of himself that he’d been a different person entirely. “That being the night you claim you were out fishing in the predawn hours and just happened to catch the very preacher whose compound you’d disrupted heading for Grizzly Harbor. Loaded up with bad intentions.”

The boat had been packed with C-4 as well as bad intentions, but Templeton only smiled wider. “Fishing is my life.”

Templeton had never fished, unless it was back in the hazy days of his early childhood in Mississippi before his father had started his life sentence, no possibility of parole, thanks to the state’s three-strikes law. If so, Templeton had gone ahead and buried it along with any other stray memory of the man who’d disappeared into Mississippi’s notorious Parchman prison and had refused to let anyone visit him there. Ever. Because he might as well be dead, he’d said, and they needed to grieve him and move on.

Thinking about his father made Templeton want to hit something. Preferably Isaac Gentry—founder of Alaska Force and also Templeton’s best friend and brother-by-battle, a relationship forged in some of the worst fires imaginable. They had both been recruited into what wassometimes called Delta Force. Isaac had come from Marine Force Recon and Templeton from the Army Rangers, and they’d both made it through separate, grueling selection processes to the same qualification course. They’d both managed not to wash out of that six-month adventure into what a man was really made of—otherwise known as hell—and they’d been working together in one form or another ever since.

Templeton would die for Isaac in a heartbeat, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed being sent on this errand to play cops and robbers with a trooper while the rest of the team tried to figure out who was trying to come at them. It made him wish he could indulge his temper after all.

Or, worse, the other appetites he kept on lockdown while on a job, because he liked his life free of complications.

The thing was, Templeton couldn’t help but notice,Trooper Holidayhad a seriously complicated mouth.

It was distracting.

Templeton had taken her number before he’d walked in, since she’d chosen to sit at a table where he could study her through the window without being seen. And while he’d messed around with his coat, hanging it up neatly like he was in any way domesticated, he’d been comparing what Oz, Alaska Force’s computer whiz, had told them about Investigator Kate Holiday of the Alaska Bureau of Investigation to the actual flesh-and-blood woman waiting for him in Caradine’s Water’s Edge Café.

Caradine might have been the most relentlessly unfriendly person Templeton had ever met, which was only one of the reasons he liked her, but she could always be depended on to open up the café if needed. Even on slow winter afternoons, because she was always happy to be paid for her trouble. And Templeton preferred the home-court advantage.

Kate Holiday was exactly who he was expecting. Trim build, with lean curves that told him how dedicatedshe was to keeping fit. It was another way of letting him know that she cared deeply about her competence, and he approved. Templeton knew she’d flown herself here in one of the little jumper seaplanes that everybody and their uncle seemed to have in this part of the world, which told him she was practical and independent. Because the Alaska State Troopers were spread thin as it was, like a bunch of shiny blue marbles flung across a big, wide, endlessly wild and rugged table. Templeton was always hearing stories about the troopers having to take commercial flights or ferries to conduct their investigations. Unless, of course, they had their own transportation at the ready.

In the file Oz had compiled, Templeton had seen a picture of her in the traditional Trooper uniform, her brown hair pulled back severely and that unsmiling, authoritative cop look on her face. It didn’t make her any less pretty, but it suggested that her prettiness came with a punch.

In person, she was less severe. She still had her hair scraped back, but there was something about her face in motion that got to him. That generous mouth, maybe, that made him want to keep looking. Made him want to reach out and touch.

He didn’t. And not only because it was clear that Trooper Holiday took her boundaries seriously. Very seriously, if the stiff way she was sitting was any indication.

The thing was, Templeton shouldn’t havewantedto touch her. He had strict rules against getting involved with women he met through work and might have to contend with in his professional sphere.

One disaster in that arena was enough, he’d always thought. He’d had his already.

“You seem to have drifted off there,” she commented in that cool voice that reminded him that whatever else she was, she was sharp. And not particularly charmed byhim, which, perversely, made him think more highly of her. After all, an act was an act, and Templeton never could bring himself to unreservedly like anyone who bought his. “Dreaming of fishing?”

Templeton smiled. “All the time. Even in the middle of rousing conversations with law enforcement officials, my heart is out there with my bait and tackle. Makes a man feel alive inside.”

“I’m thrilled for you.” She folded her hands before her on the table, and the smile she aimed back at him was laced with steel. He liked that, too. “So what is it you think someone would gain by framing you?”

“Off the top of my head, I think the first thing they’d gain was the Alaska State Troopers all up in our business.” He tipped his head toward her. “And check it out. Here you are.”

“I like to flatter myself that our reputation is fierce indeed, but I somehow doubt that we’re an endgame.”

So did Templeton. Which begged the obvious question. If siccing the Troopers on Alaska Force wasn’t the endgame, what was?

“You’re skeptical. I get it. But ask yourself this. Who stands to gain from Alaska Force being taken apart?”

She regarded him steadily, in a manner calibrated to induce spontaneous confessions of wrongdoing. “You mean aside from the citizens of the great state of Alaska, who can look forward to healthier and happier lives with a band of petty criminals taken off the streets?”

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