Page 76 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

It was like Santa really had come.

“We spent an extra day in Fairbanks,” Templeton said. “Ice fog.”

Isaac grunted, because who hadn’t found themselves stuck in Fairbanks’s inversion layer at some point or another. Templeton opted not to give his friend a play-by-play outline of how he’d spent that extra day.

Trooper Holiday had taken the back of his head off. Repeatedly. Templeton was amazed that he’d managed to wake up at his usual time, shifting from a sound sleep to total alertness instantly, as was his way. And he’d known exactly who was curled up against his chest, nestled into him as if they’d always slept together like this, jigsaw puzzle pieces snapped together.

He’d never been the kind of man who reacted like a scalded cat at the very hint of affection or suggestion of intimacy. He’d never snuck off in the middle of the night, the better to avoid a conversation when the light came in. He left with a smile in the full force of daylight.

But the way he and Kate fit together made every single alarm go off inside him, loud and long. The way they had yesterday—but he hadn’t cared then. He’d gone outside to run a perimeter check and get a sense of the predawn weather, and he hadn’t been prepared for her when he’d come back inside. She’d been standing there in the kitchen, her brown eyes sleepy and her mouth soft, and Templeton had lost his fight there and then.

He very distinctly remembered thinking,Rules? What rules?

Waking up this morning, all he could think about were those rules. And how he’d broken every last one of them.

Over and over again.

He wanted to linger longer there, in the heat of the bed with her soft weight all over him, her hair drifting across his chest.

His heart had kicked at him—hard—like it knew things he didn’t about the mess he’d made. That was what had gotten him up and moving.

Because Templeton didn’t deviate from his routine. Deviation led to disaster.

And discipline was a practice, not a punishment, as he reminded himself when he went downstairs. Though maybe he was in the mood to punish himself, too, as hebanged out his morning set of push-ups, crunches, and burpees, then two extra sets besides to get the blood flowing. He checked the weather, ran the frigid perimeter to make sure there were no uninvited guests of the human variety, then checked to see the status of potential flights.

He’d actually forgotten it was Christmas today. And that Christmas made disgruntled pilgrims out of every man with a family that still held on to expectations of a gathering. Blue was back in the suburb of Chicago he’d once vowed he’d rather bomb than visit, thanks to Everly. Griffin, the coldest and most remote individual Templeton had ever known—until the recent, gradual thawing that Mariah had brought about in him—was subjecting himself to his annual trip home to pretend to his family that he was normal, like them. That had always baffled and entertained Templeton, who had nowhere to go and no one to perform for.

But it was always the thought of Isaac, one of the most dangerous men alive, on a pullout sofa surrounded by his grandmother’s relentless Christmas cheer, that made his heart sing.

“Are the planes still grounded?” Isaac asked.

“Negative. They’re starting to let flights out at nine.”

“Are you headed back to Fool’s Cove?”

Templeton stood in the kitchen while the coffeemaker churned and sputtered, scowling out at the dark. “We’re heading down to Seward for a touching reunion with Samuel Lee Holiday.”

“There’s no love here in Anchorage,” Isaac said, sounding less grumpy. “Any religious separatist aspirations have taken a back seat to medical bills. Cancer, a couple car accidents. I’m hearing it’s the same story in Ketchikan. These malcontents look good on paper, but dig down into it another layer, and there’s nothing there.”

“We’re not finding a different story here,” Templeton told him. “The cousins were trigger-happy douchebagsyesterday, but I don’t see them putting together anything sophisticated enough to sneak beneath our perimeter. We’re missing something. Still.”

“You figure Samuel Lee Holiday is pulling the strings?”

Templeton considered it. “I think Kate’s cousins wish that he was. But everything in Nenana felt more like a vigil than any seething hotbed of vigilante justice for past wrongs. And again, there’s only so much one old man can do from a cell.”

“What does your trooper think?”

Templeton ran his free hand over his head and hated that lurching sensation in his chest, which felt a whole lot like his heart carrying on in all the ways he’d been sure it never would. Ever again. Because everyone he’d ever loved, or felt something about, ended up dead.

But that wasn’t what Isaac had asked him.

“I think she’s torn,” he said. “Part of her wants it to be him, because she’s familiar with that. She took him down once, so she probably thinks she’d do it again. On the other hand, it’s obviously better for everyone concerned if he’s as impotent as he ought to be.”

It was only after he’d answered that Templeton reflected on the fact that Isaac had called Katehistrooper.

Crap.

“What’s your read?” Isaac asked. He no longer sounded even remotely sleepy. Or, more precisely, he no longer sounded irritated that Templeton had supposedly woken him. Templeton wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Isaac soundtrulysleepy. There was some debate as to whether or not the man actually slept. “Whether it is or isn’t her father, do you think she can handle the face-to-face?”

---