Page 1 of Colton's Secret Weapon
Chapter 1
Summertime. Eighteen hours of daylight. Hiking, fishing, flying to do. And Mitchell Colton sat in his cushy law office on Main Street, waiting for noon to arrive so he could take the rest of the day off and get to it all. June and July had already passed him by, and there were so many more adventures he wanted to get to before winter hit.
The lull in business at his Shelby Law Office, while not a problem financially, did not bode well for him. He needed to be busy. Or be outside.
He’d prefer to be busy. In his experience, lulls generally meant an avalanche was coming. As the only corporate law firm in town, he’d have to handle the ramifications for every business, all needing him ASAP, were something to happen that affected the Main Street merchants. An online scam, say, that somehow hacked into Shelby’s internet service and stole customer information.
Finishing the revisions on a series of privacy policies for several of his clients with online offerings that mirrored their brick-and-mortar stores, Mitchell shook his head at the dark route his thoughts had taken. While it was his job to foresee possible pitfalls and do all he could to protect his clients from falling prey to them, he most definitely did not need to borrow trouble.
And…there it was.
Trouble.
Glancing up from the email he’d just sent, with the updated privacy policy attached, he saw the woman parking her little 1968 Meadowlark yellow Mustang right out in front of his place.
And hoped to God she wasn’t headed his way.
Dove St. James. Local yoga queen.
In black leggings covered only by a thin, very thin, see-through-thin veil of what she might think was a purple skirt, a black crop top that ended right below her breasts, and lavender flip-flops that had more glittery junk on their straps than any one pair of shoes should bear, she was heading straight for his door.
Every inch of her slim, toned body was on display. Like some kind of billboard advertisement. Take a class with me and you, too, can be exactly who and what you want to be.
He did not relish taking on the completely untraditional woman as a client. Even for the minute it would take to refer her to someone cheaper in Anchorage.
As though staring at a train about to wreck, Mitchell swallowed, unable to not watch her very purposeful progress toward his establishment. The long auburn hair, as wild and free as the woman was, seemed to wave at the world with every step she took.
He hadn’t heard of any trouble at Namaste, the Main Street yoga studio the twenty-seven-year-old owned and operated. In a rented second-floor studio above the Repo—a secondhand shop hedidhave as a client. Surely, if there was a problem requiring his legal expertise, he’d have heard about it by now.
Most particularly with the lull and all. Mitchell tended to overconcern himself with problems that weren’t his business when he didn’t have enough to keep his brain occupied.
His outer door opened. Stuart, his paralegal who also handled reception, had the day off. A long weekend.
“Hello?” Dove called in that singsong voice of hers that reminded Mitchell of her free-spirited mother. He’d never understood what Whaler—officially known as Bob St. James—had found so enchanting in his now-deceased wife. Free spirits were great for children. But young ones had to grow up. To be equipped to face life realistically.
Thinking of Dove’s father, a retired whaleship captain and the current owner of the only boat rental company down on the pier, St. James Boats, and a man Mitchell respected, he called out, “In here.”
For Whaler’s sake. If the ship lord’s daughter was in trouble, Mitchell would do what he could to help.
The woman burst in through the opened door like a swirl of leaves in a storm. Smelling like…he didn’t know. A cross between lavender and rose with a bit of peppermint thrown in. Certainly not any perfume with which he was familiar.
Not horrible, though. So thinking, he nodded toward the seat in front of his desk, figuring she’d earned herself a minute of his time. Mostly because of her paternity. And a tad due to the scent she’d brought in.
“You know my father,” she said, looking at him square in the face with her wide green eyes.
“I do.”
“He speaks highly of you. Respects you.”
Sitting back, Mitchell straightened his tie, dropped his arms to his chair, and watched her. He’d seen her around town. With her shop just down the street from his, knowing her identity was pretty much inevitable. But with the five years between them, he’d never had an occasion to actually socialize with the woman. He’d graduated high school before she’d entered.
“He’s in a bad way, Mitchell,” she said and then followed the statement with, “Mitch. I like Mitch. Sounds much more accessible. Can I call you that?”
Accessible? What the hell? “No,” he said, moving nothing but his mouth. “I go by Mitchell.”
Her tongue darted out along her lips as she nodded. “He’s been drinking more and more since my mom died a couple of years ago. He’s pretty much drunk all the time now.”
Mitchell was aware. He’d heard, but he’d seen, too. And while he felt real sympathy for the guy, he said, “I’m a lawyer, not a doctor. Or mental health counselor.”
