Chapter 12
Dove wasn’t surprised when Mitchell took immediate control of their table conversation as he filled his bowl with salad, topping it with the ginger teriyaki dressing she’d made.
From a lawyerly point of view, it was the right thing to do. Keep things on the surface. Avoiding any detours into topics that could be considered inappropriate in the workplace.
She listened to what he had to say. Was somewhat surprised by how quickly an implementation of his ideas could make her father’s relatively small boat-rental business into an entity worth a whole lot more money than Brad Fletcher had offered her even when he’d been acting decently.
Enough, according to the numbers Mitchell slid in front of her, to pay off all of her mother’s medical bills and still have a substantial sum left over.
More money than her family had probably ever had.
It was the stuff her dreams of a week ago had been made of.
“This is all great, Mitchell,” she said, forcing herself to swallow bites of the food she knew would not only sustain her but strengthen her intuitive abilities as well.
“Exactly what I originally came to see you about, and what we’re going to be paying for.
As soon as my father is back home, we’ll be ready to hit the ground running.
” She took another bite, swallowed and said, “This should be enough to get his head and heart in gear—enough to motivate sobriety.”
She didn’t know if the latter was true. But she had to believe it was. And knew for certain that there was a good possibility.
“As for the rest, being able to find a buyer other than Fletcher, someone we could feel good about selling to, is a fine thought, but not one I’m interested in entertaining.
You misunderstood if you thought my goal was to absolve financial obligations.
I told you about my mother’s bills so that you would understand how much of a profit we need to make.
And to know that my father wasn’t just throwing his current paychecks into the bottle.
He pays my mother’s bills first and foremost, every month.
It’s like an honor to him, to do that for her. ”
And would be for Dove, too, if she was ever required to take over the deed.
When his eyes lost some of their glow, she quickly added, “That’s not to say that I’m not overjoyed by the work you’ve managed to do this morning. I cannot wait to get started on all of this. Just as soon as we find my dad.”
Because, hello, that was the only thing on her mind at the moment.
Except thoughts of Mitchell. And possibly having sex with him. Every time she’d started to sink into an abyss of negativity that morning, thoughts of Mitchell and their upcoming conversation had pulled her right back out and into the moment—and task—at hand.
Staying positive long enough for Kansas and the SAR team to work their magic and find her dad.
It would happen in fate’s time. Not her own.
The only say she had, the only control, the only choices she had in the meantime pertained to how she managed herself while she waited.
Did she stay strong? Vital? Present and able to hear the silent promptings within her?
Or did she fall into a hell from which she might never emerge?
Fantastical as it might sound to some, in Dove’s mind, the answer lay in having the real conversation that lunch was about. She had no idea what the outcome would be.
Whether or not she’d ever have sex with Mitchell Colton.
The conversation wasn’t about whether or not they were actually ever going to do it. Or even wanted to do so.
“So talk to me about your views on sexual activity,” she said when he seemed to have no ready response to her replies regarding his business conversation.
They’d made an agreement to talk about it. She hadn’t coerced him into doing so and felt strongly that if she didn’t hold him to his word on the matter, something not good could result.
No clue what that something was or if it even pertained to her.
“I view all such action to be inappropriate in the workplace.”
The response disappointed her, while at the same time she realized she should have expected it. Mitchell was Mitchell. Logical. Living fully in his head. Maybe even a little uptight.
“Well then, it’s a good thing that St. James Boats hasn’t actually hired you yet.
No contracts delivered or signed. While I’m a signer on the business now, I’m not an employee.
But I am a guest in your home. Where we ended up in the kitchen, outside of office hours, in less than professional attire. ”
She could go on. Would go on if he forced her to do so. She could be a whole lot blunter. But she stopped there, giving him a chance to own up to his own culpability in their need for the conversation.
And if he walked away? Told her he’d have her things delivered from his home?
Her guidance had clearly led her to him. Was she on the verge of making a personal choice that ruined the good she’d done by listening in the first place?
“I like sex.” He looked her straight in the eye as he delivered the short sentence.
Swallowing, she pursed her lips. Then found enough voice to accept his challenge, maintaining eye contact as she said, “So do I.” There were caveats to her proclamation.
A lot of them. She wasn’t sure why she held them back when he’d given her the perfect opportunity to get them out. She wasn’t asking why.
“I don’t have it with clients.”
She’d figured as much. But just in case he hadn’t yet discerned the same about her, she said, “Nor do I.”
Forking a healthy bite of salad, he said, “So are we done here?” and filled his mouth with her bounty.
The delicious food she’d provided, she mentally corrected herself.
She took a bite of her own salad, suddenly unable to swallow without discomfort. “No.”
He nodded, as though he’d expected the response. Almost as though he was enjoying their repartee.
She kind of was.
Except that she couldn’t lose sight of the very real necessity for having the talk to begin with.
“There’s a likely chance that what happened in the kitchen this morning will happen again.”
“Not if we agree not to be in the kitchen at the same time.”
His almost childish response had her gaping at him. It wasn’t like they’d planned to be there that morning. Even less likely that they could time Kansas’s phone calls to when they were in an office situation.
Chances were greater that the kind of call she was awaiting would come in the middle of the night. It just always seemed to happen that way. Evil at work in the dark.
Except…she pulled herself upright. Evil wouldn’t be at work because her dad was going to be found alive.
Giving herself a mental smack for having fallen down the dark hole even while she was consciously working on staying out of it, Dove followed the self-directed negativity with a mental hug.
An apology. And encouragement to herself for having seen what was happening and thus could prevent a permanent dive.
She didn’t do that by playing around. Putting down her fork, folding her hands on the table in front of her, she said, “I’m not averse to having sex with you, Mitchell. I would never have expected to be attracted to you—business suits aren’t my thing—but I am. A lot.”
He adjusted his sitting posture, and she pictured him over there growing hard. The image, egged on by their early morning meetup, gave her plenty of impetus to continue.
“However, I cannot engage in the behavior unless you understand that it’s strictly a mutual enjoyment of physical activity. No strings attached. No commitment of any kind to any future involvement between us—business or otherwise.”
His fork stopped halfway to his mouth. “You’re telling me that you no longer want me to work with St. James Boats?” His entire demeanor had turned into one big frown.
“Hell no!” she blurted loudly, as she’d heard her father do.
And then covered her mouth with her hand.
Shocked at herself. Embarrassed. And then, half behind her fingers, said, “I’m saying that the sex needs to have no effect on anything outside the physical act.
If we work together, that’s a separate thing.
But…” she lowered her hand, leaned in and looked him straight in the eye “…if us having sex means you won’t help my father with his business, then it’s off the table. ”
His gaze lightened. He ate another big bite. Then after he’d swallowed and wiped his mouth, he said, “Then, it’s off the table.”
Damn. She’d given him a way out. But he had to know…
Staring at him, she held him to the only real fire she knew. The silent kind that couldn’t lie.
“I don’t want to have sex with you, Dove.”
She continued to hold his gaze. Breathing easily.
“Okay, I do. Quite fiercely, apparently. But I can’t take advantage of you that way. Or use you—”
“But it’s okay if I take advantage of you? Use you?”
He took yet another bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Repeated. Holding her gaze in a way that felt…easy. And that’s when she knew she had him. In a place of calm that one reaches through total honesty.
“Do we have a clear understanding that if it were to happen, there’d be no strings attached? No expectations? And nothing weird between us after it was over?” She wasn’t going to let it go until she knew. Her own future depended on that one.
“We do,” he said clearly, succinctly. Confidently. Looking her straight in the eye.
And Dove stood, cleared her things off the table, put the leftovers in her bowl in the trash and the dirty dishes into the bag she’d brought from Mitchell’s house. She’d failed to bring dish detergent in with her that morning.
Mitchell emptied his bowl into his stomach. One bite at a time. Then stood and brought his bowl and fork to her. Holding it out but not letting go of it, he asked, “Are we on for tonight, then?”
And she dropped the bag she was holding.
Mitchell hadn’t seriously been planning to have sex with her. At least, most of him wasn’t. But if it did happen, which, given his behavior that morning along with her assertion of wanting him, was a good possibility, he was one hundred percent on board with her terms.
They were way too different to actually sustain a relationship. And he had zero desire to hurt her. But it made sense, her feeling as she did, given what he’d heard about her lifestyle. And had observed from afar himself.
So if they could give each other a little pleasure at some point, he saw no harm in that.
Kind of liking the way his uncharacteristic boldness had knocked her off her game enough for her to drop her bag, Mitchell had his mouth open, ready to tease her a bit more, when the stark fear in her suddenly widened eyes clued him in that she wasn’t looking at him.
Swinging around, he turned in the direction she was looking to see his cousin approaching the office. Her head and shoulders were visible through the small window beside Whaler’s desk. A window he’d known always to be covered with a drawn blind.
It hadn’t even registered that Dove had opened it until that moment.
Kansas was on site at St. James Boats.
She hadn’t called.
Dropping his lunch leftovers on the counter, Mitchell moved behind Dove. His hand at her back. Lightly. Professionally.
But most definitely there. They’d found Whaler.
And Kansas had shown up in person.
Without a smile, her step denoting purpose, she approached with tightly pulled back long dark hair behind firm shoulders, and a grim expression.
Clearly like the family notifications his cousin had shared with him over beer more times than either of them would have liked.
They took the wind out of his cousin every single time that Mitchell knew about.
“She was a year behind me in high school.” Dove’s words came at him out of nowhere. In that first instant, he was worried that he’d lost her. That she knew what was coming and had fallen into some kind of mental paralysis.
“I remember once when Jack Percy was giving me a hard time in the lunchroom. Kansas stepped right up to him and told him to back off.”
He hadn’t heard that story. But he wasn’t surprised to hear that the Percy kid had been a bully. Or that his cousin had come to the aid of one being persecuted.
He also hadn’t pegged Dove correctly. Rather than disappearing, she was finding something good to cling to in the face of gloom. How he knew that, he couldn’t say. Keen observation over a very intense few days, most likely.
She didn’t move toward the door. Didn’t move at all, and so neither did he.
When the knock came, firmly and loudly, Dove called, “Come in” in an equally raised tone.
A friendly one.
His hand at her back was stronger then. More the support of a friend than a lawyer. He was briefly aware. Didn’t care.
Even if what he suspected was true was about to unfold—Whaler had been found dead—Dove’s trials had just begun. There’d be an investigation. Hope to God a quick one. With an equally rapid trial.
And a tie-in to the vandalism at Dove’s studio.
Kansas had stepped fully into the room. Her blue eyes steady, and her fit, strong form seemed to dominate the space.
“Good, I’m glad you’re both here,” she said.
“We found Whaler.” She stopped abruptly.
Looked straight at Dove and said, “I’m sorry…
your father. He’s alive, Dove, but unconscious.
An ambulance is on the way to the hospital with him, and I came to take you there myself. With sirens on.”
Whaler was alive. Mitchell kept the thought firmly at the forefront of his mind as Dove turned to look, wide-eyed, up at him. And when she moved to grab her purse, he allowed the next thought full flight: Kansas didn’t expect Whaler to be alive for long.
Following Dove as she ran after Kansas, he locked the door behind him and climbed into the back of Kansas’s car just before it sped off.
He wasn’t officially on the St. James clock.
But there was no way he was leaving his clients unprotected for a second.
Or so he tried to tell himself.
As though reading his mind, Dove turned then, meeting his gaze over the seat, her gaze filled with trepidation, but something warmer, too.
And he had to admit, at least to himself, that there was only one reason he was in that car.
To be present if and when Dove needed him.
The look in her eye seemed to tell him that she knew it, too.
Mitchell wanted that to be a good thing.
But knew that it wasn’t.