Page 88 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

The next moment, it cracked. Tracy stopped wrinkling up her forehead. She stopped her attempt at an encouraging, tremulous smile. She coughed, and that took Kate back. It was her smoker’s cough, the music of her mother, and Kate filled up fast with the swamp of emotions she associated with all things Tracy. Revulsion, hurt, and the leftover ruins of long-lost hope.

“As self-righteous as ever, I see,” Tracy said. Her canny eyes flicked from Kate to a point behind and above her, where Kate knew Templeton stood. And Kate would have ripped out her tongue before she admitted how comforting she found it to have a man the size of a mountain at her back. No matter how irritated she was with him. “Can’t a mother have a change of heart? A desire to see her only child?”

“I’m sure mothers can and do,” Kate replied. “But we’re talking about you.”

There was a flicker of something in Tracy’s eyes, but she only shrugged. “It’s been a long time. People change.”

“I’ve changed,” Kate agreed. “But none of you seem to be any different from how I left you. Will is a mess. Liberty and Russ are overzealous. And Dad is exactly the same as he was back then. The only thing that’s changed is his audience.”

“I did my time,” Tracy said stoutly. “My debt is paid. It’s not unusual to want to rebuild a life after prison, is it?”

“You’ve been out of prison for three years.”

“I had to get on my feet.”

Kate shook her head. “I don’t buy whatever this is. Even if you were rebuilding your life, you wouldn’t be doing it here.” She narrowed her eyes at the woman in front of her. “Do you have a bomb strapped to your chest?”

Tracy sighed. “I guess I deserve that.”

She stood up, and Kate felt those same swampy things spiral inside her. She could see too much of herself in this woman. In the shape of her. The way she jutted out one hip when she stood. The way her shoulders sloped. She’d despaired of these things years ago. Today it made her feel hollow.

But somehow not as dislocated as she might have expected she would.

Tracy smirked. Then she lifted the hem of the shirt she wore, exposing her abdomen. Then higher to show her bra. There was nothing visible there except her rail-thin body, with her ribs poking through. Kate could almost feel the impression of those bones against her face, the way she had as a child on the few occasions she could remember being sick enough, feverish enough, that her mother had actually held her.

“I hope you enjoyed the show,” Tracy said, and Kate couldn’t tell if that was directed at her or Templeton. “One thing prison does real well is make a person less self-conscious.”

“You have five minutes,” Kate told her. “If you have something to say, say it.”

“This is awkward for me, too, Katie.” Tracy shook her head, looked at Templeton as if he were on her side in this. “I’m sorry that you feel you can’t talk to me alone.”

“You didn’t ask to speak with me alone.” Kate had to work very hard not to bite her mother’s head off. “I don’t feel one way or the other about it.”

“Caradine’s is open today,” Templeton said.

Kate didn’t want to look at him. She wasn’t ready to think about all the revelations they’d tossed at each other on their walk up from the docks. Certainly not when her mother was around, like a hovering toxic event. But because her mother was there, and watching, she aimed a cool smile his way.

“On Christmas? That’s surprising.”

Templeton’s gaze was too dark, but it was that golden gleam that caught at her. “Not when she can charge double.”

What he didn’t say was that it was likely wise to have this conversation with Tracy in a public place, which could be monitored by Alaska Force and other witnesses. Instead of going off for a cozy chat somewhere private, where who knew what might happen? He didn’t say any of that, but since Kate felt exactly the same way, she nodded.

“Perfect.” She looked back at her mother. “Look at that, Mom. We get to celebrate our first real Christmas together. Can’t you feel the joy?”

The Tracy she’d known back in the day would have slapped her. Or worse. But this version of her mother was less readable. More contained, maybe. As if she’d learned to temper herself along with casual disrobing during her incarceration.

“I’ve prayed for you every day we’ve been apart,” Tracy said, with a certain edge to all her piety that made Kate grit her teeth. “I’ve prayed to change your heart.”

“I’ve prayed for different parents,” Kate shot back. “I guess none of our prayers have been answered.”

Tracy took her time putting on her coat and then walked jerkily out of the inn, back out to the cold street. Kate followed behind her, keenly aware of Templeton moving along with them, soundless and intense.

“I’ll see you and your friends later,” Kate said to him in an undertone as he closed the door of the inn behind them. She thought it was highly unlikely that her mother’s appearance was a coincidence, which meant Tracy probably knew exactly who and what Alaska Force was. Samuel Lee had been the showboat out there in the bush, but it was always Tracy who’d set the stage. Kate wouldn’t put it past her mother to have spent the past three years plotting revenge. But on the off chance she hadn’t—and was somehow uninvolved in what was happening—Kate saw no reason to advertise who and what Alaska Force was.

Templeton’s dark gaze touched hers. “Count on it.”

And Kate hadn’t been being melodramatic when she’d told him she was used to working alone. Or not too melodramatic, anyway. She was. That was part and parcel of the job.

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