Page 16 of Colton's Secret Weapon
Working. Only working.
Pro bono work, possibly.
But still, one hundred percent work.
His earlier conundrum with an unwelcomed awareness of the auburn-haired woman in her out-there clothes had nothing todo with the very real concern currently flooding through him on her behalf.
“He’s not here.” Dove’s voice sounded…off…as she swept through the small space of her father’s office. As though the man could be hiding under the threadbare carpet beneath his desk.
Standing in the doorway, Mitchell put a lid on the tension spreading through him. Logic and planning were his guides in life. Emotions did not dictate his reality. “Where does he go when he’s not at home, at the bar or out on one of his boats?”
With it being Sunday morning, they’d already checked all three, as Dove had determined them to be the most likely spots to find him. Home first, passed out. Sleeping off Saturday night at the bar. Then the bar, passed out, either slumped on a table or in his truck, not having made it home. The office was usually only when he was close to being sober. But when he wasn’t loaded, his favorite place to be was the water.
“He comes here,” she said, turning to face him. Her long hair framed her in what appeared to be fire in that first second. Like she was alight with fear. Maybe because her eyes were alight with it. But the rest of her…all the purple, the netting…he had the most bizarre impression of an angelic part of her, there to pull herself out of the earthly flames.
Or one calling out to him to do so.
That sense of need pushing through him kicked him into gear. Whaler had grown up in Shelby. Knew every inch of the town and most of the people in it. As far as Mitchell had ever known, the man had no enemies. At least not local ones, he amended with a thought to Brad Fletcher. Anyone who’d been in the bar the night before could have taken him home. “So we wait,” he told her. “Home, here or the bar?”
Wait for an hour or so, he planned silently. Then he’d call Clint Schumer, owner of the local bar where Whaler had his own stool, to put in a quiet feeler as to the man’s behavior the night before. Hopefully find out who he’d left with.
Schumer was a client. And one he could trust to keep their conversation confidential, even in Shelby. The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass Whaler. The older man was already undermining himself with all the drinking.
“Here.” Dove’s answer was longer than usual in coming. “If he’s already out, he’d come here rather than going home during daylight.”
She moved a couple of piles of paper materials and lifted herself up to sit on the space she’d cleared on top of a credenza facing the door.
Instead of settling on the floor. The choice bothered him. Left him no choice but to try to fix the problem.
If he slid to the floor and closed his eyes, would she follow suit? He was nixing that one before the idea had even completed itself. Giving himself a strong mental shake, he said, “You’re worried.”
Great. Stating the obvious when he should be helping her get back to her usual way of taking things on the chin. The woman had a reputation in town, and if everything he’d witnessed in the past forty-eight hours was anything to go by, it was well earned.
She’d nodded and was sitting forward, fingers curled over the edge of the credenza on each side of her, swinging her feet.
“I don’t think you need to be just yet,” he said, cautiously. Not wanting to lie to her but… “Law enforcement has had eyes on Brad Fletcher since yesterday—before you and your dad signed that contract.” She’d put not only the date but also the time on the signature line.
And a guy like Brad Fletcher likely didn’t do all of his own work. He’d pay for the dirty stuff.
“You’re concerned,” she said. “Even when you just said that you didn’t totally believe what you were saying.”
What the hell? She thought she was some kind of mind reader?
“I need you to be honest with me, Mitchell.”
He needed to go. To tell her he was the wrong guy to help with her problems. To apologize. And try to find a lawyer from a nearby city who might be willing to take on St. James Boats when the Fletcher dust settled. He’d even offer to pay the person himself.
Looking for an out, he went for the obvious. Taking offense. Lifting his chin, he gave her a piercing courtroom look and said, “You calling me a liar, Ms. St. James?”
No lawyer worth his salt—or at least Mitchell—would work for a client who didn’t trust him. Or for a client he couldn’t trust to act according to societal norms. Dive-bombing others’ silent thoughts was not okay, as far as he was concerned. Most particularly not if one was going to believe one’s magic knowledge over their victim’s own words.
“No, Mitchell, I’m not calling you a liar.” Dove’s face softened as she issued the answer. A smile even teased at the corners of her mouth. “I’m just paying attention to your posture, your tone of voice. You’re uncomfortable, which tells me that you know more than you’re saying.”
A body-language reader, not a mind one. Some of the tension she’d mentioned seeing in Mitchell eased away. He’d taken a course in understanding the language himself. It helped him to read others during critical negotiations.
And it didn’t hurt in conversations with his siblings and cousins, either. Or their poker games.
“I don’tknowanything,” he told her, taking a seat in her father’s chair, as she’d had him do the morning before, and turning it to face her. “I just don’t like how much lower Fletcher’soffer was overnight. In business negotiation terms, he’d only do that if he felt like he had an upper hand to the point of assured victory. It doesn’t track that he’d hurt your father, though, if he’s believing that he’s on the verge of getting what he wants—which is your father’s signature on a business deal.”
