Page 64 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

But no people.

Templeton pulled up in front of the house and cut the engine.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Kate said.

The back of her neck tingled. She couldn’t put her finger on why.

“No lights on,” Templeton said in his low voice. “It’s December. The sun just came up. Where are the lights? And why don’t we hear a generator?”

But Kate didn’t have time to think that one through.

Or even answer him.

Because that was when the shooting started.

Sixteen

A split second after the first bullet slammed into the ground in front of the SUV, Templeton and Kate were moving.

Like one.

Kate threw herself down, reaching for her weapon as she scanned the scene outside. Templeton tossed the car into reverse, wheeling them back so the SUV was at an angle to the house and could offer some protection.

“One shooter,” Kate reported. “He’s on the roof.”

“I see him.”

Templeton slammed the SUV into park, tossed his door open, and then rolled out of the vehicle. He opened his mouth to order Kate to follow him, but she was already right there, moving smoothly to duck down next to him, with the SUV between them and the house. He was glad they’d both suited up for exposure to the outdoors shortly after they’d turned off the highway—because you never knew—or they would be in a lot more trouble than they already were.

And then, without discussing it, Kate kept eyes on theidiot playing sniper from the roof while Templeton checked the surrounding area for any other trigger-happy maniacs.

“All clear,” he told Kate in a low voice after a few tense moments and another shot that, like the first few, slammed into the frozen ground in the space between them and the house. “I think that joker is the only active threat.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Kate said grimly. “I’m seventy-five percent certain that’s my cousin Russ up there.”

“Only seventy-five percent?”

“The last time I saw him he was a chubby kid. The man on the roof is bearded and could be anywhere between twenty and forty years old.” Kate blew out a breath. Then another. “Cover me.”

He had an inkling of what she was about to do when she holstered her weapon. And had to check himself, because if any other member of Alaska Force had made the same move, Templeton wouldn’t have blinked. Yet here he was thinking about how much he wanted to keep her in one piece.

But a man could think like a Neanderthal without acting like one. Or giving in to the things that churned around in him that couldn’t possibly be emotions.

So he propped himself up against the SUV, ostentatiously pointing his own weapon right at no-longer-chubby Cousin Russ. If that was who it was. All Templeton saw was one more backwoods fool with a beard longer than his common sense.

“If I start shooting, friend,” Templeton called, letting his voice ring out into the quiet of the frigid morning, “I’m not going to hit three feet in front of you.”

“I missed you on purpose,” came the reply from the roof. “I won’t miss again.”

“Then it looks like we have a stalemate,” Templeton drawled, loud enough to reach to the windows all over the front part of the house, where he could see thesuggestion of shadows and knew that whoever else lived here was watching.

“Russ?” Kate called, sounding remarkably friendly as she stepped out from behind the car, her hands up in the air. “Is that you?”

The Neanderthal in Templeton distinctly disliked the way she stepped out even farther, marching a few paces closer to the house. It left her completely exposed, and he hated it.

The strategist in him, on the other hand, admired both the move itself and how coolly she executed it.

“It’s me, Russ,” she called again, like she was someone’s elderly neighbor on a television show. “Your cousin Kate.”

---