Page 37 of Alaskan Blackout
“I need to speak to Clayton. Face-to-face.” His grip tightened on the laptop, his knuckles almost white. “I’ll check in with you when I get back so we can work out a custody agreement. This morning doesn’t change the fact that I still want to be a part of this child’s life.”
She noticed he hadn’t repeated his offer of marriage. Not that she would have accepted it now any more than she’d been ready to the night before. However, the realization that she’d damaged their relationship to this degree still hurt.
Her temples throbbed. Her heart ached.
“All right. Thank you.” Her gaze went to the postcard of the wolf in her hallway, an idea occurring to her. “Do you have enough information to find him?”
She hadn’t wanted to betray her brother, yet she also couldn’t bear the idea of Quinton wandering around the North Slope unsure where to find Clay.
“I’ll figure it out,” he assured her, picking up the keys for his SUV. “Goodbye, McKenna.”
Her heart broke.
As she watched him put on his coat and walk out the door, the hollow feeling in her gut told her what she had feared all night long.
She had fallen for him. Just in time to lose him forever.
Twelve
Buckled into the passenger seat of a 1950s era de Havilland Beaver aircraft specially adapted to fly the harsh northern landscape, Quinton studied the Brooks Range out the windscreen.
The seven-hundred-mile stretch of mountains included the world’s highest Arctic Circle peaks. Quinton had been immersed in maps for days after leaving McKenna’s house to pinpoint his brother’s potential dwelling on the edge of Alaska’s North Slope. Narrowing down the location had been slowed by thoughts of McKenna and all the missteps he’d made after learning about her pregnancy.
Part of him still couldn’t believe he’d walked away from the woman carrying his child. But he’d been upset and hadn’t wanted to say something he regretted. He had to think of her health and the well-being of their baby, after all. So he’d taken a breather to settle things with Clay. Even knowing he and McKenna weren’t going to have a relationship, he couldn’t afford to have her hide out like her brother had done. Not with his child. But he missed her more than he’d ever thought possible. Even more than when she’d left for her trip to Attu.
She’d texted him an apology in the cool aftermath of their argument, and Quinton knew he should accept it. Yet even the night before their argument, she’d shoved him away with both hands when he’d suggested they wed. McKenna had blatantly refused to consider his marriage proposal.
Admittedly, his offer might not have been the flowery kind that some women dream about, a fact that troubled him in hindsight. Could he have dressed up his appeal to her in a way that would have made her say yes? He’d been rattled by the baby news at the time. Plus, he figured McKenna’s practical nature would appreciate a union based in honesty and laid out in black-and-white.
He’d misjudged everything, however. Making it tough for him to focus on the inevitable meeting with Clay once the plane landed. Regret about how he’d handled things with McKenna burned away thoughts of anything else.
“We’re almost there.” The bush pilot’s voice sounded through the headset Quinton wore as the aircraft banked toward the east. “The coordinates you gave me will put us down close to a campground near Galbraith Lake. You will see the water up ahead to your right.”
Unease roiled.
If his information had been correct about Clayton, Quinton would be confronting him all too soon. There’d been a time when he looked forward to this meeting with his half brother. Quinton planned to gift him all his shares of the Kingsley inheritance, including his portion of Kingsland Ranch. Plus the one-quarter of the inheritance that Clayton deserved by birthright.
All of which would make Clayton Reynolds a very wealthy man.
Now, however, when Quinton also had to tell Clay that his stepsister carried Quinton’s child? Cold dread filled him at the thought of facing a man who had already made it a point to distance himself from the Kingsleys.
A distance he took very seriously judging by the barren tundra of the subarctic climate that reached in every visible direction of the ground below. What had Quinton and his other brothers done to warrant this level of estrangement? But he owed it to Clay to have this conversation after all the ways their father had mistreated him over the years.
Lost in the old memories of their father Duke Kingsley’s dysfunctional household, Quinton forgot to scour the ground for possible sightings of a temporary dwelling. So it came as a surprise when the pilot’s voice sounded in his ears again, momentarily muting out the dull roar of the Beaver’s engine.
“That could be the place you’re looking for.” The pilot, a full-bearded guy named Dave, who looked well suited to the north in his waterproof gear and neck gaiter, pointed to a white-and-gray travel trailer at one end of the lake where the water narrowed.
Instantly alert, Quinton double-checked the GPS coordinates on his satellite phone.
“Close enough.” He gave a thumbs-up to Dave. “Let’s give it a try.”
When Quinton had contracted with the air taxi company to fly him into the Alaskan bush, the pilot had been apprised of the fluid itinerary to find a missing man. Dave had agreed to circle the area for as long as daylight and weather permitted, including waiting on the ground for Quinton to conduct his business so that he had an exit strategy.
Based on how few temporary dwellings they’d seen in the last two hundred miles, Quinton felt good about their odds of this being Clay’s. The postmark for a tiny Alaskan village on the wolf postcard at McKenna’s house had been the most important piece of the puzzle. Once he had that information that placed Clay on Alaska’s North Slope during the past month, Quinton was able to focus his search efforts. He’d pulled up records of Clayton’s work history when he’d been employed by the Alaskan oil rigs over a decade ago, triangulating places where Clay would have familiarity and access. Without a plane of his own, Clay was more limited in his movements since many of the settlements weren’t linked by roads.
Moments later, Dave landed the single-engine prop plane on a stretch of open ground less than fifty yards from the RV. There was no truck in sight capable of pulling the travel trailer. However, a small off-road vehicle sat to one side of the camper next to a long strip of reflective panels for solar power. Quinton took it all in as he removed his headset and unfastened his seat belt, stepping down to the ground a moment after the pilot. Cold air hit his face, the damp weather making the wind all the more biting with the temperature hovering around freezing.
While Dave stretched his legs on one side of the aircraft, Quinton walked toward the sleek RV that didn’t appear as though it had been used through many harsh Alaskan winters. The fifth wheel looked new, the paint bright.