Page 36 of Alaskan Blackout
Her stomach dropped as she turned to face him. Needing to confront him about a betrayal so devastating it was difficult to even form words. Hurt and fear twined inside her so tightly she couldn’t even make sense of her thoughts.
“How could you do this?” she blurted, pointing a shaking finger toward his laptop sitting so close to hers.
Quinton paused in the middle of unhooking the leash from Loki’s collar, his big hands making the brown and black bundle of fur appear even smaller.
“How did I do what?” His voice was quiet. His dark eyebrows crinkled, confusion scrawled on his features. “Narrow down Clayton’s location?”
Her heart pounded so hard the sound of it seemed to echo in her ears. The volume of everything else seemed muted by comparison. She watched Quinton finish unhooking the leash before hanging it on the coat rack near the door.
“So you don’t even deny it.” She thought she’d known what betrayal felt like before. But this? Having Quinton stab her in the back was a hurt beyond anything she’d ever imagined. Because unlike with her ex, this time she had actually cared. Deeply. “How convenient was it for you to sleep in my house—to sleep withme—so you could have access to information about Clay?”
“McKenna.” He walked toward her, hand outstretched, and she backed up a step, her butt hitting the kitchen island. Frowning at her, Quinton halted in his tracks, as if he was surprised that she was so rattled. “I promise you, it never occurred to me that I’d be able to put two and two together about Clay’s location when you and I went out last night.”
Pain pierced her chest at the thought of how vulnerable she’d allowed herself to be with this man. She carried his child. To her horror, her eyes burned.
She would not allow herself to show him how much he’d hurt her. Blinking back her feelings, she folded her arms across her chest.
“So you didn’t think of hacking my computer untilafterI fell asleep?”
Quinton reared back as if she’d delivered a blow, his surprise evident.
“Hack your computer?” He shook his head as if in disbelief. “McKenna, I don’t know where you got that idea, but I promise you I would never violate your trust that way.”
A doubt slithered into her brain. He appeared sincere. And genuinely shocked at the conclusion she’d drawn.
Still, she couldn’t afford to believe a man on blind faith anymore. She needed to be stronger than that for the sake of the child she carried.
“Your laptop is next to mine,” she murmured, rethinking the chain of thoughts and fears that had slid through her mind this morning. “I know you’re a tech genius. And suddenly, after asking me for weeks where Clay is, you have the answer all figured out today when you’ve had the opportunity to spend time in close proximity with my computer.”
Quinton shook his head slowly. He held up both his hands, as if in a show of surrender.
“I realize you have every reason to battle trust issues when it comes to men, McKenna.” He dropped his hands to his sides, his broad shoulders sinking. “I guess I’m still rocked that you would think I could do something so blatantly underhanded after everything we’ve shared.”
A pang in her midsection made her question herself. Of course she wanted to believe him. But could she trust her judgment when it had steered her toward the wrong people in the past?
“How did you find him?” she found herself asking, needing some plausible alternative explanation.
His jaw flexed and tensed, turning to granite. She recognized she’d offended him. She scooped up Loki from the floor, needing the comfort of her dog when she didn’t know what to think.
“I spotted that postcard in the Cyclone Shack before you left for your trip.” He nodded toward the corridor where she’d hung framed pictures, most of them from fishing trips. Of course, he did not refer to the framed photos but the wolf postcard with no writing on it that she’d stuck in the corner of one of the frames. “And something about seeing it here too made me take a closer look at it this morning.”
Yeah, she’d been foolish to bring it here. Foolish to leave it out anywhere at all when it had a postmark on it.
Quinton hadn’t hacked her computer after all.
“I’m sorry, Quinton.” Her hands floated briefly over her belly. As if she could protect their baby from the unhappiness between its parents right now. A gulf had opened between her and Quinton, spreading wider with each awkward moment of this conversation. “I shouldn’t have been so quick to jump to conclusions.”
He gave a nod. Agreement? Or accepting her apology? She couldn’t be certain. His face appeared like set in stone.
“No doubt we have a lot to figure out between us in the next nine months,” he said finally, his gaze as cold as his words. “We don’t know each other after all.”
Stalking past her to the island, he folded down the top of his laptop and scooped it under his arm.
Her throat went dry. The magnitude of all that had passed between them in the last few weeks weighing heavily on her. Or maybe it was this morning’s mistake that sank her heart the most.
“Do you have to leave?” she asked, hating the tentative note in her voice.
Then again, she sort of deserved this tentativeness by thinking the worst of him, didn’t she? Regret over how she’d treated him bubbled to the surface of the roiling soup of her emotions.