Page 96 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

Somehow, the boat didn’t capsize, though it lurched from side to side in the waves.

And that left Kate and her mother face-to-face.

“The ritual is too good for you!” Tracy howled at her, struggling to her feet as the boat rocked this way, then that. “I should have put you down like a dog years ago!”

Kate snuck a look, because belief only went so far. The helicopter was coming.

“I can remedy that right now,” Tracy said, and lifted her gun.

Kate aimed the flare gun directly at her mother’s face.

“Go ahead, Mom,” she said. “See if you can shoot me before I light you up like a Christmas tree.”

Tracy scoffed. “Have you forgotten I’m the one who taught you how to shoot?”

There was no shame, no guilt, no second thoughts. Kate had spent too much time this month indulging her inner child, that poor kid. But here, now, she was the policewoman she’d made herself out of that kid. She had already risen like a phoenix once. She would damn well do it again, if necessary.

She couldn’t say she particularly wanted to kill her mother. Of course she didn’t.

But she would.

“You taught me a lot of things,” Kate replied, keeping herself balanced and her hands steady. “But I got over that a long time ago.”

Tracy screamed like a banshee. Bloody murder, rage, and all that crazy besides. She lunged forward and brandished her weapon at Kate as if she wanted to pistol-whip her, then maybe get around to shooting her a few times.

But Kate saw her opening. Tracy overbalanced and nearly toppled into the water. Kate shifted to the side, then reached across the bench seat where she and Will had huddled, and smacked the handgun out of her mother’s hand.

The gun clattered across the boat’s floor. It skated around, then hit Will in the side. And Kate had to hope that Will was the one who picked it up, not their grunting, bellowing second cousin. But she couldn’t concentrate on their fight. Not when Tracy was screaming even louder now, grabbing her hand as if Kate had cut it off.

“Give it up,” Kate advised her. “You can’t win this.”

The spotlight picked them up as the helicopter flew closer, lower. The boat rocked wildly. Tracy jerked her head up, as if she couldn’t believe her own eyes. Kate wanted to look up herself, but she could tell where the helicopter was by the look on her mother’s face and the way she swayed.

“You’re going back to prison,” Kate told her. “For good this time. You might as well accept that here and now.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw ropes dropping down from above, with men on the ends of them. A figure jumped into the water to go after the cousin who’d fallen overboard. But the man on the other rope moved closer.

It was dark, she was looking only with her peripheral vision, and she still knew it was Templeton.

She felt him, like a natural disaster, deep in the core of her. Like that ritual that really, she’d survived twice.

And once again, he’d proved that she could trust him absolutely.

Something in her stuttered at that. But she shoved it away, slammed the lid on it, and compartmentalized it with the strength of years’ practice.

In the back of the boat, Will was holding the gun on their remaining second cousin. His face was beat up and he had a bloody nose, but the look he threw Kate was proud.

Because this time, he knew who he was. Not a traitor. Just done with this Holiday family crap once and for all.

Kate knew the feeling.

Templeton came closer, hanging at the end of the rope over the brooding, dangerous December sea the way other men might take a casual walk on a flat road.

But that was Templeton.

Always a freaking light show.

“You’re not worthy,” Tracy shouted at Kate. “You never were. But I know I am.”

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