Page 7 of Alaskan Blackout
“You did a nice thing for Ms. Weatherspoon tonight,” she mused aloud, surprised to hear herself converse with him after the days of restricting discussions to taking meal orders and warning him away from Clayton.
Yet images of Quint helping Julie Weatherspoon had circled her brain all evening. Especially when Julie had called her over to gush about Quint’s patience and smarts as he guided her through resetting her device and passwords after helping her download a software product—his company’s apparently—that would help protect her privacy and data.
In light of the ways McKenna’s digital privacy had been utterly decimated by the cruelest of exes imaginable, she couldn’t help a fractional softening in her attitude toward Quint.
“In spite of what you think, an act of human decency isn’t all that out of character for me.” Laying the phone on the bar, he folded his fingers together as he studied her in the dim light of the pendants.
She took her time drying the last of the glasses and putting it back in its place before she walked to the stereo and switched it off for the evening. It wasn’t quite closing time, but she knew her customers’ habits well enough to recognize that no one else would be entering the bar in the fifteen before she locked the front door.
Also, the excuse of shutting down the music had the benefit of bringing her closer to Quint, and she wanted to be able to read his expression for this conversation, a new curiosity burning inside of her about him. Not just because he was hot and one look from him made her blood run faster. No, this new awareness came from a need to understand him.
“So you use your tech superpowers for good when the mood strikes you?” she needled him, filled with the urge to see beyond the strong jaw and the laconic talk to the man beneath.
Who was Quinton Kingsley, and why was he really here?
Why did he need to see Clayton so badly in the first place?
Those questions kept her awake at night.
“I gladly help deserving people if it’s in my range of capabilities to do so.” His low voice seemed to vibrate on a special frequency calibrated to make her body come alive.
It wasn’t fair.
She shifted on her feet and rested her elbows on the bar, positioning herself directly across from him. She refused to back away from the chemistry even though it sparked and hissed the nearer she came. Tonight, she would learn more about him.
“Why? To impress me? Do you think being kind to people I care about will convince me to tell you more about Clay?”
“I built a global business dedicated to digital security, McKenna. Helping someone clean up from a small-time hack took very little effort from me.” His golden amber eyes tracked hers. “I wouldn’t dream of leveraging my professional skill set to impress someone who seems hell-bent on believing the worst of me for reasons that remain a mystery.”
“I wouldn’t call ithell-bent—”
“What is it that you think I’ve done to Clayton exactly? You know when he left Silent Spring that last time it wasn’t because he argued with me or Levi or Gavin. He argued withDuke.” The way he spoke his dead father’s name revealed more of his feelings about his family than she’d observed yet. “It’s our father he never wanted to see again. And for that, I definitely do not blame him.”
She tucked that away to reflect on later. At home, when she wasn’t so close to him, where they didn’t breathe the same air.
Her belly fluttered at the realization of their proximity and she levered herself away from the bar a few inches. Telling herself to stick to safer subjects, she ventured another question. “Julie said you recovered the three thousand dollars she wired to a third party?”
“Not me personally,” he clarified, his lips quirking in wry amusement. “But yes, we contacted the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Unit quickly enough that they were able to intervene. That’s not always the case, but it worked this time.”
Her belly fluttered again. And not just because she felt deeply for people who were tricked and scammed. Quint’s quick thinking meant Julie would be able to pay bills this winter. It meant the woman could hold her head high without feeling like she’d been duped.
There was simply no denying that Quint had behaved like a stand-up guy in this instance.
“Thank you for that,” she said softly, deciding she’d had all of the personal fact-finding about this man that she could handle for the day. “I’d like to close up early tonight since you’ve already paid your tab and your drink is long gone.”
He bought a few beers a night to justify taking up a seat, but he always offered them to whoever he questioned about Clayton. For himself, he drank one coffee before 5:00 p.m. and water after that.
“Sure thing.” He rose from the bar stool, pulling the bag with his laptop onto his shoulder as he moved toward the door. “But you know I have to ask you one more thing.”
The same thing he’d asked every other night.
She made no answer as she shut off the lights over the bar and followed him toward the wrought iron hooks that held their coats—his oilskin duster coat, her waterproof jacket. In silence, she slid her arms through the sleeves of the outerwear and flipped the cotton hood from her sweatshirt outside the jacket.
“Is that your sweatshirt?” Quint’s question was as unexpected as his gruff tone.
“That’s what you want to ask me?” A surprise laugh huffed from her as she peered down at the gray hoodie with the name of a Dutch Harbor fishing trawler on the front. “It belongs to Clay, actually. Not only do I tend the bar that he bought before he left town, I also live in his former house and have access to the clothes he left behind.”
Briefly, she wondered if that meant Quint would angle to try and see the house. To snoop around and look for clues so he could find Clayton and get on with his life. But oddly, he merely looked...relieved?