Colton’s Secret Weapon (The Coltons of Alaska #2)

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 he did have 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.”

She nodded. “I know. I’m here because he’s losing his business, Mitchell. I’ve tried everything I know to do, but nothing is working. One of his longest-standing employees, Oscar Earnhardt—you know him?”

“I thought Whaler fired him.”

“He did. He had to. Oscar’s got as bad a drinking problem as Dad has.

I think he thought that since Dad was drinking, he got a bye on his own situation.

His wife left him, which made things worse.

He quit showing up to work, or would show up drunk, and tourists would be left with a precious vacation day wasted because there was no one to facilitate the boat rental they’d reserved.

Dad cut him slack again and again. Warned him.

The last straw, though, was when he wrecked one of Dad’s most expensive and sought-after boats.

There could easily have been customers in it with him, and as much as Dad hated to, he had to let him go… ”

Mitchell figured, with as fast as words were bursting out of her, that she’d rehearsed the whole thing. Figured it was only polite to let her get it out. It wasn’t like he was in a huge hurry to find out how she thought he might be of assistance to Whaler. He’d help if he could.

“The other couple of guys working for him don’t know nearly as much as Oscar did about the area. You’re a Colton, grew up in the field of tourist adventures with RTA, you know how important that kind of knowledge is to someone on vacation up here.”

At the mention of Rough Terrain Adventures, the company founded by his father and uncle and currently run by one of his older brothers and his cousin, and the segue from there back to Whaler’s business, Mitchell frowned.

Again, lawyer. Not professional adventurer. Though, he knew the area as well as anyone else in his family. And was out in it, on his own solo adventures, every chance he got.

“I’ve been hoping the loss of his job would help Oscar sober up, which would let Dad hire him back, but so far, not at all. And if Dad loses his business, I’m going to lose him.”

She had problems. He’d give her that. “What is it you think I can do?”

“You helped him form his corporation years ago. He said then that you’d talked to him about things you, as a corporate lawyer, could do to help him with parts of running it, too. But Mom was already sick then, and he’d been worried about the money.”

Mitchell raised his eyebrows at that one. He was to believe that years later, and with the business failing, Whaler suddenly had more money?

“Dad did well in his career,” Dove said.

“He’d invested enough to provide for him and Mom into retirement, but we’re still paying off her medical bills, so I can’t pay you much, but I’ll sign over a portion of the company to you.

Or you can write up some contract that gives you a portion of the proceeds until your fee is paid.

I’ll pay you myself, if you can take monthly installments—small ones… I just need your help. Please.”

For a second there, unable to miss the woman’s sincere distress, Mitchell considered any possibility that he could give her the positive response she was so desperately seeking.

A split second.

While he knew a whole lot about running an adventure company for tourists, his expertise came in preventing disaster before it happened, or cleaning up messes after they’d been made.

As a corporate attorney, he could help with investments and suggest various ways to make them, but clearly there wasn’t enough cash flow to get started.

Sometimes dealing with employee relations was the key, and again, getting someone sober wasn’t in his wheelhouse.

Mitchell gave her the respect of appearing to seriously consider her request before he said, “I sympathize with your situation, but I’m just not seeing where the Shelby Law Office can be of any help here. If your father had come to me sooner…” He let the sentence fall short. Shrugged.

Not sure that, with Whaler’s drinking, he’d have been able to help even then.

And, as her shoulders slumped, Mitchell wished that, like Stuart, he’d taken the whole day off, too.

He was telling her no. Dove’s heart put up roadblocks, which caused a major pileup of emotion. She couldn’t just give up. And Mitchell Colton was her last resort.

She’d dreaded coming to him. Had known what a long shot he was.

Holding her lips together by sheer force of will, she lifted her head slowly. Breathing in deeply through her nose as she did so. Tapping into learned resources to calm herself.

And made it right until Mitchell’s face came into view. No was written all over it. But something in his eyes wasn’t…cold.