Page 63 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

“You know what the song says,” Templeton drawled. “We couldn’t all be cowboys, no matter how much we might want to be. Some of us, it turns out, were always going to end up clowns.”

“That sounds like a stupid song.”

“Only because you’ve obviously never heard it.”

Kate turned then and ran even faster back toward the house. And she couldn’t have said what she was running away from at that point. That tone in his voice. The look she was sure she’d seen on his face. Much too kind. Far too understanding.

Or worse still, the sure knowledge that once again he had her acting irrationally.

And making all the things she didn’t like about this situationeven worsedespite her efforts to stop what felt like a terrible avalanche into emotion and sensation, connection and intimacy, and all the other things she wanted no part of. Ever.

But once they were back at the house, it was almost like those strange, embarrassing moments in the dark hadn’t happened at all. They both took showers, then packed up and met downstairs again. Kate rustled up a relatively decent breakfast from the kitchen cabinets whileTempleton made more coffee, and she could almost pretend that she didn’t keep revealing herself to this man.

Over and over and over again.

“Are you ready to do this?” Templeton asked.

Like they had a little holiday shopping planned on the twenty-third of December. A merry run to the stores for unnecessary items to wrap in shiny paper and foist upon others, or mysterious things people seemed to want only at this time of year, like mulled wine or fruitcake. Instead of a strategic approach to a potentially dicey, cultish operation that would be all the more fraught because said cultish operators were related to Kate.

Kate had the deeply uncharacteristic and irrational urge to jump all over that question. She wanted to parse it to death and ask him why exactly he was implying that she might not be ready.

But she bit her tongue. Literally bit it.

Because it occurred to her that it was possible she was the teensiest bit anxious.

“Let’s go,” was all she said.

Templeton called in as he drove, updating Isaac and then Jonas. And Kate knew she should feel pleased that he kept them on speaker, so she could take part in the conversation. Or pleased that she didn’t have to ask him to include her. Because this was a job, after all. Just a job, nothing more.

No matter all those edgy and awkward and distressinglymeltythings that felt like a whole lot more than a job kicking around within her.

“Are you thinking it’s going to be a full-fledged party down there?” Isaac asked, something on his end making noise, which was unusual. Kate remembered then that even Isaac did a family thing over the holidays.

She should have been more excited to finally be doing something regular people did, even if she was doing it with that typical Holiday family spin.

“I think it’s going to be an interview,” Kate replied.“Perhaps slightly more awkward than most, given the family connection.”

“But we’re going in with party favors,” Templeton assured his leader. “Just in case.”

The drive from Fairbanks to Nenana was slow but unremarkable, except for the inevitable idiot driving way too fast for the wintry road conditions. The sun came up as the Parks Highway split from the railroad that headed left toward the railroad bridge and followed the road over the separate bridge for passenger vehicles. And when they drove into the village of Nenana, over the frozen Tanana river, with its glimpse over the hardy river town on the southern bank, Kate couldn’t help but remember what it had been like to come into this same town that Christmas Day long ago. She’d spent hours on that snowmobile, following this same river in from the east. She’d ditched the snowmobile on Front Street when it ran out of gas, then walked—stumbled—south to find the Troopers.

It had been fifteen years since that walk in weather as unpleasant as today’s. In the dark, after her terrifying ride away from the compound. And yet Kate felt it lodged there beneath her ribs this morning like a deep bruise. As if coming back here, for this reason and at this time of year, had dislodged something inside her. Something hard and heavy that left marks.

But she didn’t say a word.

They drove past the village, then turned at the mile marker Kate’s contacts had indicated would lead them to the new Holiday compound. The road was more of a suggestion than anything else, and the rest of the directions were very Alaskan.Drive out past the power lines, then go about five miles until the burned-out cabin. Take a left and go another few miles—when you see all the spruce trees, you’re close.

“My plan is to drive right up to the front door and see what happens,” Templeton said as they left the power lines behind. “Any objections?”

“None whatsoever.”

Though Kate could think of approximately nine hundred objections, none of them rational. All of them emotional.

She checked her weapon, found it as satisfactory as the last three times she’d checked it, and secured it again.

The day was good and broken by the time they found the spruce trees and saw the curl of smoke that indicated a nearby cabin. The winter light was pale and pretty, lighting up the snow-covered hills and making the confluence of frozen rivers gleam in the distance.

And Kate didn’t have any particular memories about this stretch of the land around Nenana. The family compound hadn’t been in this direction. Still, as they bumped along toward the house, there was something about knowing that she was going to see her family members. It made a clearing she knew she’d never been in before in her life seem familiar. Maybe it was the house itself when they reached it, built in ramshackle Alaskan style, with outbuildings and additions slapped on here and there.

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