Page 3 of Colton's Secret Weapon
“What is it you expect me to find?”
She’d thought she’d made that obvious. “I don’t know. If I did, I’d already be implementing a plan and be on my way to saving the business.” Her heart flooded with hope, as her stomach clenched with tension.
He hadn’t said no a second time.
Nor had he given any indication that he was changing his mind.
“Does Whaler know you’re here? That you’re asking me for help?”
There was that. The man had a way of getting right to the challenge. Which was what she needed from him, right? “Do you think I’d be here if he did?” she countered. “Or be here without him right behind me, apologizing to you and telling me to mind my own damned business?” He knew Whaler. He’d get the point.
Still sitting back in his chair, arms lying casually on the rests, he continued to study her. Not all that much of a phenomenon, actually. Dove—who’d been raised almost exclusively by her free-spirited mother while her father had been out at sea—had been getting stares since before kindergarten. Had been taught from birth that her choices were not to be dictated by what society or popularity prescribed. Life wasn’t measured in terms of an endeavor’s success but rather by how fulfilled something had made her feel. Or how happy.
And pursuant to that standard, she was in the midst of what could end up being her biggest failure of all time.
“How do you propose that I get a look at things without him being aware of my doing so?”
Finally, an answer she had. “My father’s going to be taking a charter of tourists out tomorrow. A half-day cruise of photography students from Anchorage who’ve been assigned toget various types of images of the glaciers. They’re leaving at seven in the morning. You could show up after they leave. I can let you into his office.” Her chin came up as she said that last bit. Perhaps issuing a challenge.
While she didn’t know Mitchell Colton well, he was surprisingly different than she’d expected. Analytical and serious, yes, but there was that hint in his expression of more.
Still waters running deep. The cliché came to her. Along with her mother’s reminder that clichés became such due to the fact that they spoke to a universal truth.
There was no hint of anything beneath his surface as he sat up straight and said, “Is seven thirty too early for you?”
Dove’s mouth dropped open. Afraid to speak, she slowly closed it. Had she just heard correctly?
The way he was watching her, brow raised, gave her the sense that she should go with ayesjust to get out of the tension flooding the room before it drowned her.
“No,” she said. Just as she’d been taught to follow her heart, she’d also learned how important it was to put on her big-girl panties when life got tough.
“Then, I’ll meet you there, tomorrow morning, at seven thirty.”
Nodding, silent—for fear of somehow cracking the very thin layer of ice upon which she stood—she rose and turned toward the door.
“Dove?”
His voice, the way he’d said her name, slid through her. Not so much with the fear she’d have anticipated but with something just as forceful. So much so that she stopped in her tracks. Stood frozen, her back still to him.
“No funny stuff,” he said then. At which she did fly around.
“What?” Her frown spoke of her genuine perplexity.
“No oil incensing, candles burning or any other means to manipulate an outcome that you might not like.”
Had he not sounded so genuinely serious, she would probably have been offended.
“I guess that includes voodoo dolls?” she asked, tongue in cheek. And couldn’t quite stop her droll tone. She managed to keep a straight face, though. For which she was immensely proud.
She was kind of taken aback at the slight sideways tip of his head and the possible hint of a smile turning up the corners of his lips, as he said, “Yes.”
With a nod, she turned back to the door, eager to make her exit before something happened to change his mind.
“Dove?” he called a second time. Sounding more as if he was calling out to someone he knew. Curious, in spite of herself, she turned back again.
His expression had changed. There was no mistaking the seriousness there as he said, “This is only a cursory glance, out of respect for your father. Don’t get your hopes up.”
“I understand,” she told him and then bugged out before he could call on her a third time. She fully grasped that from his perspective, there was no reason for hope in the matter between them.
