Page 6 of Alaskan Blackout

The images could have been associated with some kind of game she’d been playing online. But considering his line of work in digital security, his brain went to a worse scenario. The graphics were amateurish, the sort of thing a kid might attach to an early hacking attempt.

“It’s much worse than that,” she confided, smashing her phone facedown onto the table so she didn’t have to see the screen any longer.

Empathizing with her obvious distress, Quint lowered himself into the seat across from her just as McKenna reappeared at the table, her eyes full of concern for Ms. Weatherspoon.

“What’s wrong?” McKenna shifted focus to him as she dropped onto the booth bench beside the older woman, who’d begun to sob quietly. She laid an arm over her shoulders and gently squeezed as she asked Quint, “What made her so upset?”

Quint pointed to the pink-and-white-daisy phone case lying discarded between the chicken salad sandwich and a sweating glass of iced tea. “Something on her phone, I think,” he explained before diverting his attention back to the retiree. “Ms. Weatherspoon, let us help—”

“You can’t!” she wailed softly, lifting a tear-strewed face. “I was deceived by someone who messaged me that my grandson was in trouble.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Quint’s stomach dropped for her sake. He knew the grandparent scam well. A simple, much replicated ploy that often targeted seniors who might be fooled into thinking they were talking to a grandchild in trouble. Julie Weatherspoon’s tale varied a little in the details, but in the end, she’d wired money that she believed was to bail her grandson out of jail.

“I can’t believe I fell for it,” she sniffed as she wound up her story, her heavily ringed hand squeezing McKenna’s wrist. “But it sounded just like Jeremy’s voice. And he begged me not to tell his mom and dad that he was in trouble, which just tore at my heart.”

McKenna offered soothing words, her manner with the woman bearing none of the cool hostility she seemed to reserve for him.

Something shifted in his chest as he watched her tip her forehead toward the other woman, her long copper ponytail slipping forward as she gave her a quick, fierce hug. A rogue emptiness yawned inside him as he witnessed the exchange. Swallowing down the feeling, he focused on the practical.

“It’s important to secure all of your devices as soon as possible,” Quint counseled while the nearby table full of young guys erupted in laughter. “Want me to give you a hand with that?”

“Would you?” Julie Weatherspoon’s expression was so grateful and relieved that he wished he’d offered sooner. “I didn’t even realize what happened until my screen froze just now and I got the message that I’d been hacked.”

Ah damn it. He hated the thought of anyone getting scammed this way and he had a bad feeling her computer woes weren’t over yet. How could he not lend a hand?

“We should get to work then,” Quint suggested, taking the phone just as McKenna shot to her feet.

“I’d better get back to my customers.” McKenna lingered a moment at the table, her stormy blue eyes fixed on him as she withdrew her notepad from her hoodie pocket once more. “You’ll take good care of her?”

The words weren’t quite a challenge issued. More like a demand he didn’t dare refuse.

Not that he wanted to. Yet what did it say about McKenna’s view of him that she thought she had to hold his feet to the fire in order to ensure he gave his assistance to this person in need of a hand? For the first time since arriving in Dutch Harbor, he wondered what exactly Clayton had told her about his family.

About him.

Obviously, he had a long way to go to earn a scrap of trust from her.

He held her gaze for a long moment, willing her to read the sincerity in them. Then, in all seriousness, he assured her, “You have my word.”

Humming along to a rock and roll classic playing on the bar stereo, McKenna dried the drinkware as the clock ticked nearer to closing time. All the while ridiculously aware of the last patron in the Cyclone Shack.

Again.

Her gaze stole over to Quint once more at his seat at the bar where he tapped out something on his phone, his laptop long ago packed away for the day. He’d left the booth table a few hours ago to take up his late-day post at the bar—a move he’d repeated each day after his arrival. There was something methodical about that. Some part of him that must appreciate a routine. Order.

Surprising from the Kingsley son who’d left the Montana family ranch at a relatively young age to pursue a vastly different direction for himself. In the few times over the years that she’d conjured visions of Clay’s half brothers, she’d always imagined this one would be more of an upper class elitist who ate avocado toast and wore flannel even though he worked in tech.

Okay, maybe that was just her ill-informed stereotype of anyone employed in Silicon Valley, and that was on her, not them.

But either way, she hadn’t pictured Quinton to embody her idea of a Montana rancher with his boots and duster coat that looked like he’d just come off the range. On the two days it hadn’t been pouring, he’d worn a Stetson. And then, there was that regimented aspect of him that conducted business for a certain amount of time each day and then turned his focus to quizzing Cyclone Shack patrons about his brother.

Herbrother, damn it.

She wasn’t giving up her claim to Clay.

Now, sliding a spotless wineglass into the rack where it belonged, she allowed herself another glance at her last guest. His square jaw and high cheekbones looked carved from granite as he sat under the stark light of a pendant lamp. His long lashes hid his eyes as he worked, the intriguing contours of his face and rough-looking texture of his stubbled cheek making her palm itch with the curiosity to touch him.

And if that sounded like she’d been observing him far too closely for the last twenty minutes since the previous patron had left the building, well, that would be because she had.

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