Katie never once complained. Their progress was painfully slow. They drove several hundred yards. Stopped. Dragged a tree out of the road. Back in the Jeep. Maybe only a few hundred feet the second time. Then another tree. Every third or fourth one had to be cut up because it was too heavy.
By five o’clock they had to call it quits.
Katie chewed her lip, her hair bedraggled and sticking to her forehead, big brown eyes wide with worry. “But what if they fly up here and can’t land, because we didn’t get finished?”
“Farrell and Zachary probably have plenty to do in Portland at the moment. They both know I have supplies. If phone and power haven’t been restored by the weekend, then they might try to come north. We have time.”
They drove back to the house and took turns in the shower. Again, Katie didn’t complain. The water felt shockingly cold. Quin’s fingernails were blue by the time he was done.
It felt good to be clean and dry, at least.
He fired up the small propane stove. They dined on baked beans and canned ham. It wasn’t much, but it did the job. They still had enough pound cake for dessert.
Katie took her dishes to the sink and, on the way back, leaned over his shoulder from behind and nuzzled his neck. “Do you like card games? I’m pretty good.”
He stood and scooped her up for a hard kiss. “Strip poker?” he asked hopefully.
She grinned. “I was thinking rummy.”
“Bor-ing.”
Quin happened to be pretty good at card games himself. In college, he’d played poker for money and kicks. Katie, on the other hand was a shark. With her innocent face, gorgeous eyes and distracting breasts, she beat him the first game.
His competitive instincts kicked in. “Rematch,” he said, giving her his best intimidating stare.
She shrugged. “As long as you don’t mind being humiliated. Again.”
This time, he tried. He really did. The outcome was the same.
After four straight losses, he held up his hands in surrender. “I give up. Katie Duncan is queen bee of the rummy world.”
“I warned you.” Her amused smile caught something in his chest and twisted it. He still didn’t know why she’d walked away from their relationship two years ago. She had insisted that this six-week stint in the Maine woods was strictly temporary. And truth be told, the first three weeks were a waste, because they hadn’t been intimate. Had anything happened between them in the meantime to change her mind?
God, he hoped so. He loved her. That wasn’t going to change. But was he any better equipped to be the man she wanted? He thought he could be. Katie was more real to him now. Not simply a woman to satisfy a momentary physical craving.
Every day they spent together revealed new facets of her personality. Things he’d been blind to before. And the more he knew about her, the more deeply he fell under her spell.
Whatever it took, however long he had to wait, he would make her understand. The stakes were too high to give up.
“I want to make love to you,” he blurted out.
Her cheeks turned pink. Or at least he thought they did. Beyond the windows, the light was beginning to fade. “It’s barely eight o’clock,” she said, sounding both scandalized and interested.
He kissed the inside of her wrist. “We’re both beat. Who cares what we do, Katie? The night is ours.”
* * *
Half an hour later, Katie let him drag her toward the bedroom.
The way she wanted him was not entirely sane. She had lived by intellect her entire life. Until now. With Quin, all she wanted to do was wallow in her need for him, feel deeply and drown in the incredible pleasure he gave her.
Their evenings were governed by candlelight after the storm. It was a dangerous glow. Subtly arousing. Endlessly romantic.
They undressed in tandem and met in the center of the mattress. I love you, Quin. The words trembled on her lips. How would he react if she gave voice to them?
Never once had he given any indication that he felt anything deeper than lust. Tonight was the first time he had said “make love” instead of “have sex.” Was the change in wording significant, or was she simply another pitiful woman desperate to believe?
They touched each other endlessly, drunk on the solitude and their gratitude for being alive. She was sleepy and her arm ached, and still she wanted him. When he slid inside her, it was like coming home after a long, hard journey. Quin promised protection and comfort and peace.
But more than that, enchanting sexual pleasure.
Her orgasm built to a warm, honeyed peak that flowed into deep relaxation. She heard and felt Quin find his own release.
They fell asleep instantly in a tangle of arms and legs.
* * *
The following morning, it rained. Hard. A steady deluge punctuated by lightning and thunder. They hadn’t seen it coming, because they no longer had the luxury of forecasts and radar.
“We can’t go out in this,” Katie said. “It isn’t safe.”
Quin had smudges beneath his eyes. His jaw tightened. “I know.”
He was like a caged tiger today. Sulky and vibrating with ill-concealed frustration.
She knew his bad mood had nothing to do with her, or at least she didn’t think so, but telling him to chill out wouldn’t help. Quin was a man who hated inaction. This waiting for the storm to be over was hard on both of them. She decided it was best to keep her distance. “I’ll do some more cleaning upstairs. Just to keep busy. How about you?”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “I suppose I could go through my father’s papers out in the garage. When the house was sold after he died, all the contents were listed and offloaded in an estate sale. My brothers boxed up the contents of four filing cabinets from Dad’s office and sent them here for me to deal with. I assume the bulk of it is garbage. But there will be stuff pertaining to SRO that we should probably keep.”
“I doubt I’d be any help with that.”
“Probably not.”
“Peanut butter sandwiches at noon?” Mrs. Peterson had left two fresh loaves of bread.
Quin nodded. “Sure.” Then he paused. “I don’t need you to look after my house, Kat. I can pay for a cleanup crew when the time comes.”
“I know. But I can’t go outside and climb down to the beach. Even if I wanted to walk in the woods, the trails are a mess. I have to do something, or I’ll go crazy.”
Finally, he gave her a reluctant grin. As if he had been enjoying his bad mood. “You and me both. But please be careful.”
“I will. You, too.”
“There’s nothing dangerous in the garage.”
“I hope not. I’ve had enough shocks for one week.” She kissed his cheek. “See you at lunch.”
* * *
Quin hated paperwork more than just about anything. Which was why he’d been putting off this unwelcome chore. But he needed something to occupy his thoughts. Some kind of distraction. Thinking about how to tell Katie he loved her and wondering about the fallout afterward was driving him nuts.
Months ago, Farrell had purchased an oversize shredding bin on wheels, but the electricity was out, so the shredder was useless. Quin found two empty boxes and set them beside a folding lawn chair.
His plan was to toss unimportant stuff in one box and shred it in the future. If he came across anything that seemed valuable, those pages would go in box number two. He and Farrell and Zachary could go through those items together. At a later date.
He grabbed a couple of water bottles and settled in for his boring morning. As he suspected, most of the reams of file folders were filled with minutiae. His father had saved everything.
Quin found a receipt for dry cleaning from 1991. And that was only the tip of the iceberg.
When he finished the first box, he stood and stretched the kinks out of his back,
downing half a bottle of water at the same time. It was gratifying to realize that his knee was no worse for the wear after all he had put it through in the last few days.
Slow healing was hard to track. Today, though, it was clear to him that he was definitely better. Perhaps at some visceral level he had been afraid his knee would never again be reliable. But that wasn’t so. He was on the mend for sure this time. Third surgery a charm.
As much as it galled him to admit it, his brothers and the doctor had been right. His leg as a whole had needed time to recover. Six weeks of taking it easy was a small price to pay for the prospect of normalcy.
And then there was Katie. What was he going to do about Katie?
Sighing deeply, he forced himself to sit down and get back to work.
The second box didn’t have a million slips of paper like the first one. Here, he found his father’s personal checkbook registers and bank statements. Even with the advent of online everything, his dad had preferred the mental security of keeping everything under lock and key.
These were his personal transactions. Political contributions. Purchases large and small. Cars. Bespoke suits. Gold cuff links.
Quin couldn’t imagine he would find anything relevant to the workings of Stone River Outdoors, but he continued to flip through the entries just in case. One name caught his eye.
Caught his eye and made his stomach clench.
Katie Duncan. $100,000.
In his father’s distinctive handwriting. The entry was unmistakable, as was the date. The check had been written two years ago. In the same month Katie broke up with him.
His brain literally went numb. Thoughts floated in and out of his head, but nothing stuck. The feelings of hurt and disbelief crushed him as he tried to think back to that time. He and Katie had been arguing about money. As always. Katie had been about to drain her personal savings account in order to send her sister’s loser boyfriend to rehab.
Quin had been vehemently opposed to the idea and furious that Katie’s sister would take advantage of her that way. No drug addict was ever successfully rehabilitated unless the person in question wanted to change.
Katie had stood her ground. She told him he didn’t know what it was like to have a dysfunctional family. She told him her choices were her own.
And a very short time later, she had ended their relationship.
She had never asked Quin for the money. Maybe she had been hoping he would offer. Hell, no. Not in that situation.
So what had Katie done? Gone to Quin’s father and brazenly requested a loan? Surely the old man hadn’t simply handed over the money.
Everyone at Stone River Outdoors loved Katie, so it was conceivable that his father might have had a soft spot for her. But an outright gift of that magnitude, no way. The old man was a tightfisted bastard. Not even for a pretty girl would he part with his hard-earned dollars.
But clearly, he had.
Quin felt hollow inside. Gutted. By all accounts, Katie had never wanted Quin’s money. But maybe he had been so emotionally disconnected he hadn’t recognized her need for help. Had she been in such a bad spot that Quin himself had forced her to borrow money from his father rather than ask her lover?
If he’d been that clueless, it was no wonder she broke up with him.
Even now, a tiny part of him felt betrayed. She had left him once before without a satisfactory explanation.
Had he earned her trust this time around? Did he trust her?
He stood and kicked the box with his good leg. The pain in his toes stoked his misery. Gripping the ledger, white-knuckled, he stalked into the house.
* * *
Katie hummed as she worked. It felt good to stretch her muscles and do something useful. She was careful not to bang her arm. After breakfast, Quin had cleaned the cut and put new butterfly strips on the ugly gash. The margins of the wound were a healthy pink. He had mentioned plastic surgery, but that seemed unnecessary.
She had run out of paper towels, so she scooted down the now-immaculate stairs to get more supplies from the kitchen. Just as she reached the foyer, Quin confronted her, his face dark, his expression frightening.
He stuck out his arm, waving some kind of diary in her face. “Would you like to explain this to me?”
Katie had never seen him so angry. She took a step backward. “I don’t know. What is it?”
“Maybe you’ve never seen this particular ledger, but you sure as hell will remember this entry.”
She took the leather-bound book from him, because she had no other choice.
Quin stabbed a finger at the left-hand page. “Recognize anything?”
She glanced down. There in neat printing was her name. And an amount. Her heart sank. “I was hoping you would never have to see this. I’m so sorry, Quin.”
He gaped at her. His face went dead white. “You’re not denying it?”
“How can I?” she asked, confused. “He wrote that check. I didn’t want you to find out. I knew it would hurt you. So I kept the secret.”
Quin scraped a hand through his hair, his eyes filled with some strong emotion. He was clearly distraught. “Why wouldn’t you ask me for the money? Why ask my father? Did you think so little of me that you believed I wouldn’t help you when you needed it?”
He stopped, stared, and gave her a stricken look. “And I suppose you thought when he died, you were off the hook. That you wouldn’t have to pay the money back, because it was a secret.”
In one blinding instant, Katie realized that he had misunderstood. Her legs trembled. Her stomach clenched and heaved. “Wait,” she said. “You actually think I took money from your father without telling you?”
Her heart shattered, leaving fragments far more painful than the one that had lodged in her arm. She was too shocked to defend herself.
“Don’t try to spin this, Katie. It’s all out in the open now.”
Before she could answer his sickening accusation, thunderous knocking sounded at the front door. Suddenly, Farrell and Zachary burst in, their faces painted in distress.
Quin’s jaw dropped. “How did you get here? We haven’t even been able to clear the helipad yet.”
Both brothers enveloped him in a bear hug. Then they shook Katie’s hand. “We were worried sick about both of you,” Farrell said, “so I chartered a boat. Half the roads in the state are impassable. God knows how long it will be until basic utilities are restored this far north. We’ve come to take you back to Portland.”
Zach zeroed in on Katie’s bandaged arm. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I’m fine. Why don’t all of you go to the kitchen and grab a sandwich. I’ll pack my things. Honestly, I can’t wait to get out of here.”
Quin shot her a dark look as the three brothers disappeared down the hall. As if he was telling her, this isn’t over yet.
In a matter of minutes, she had removed every trace of her presence from Quin’s bedroom. She didn’t want his brothers to know she and Quin had been sleeping together. She dragged it all upstairs so she could organize and pack for the trip home.
Which meant that half an hour later, the two older Stone brothers watched her descend the stairs from the guest suite as if she had been staying there all along. Zach met her halfway. “Here. Let me help you with those bags.”
“Where’s the boat?” she asked, feeling dead inside. That Quin could think she would go behind his back and betray him meant he still had no clue who she was. They hadn’t connected at all. Not really. Not if Quin had jumped to such an appalling conclusion.
Farrell answered. “The captain is anchored just offshore. No clearance for a big vessel on Quin’s tiny, rocky beach. We waded in, but one of us will help you.”
Eighteen
Quin seethed during the long trip back to Portland. The rain stopped. The sun came out. Nothing could improve his mood. He t
old himself he was furious, but even he recognized his own lie. He was hurt. Slashed to the bone.
When Katie had ended the relationship two years ago, he had imagined any number of reasons why she had walked away from some of the best sex of his life. Maybe she hadn’t felt the same way. Maybe she was squeamish about the work connection.
Never in a million years had he imagined anything like this.
He stayed in the front cabin of the boat, debriefing with his brothers. Katie sat out in the sunshine, her face turned toward the horizon. She hadn’t spoken a word to him or vice versa since Farrell and Zachary arrived.
Surely his brothers had noticed the tension. If they had, neither of them commented. The trip back to Portland took forever. When they docked, a car was waiting for them.
“We’ll drop Katie first,” Farrell said. “Then the three of us can look over some damage reports from the warehouse and the office.”
Twenty minutes later Katie said a general goodbye to the occupants of the car. Zach helped her with her bags. Katie looked at Farrell. “You’ll let me know if you need me at the office before it opens?”
“I will,” Farrell said.
Then she was gone.
Quin’s chest was hollow.
Farrell had booked a reservation at one of their favorite seafood restaurants that had fortunately sustained only minimal damage. Quin ordered his usual crab cake meal, but tasted none of it. The three men sketched out a plan for repairs and the inevitable shipping backlogs. Finally, after an hour and a half, Farrell frowned at him. “You want to tell us what the hell is going on between you and Katie?”
Quin swallowed hard, feeling as if his dinner was in danger of coming back up. “I found out this morning that two years ago she took a hundred grand from Dad. A loan to send her sister’s drug-addicted boyfriend to rehab. Since Dad died, I’m pretty sure she hasn’t paid it back.”
Farrell and Zach stared at him, dumbstruck. Then Farrell shook his head. “Nope,” he said firmly. “That’s impossible. I know Katie. She would be far too proud to accept help like that, even if it was for someone else. You’ve got it wrong, Quin. Dead wrong.”
After Hours Seduction (The Men 0f Stone River Book 1) Page 15