Conflict of Interest (The McClouds of Mississippi) Read online

  “Or e-mail, apparently. And you don’t have an answering machine. I sent two registered letters—both of which you signed for—but you never replied. I didn’t know what else to do except come here myself.”

  He supposed maybe he should express a little regret at her inconvenience. “Sorry. I tend to ignore the rest of the world when I near the end of a book. I’ve been told it’s not a particularly admirable trait.”

  “So you are nearing the end of the book?”

  “Is that why you’re here?” he asked instead of answering. “To find out how the book’s going?”

  “That’s one of the reasons. Since your deadline was three weeks ago and I haven’t heard from you, I thought there might be a problem. I have some other business to discuss with you, also. Since I wasn’t able to give you advance notice of my arrival, I certainly understand if this is an inconvenient time for you. I would be glad to make an appointment with you for a later date—either a telephone conference or another face-to-face meeting.”

  “What sort of business do you want to discuss?”

  “The offers on your next book, for one thing. And the promotional opportunities for the one you’re working on now. Your publisher wants to give this one a big marketing push—book tours, national TV, print interviews, that sort of thing. I have several pages of paperwork I want you to look over.”

  He winced. The very thought of a book tour gave him a headache. Having to deal with all those people? It was enough to make any respectable recluse shudder. “I really can’t discuss this tonight. It’s been a stressful afternoon, to say the least, and frankly, I’m too tired to think about promotion. Besides, I’ve got to get Isabelle bunked down for the night.”

  She nodded, her expression resigned. “Tomorrow, perhaps?”

  “Maybe,” he said, though he couldn’t imagine he’d be any more in the mood then. As she had pointed out, he was already past deadline on the current book, and he wanted nothing more than to be left alone to work on it. It seemed as though everyone was conspiring to keep him from doing so.

  Adrienne nodded. “If you’ll direct me to the nearest hotel, I’ll call you tomorrow about a convenient time to meet.”

  He chuckled dryly. “Closest we have to a hotel within an hour’s drive are a couple of bargain-rate motels out on the main highway.”

  Her jaw seemed to tighten a bit, but she said only, “I’m sure that will be fine.”

  “Tell you what,” he said on an impulse. “Why don’t you stay here tonight? Isabelle has the spare bedroom, but you can take my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch in the office.”

  “Oh, no, I—”

  He silenced her with a quick slice of his hand. “If you’re worried about inconveniencing me, don’t. I sleep in there half the time, anyway.”

  Actually, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. Since Isabelle was staying overnight, and since she had responded well to Adrienne, maybe Adrienne could help him keep an eye on the kid during the night. Maybe even help her get ready for school in the morning; after all, what did he know about dressing a little girl, fixing her hair, that sort of thing? Since he seemed to be stuck with them for the night, he might as well make the best of the situation.

  And very soon, he hoped, he would have his house to himself again. Just the way he liked it.

  As Adrienne lay in bed that night—Gideon McCloud’s bed, she reminded herself, shifting restlessly on the crisp, clean sheets she had put on herself—she wondered if she had made a monumental mistake when she’d rather impulsively left New York. She certainly hadn’t expected to find herself staying overnight with him and his little sister.

  She wondered what the story was with little Isabelle. She doubted they were full siblings, with a twenty-six-year gap between them. Had Gideon’s father, like her own, chosen a young trophy bride for his second marriage? At least Adrienne was spared the embarrassment of late-life half siblings. Lawrence Corley hadn’t particularly wanted her, much less any more offspring at this stage of his life.

  She really should have insisted on finding another place to stay for the night, even if she had to make use of one of those bargain-rate motels Gideon had mentioned. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t put up more of an argument. She’d found herself agreeing almost before she’d realized what she was doing.

  What was it about him she found so persuasive? Sure, he was handsome, but she was accustomed to being around striking men. His green eyes were uncomfortably perceptive but hardly hypnotic. She’d been aware of a tug of attraction, but she had never allowed her hormones to guide her actions before.

  So what was she doing in his bed?

  She and Gideon hadn’t engaged in much conversation after she had agreed to stay the night. Somehow she’d found herself tucking Isabelle into bed and reading her a bedtime story—a suggestion that had come from Gideon. By the time Isabelle was asleep, Gideon had been closed into his office and settled at his computer. He’d looked up from his work only long enough to absently inform Adrienne where she could find the clean linens. As an afterthought he had added that she should let him know if she needed anything, but she suspected he was hoping there would be no further interruptions.

  She had spent the rest of the evening reading one of the manuscripts she’d brought with her. After watching the local ten-o’clock news, she’d turned in a good two hours earlier than she would have usually gone to bed. Gideon had not once emerged from his office.

  Rolling onto her side, she closed her eyes, but sleep proved elusive. It was much too quiet. She could hear every gust of wind, not to mention hooting owls and the occasional moo from a distant cow. As soon as she had Gideon’s signature on several contracts, she was heading back to civilization and her long-overdue vacation.

  Groggy and disoriented, Adrienne woke after a restless night when the morning sun hit her full in the face. Either Gideon was an early riser, she thought, glaring at the sheer curtains that allowed the dawning sun into the room, or he was a heavy sleeper who wasn’t bothered by the light.

  The bedside clock read six-forty-five when she climbed out of bed and moved into the adjoining bath. By seven-fifteen, she had showered, dried her hair and dressed in one of the two casual outfits she had packed with the two professional pantsuits she’d brought with her. Smoothing her thin, emerald-green sweater over comfortably tailored black slacks, she left Gideon’s bedroom.

  Gideon and Isabelle were in the kitchen, and from the look of things, the morning was not running smoothly. Isabelle’s fine blond hair was a pillow-tangled mess, and there was a smear of grape jelly on her chin. She wore a long-sleeved pink T-shirt festooned with cartoon characters Adrienne didn’t recognize and black leggings that ended just above her bare feet. A half-eaten bowl of cereal sat in front of her, along with the remains of two jelly-spread slices of wheat toast and a half glass of milk.

  Dressed in a wrinkled T-shirt and jeans, Gideon stood nearby, his dark hair in its apparently usual disarray, a look of impatience on his unshaven face. Just as Adrienne entered the room, he glanced at the microwave clock and said, “Isabelle, if you don’t hurry with your breakfast, you’re going to be late for school. How can anyone take this long to eat a bowl of cereal?”

  “I was reading the cereal box,” the child explained. “It has funny jokes on the back.”

  “You can already read?” Adrienne asked as she walked straight to the coffeemaker on the counter next to Gideon.

  “I can read the easy words,” Isabelle answered, her tone somewhere between modest and boastful.

  “And you’re only four?”

  “Just turned four,” Gideon said. “The kid is smart, but she’s very slow,” he added with a meaningful look at Isabelle’s cereal bowl.

  Isabelle dutifully spooned another bite into her mouth. Adrienne accepted the coffee mug Gideon offered her and filled it with strong, fragrant black coffee. She sipped the brew gratefully, feeling the jolt of caffeine clear her mind. “When does Isabelle’s
school start?”

  “Eight,” Gideon muttered with another impatient glance at his watch.

  “I suppose we’d better hurry, then.” She set her mug down and moved toward the table. “Isabelle, it’s time to finish getting ready. Let’s go do your hair, brush your teeth and find your shoes.”

  “She hasn’t finished her cereal,” Gideon pointed out.

  Adrienne shrugged. “She won’t starve. My father sent me to school plenty of times with my breakfast half-eaten because I’d dawdled. I learned to eat in a timely fashion or be hungry before lunchtime.”

  Gideon gave it a moment’s thought, then nodded. “Makes sense. Go with Adrienne, Isabelle. Tomorrow morning you’ll have to save your cereal-box reading until you’re completely ready for school.”

  Though her lower lip protruded just a bit, Isabelle slipped out of her chair and followed Adrienne out of the kitchen.

  With Adrienne supervising, it took less than ten minutes to get Isabelle groomed and shod. “She’s still going to be late,” Gideon predicted, retrieving his car keys from a drawer in a table near the front door. “But at least it’ll only be by a few minutes. Why don’t you come with us, and I’ll buy you breakfast after we drop Isabelle off?”

  Business breakfasts and lunches were commonplace for her, so she nodded. “Sounds good. But breakfast is on me. I’m the one putting you out.”

  “We’ll argue about the check later. Let’s go.”

  Because Gideon drove a pickup, they decided to strap Isabelle’s booster seat in the back of Adrienne’s rental car to give them more room. Adrienne gave him the keys and slid into the passenger seat. She waited in the car while he escorted Isabelle into Miss Thelma’s Preschool. He wasn’t gone long, and he was scowling when he returned.

  “Miss Thelma dressed me down for bringing Isabelle late,” he muttered. “Talked to me like I was one of her preschoolers.”

  Adrienne winced. “How did you respond?”

  “I told her I was doing the best I could under the circumstances, and if she didn’t like it, too bad. Prissy old biddy.”

  “I hope you didn’t add that last part aloud.”

  “No. Not this time, anyway.”

  “Admirable restraint.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Isabelle’s parents are away, I take it?”

  “Isabelle’s parents—my father and his second wife—are dead,” Gideon replied with a bluntness that startled her. “They died in an accident last year. Isabelle lives with my older brother, Nathan, who’s away on his honeymoon. He was married Saturday morning.”

  “So you’re baby-sitting.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to be. My mother volunteered for that task, but she had to leave town yesterday because of a medical emergency with her sister. She didn’t have anywhere else to leave the kid, so she dumped Isabelle with me.”

  Adrienne frowned a bit as she tried to understand his family tree. “Your mother was baby-sitting Isabelle?”

  “Yes. Ironically enough, she’s become a sort of surrogate grandmother to the child my father created with someone else while my mother was still married to him.”

  Before Adrienne could come up with a suitable response—if there was one—he turned the car into the parking lot of a metal-sided diner that looked as though it had been built in the 1950s. Most of the clientele appeared to drive pickup trucks. She noticed when Gideon escorted her inside that male customers outnumbered the women, and the majority of both genders wore blue-collar working clothes. The clatter of dishes and flatware melded with conversation and laughter to create a welcoming din.

  The blue-jeaned, T-shirted, early-thirties redhead working the cash register just inside the door greeted Gideon with an eager smile that dimmed a few watts when she spotted Adrienne. “Just find yourselves a table,” she said to Gideon. “Carla will be with you in a minute.”

  Adrienne couldn’t help noticing that Gideon barely gave the woman a second glance as he nodded and led the way into the busy diner. Signs dangling from the ceiling designated the smoking and nonsmoking sections, but since it was only one big room with no dividers, it seemed to Adrienne to be a rather meaningless gesture. Gideon chose a booth at the back of the nonsmoking area, where the haze seemed a bit thinner. Accustomed to restaurants that did not allow smoking at all, Adrienne blinked a bit to clear her burning eyes, her nose twitching against the acrid odor.

  “Guess I should have asked if you suffer from allergies or anything,” Gideon commented belatedly. “There are still a lot of folks around here who haven’t kicked the habit.”

  “I suppose I can tolerate the secondhand smoke for the duration of a meal.”

  He plucked a plastic-coated menu from a stand that also held salt, pepper, ketchup and hot sauce. “Trust me, the food here is worth the discomfort,” he said as he handed her the menu.

  Glancing down at the breakfast list, she mentally winced at the calorie counts of some of the features. Fried eggs, fried sausage, fried bacon, fried hash browns, buttered grits and biscuits with sausage gravy. Heart attack on a plate.

  A heavyset woman with teased gray hair and a pleasantly lined face set a steaming mug of coffee in front of Gideon, then offered a second mug to Adrienne. “I already know what Gideon wants,” she drawled. “What can I get you, hon?”

  Adrienne ordered one scrambled egg, an order of dry toast and a fruit cup.

  “Are you sure that’s all you want?” Gideon asked. “The omelets and hot cakes are both great here, and nobody makes better biscuits.”

  “He’s right about that,” their server said ruefully. “Take it from someone who’s eaten way too many of them.”

  Adrienne thought of the lemon pound cake she’d eaten in lieu of dinner the night before. “I’d better stick with my original order,” she said with a touch of regret.

  Their waitress nodded and moved away.

  “Are you always so disciplined?” Gideon asked.

  “Not always. But I try.”

  He grunted and sipped his coffee, apparently considering the subject of breakfast food closed. Adrienne noticed that they were receiving quite a bit of attention from other diners, both covertly and openly. Gideon was obviously a frequent customer here, but there seemed to be a lot of speculative interest in her. The only greetings Gideon had exchanged with the other diners were a few cordial nods. She wondered if the others kept their distance because of her presence or if Gideon generally discouraged small talk.

  For some reason, she suspected it was primarily the latter.

  The waitress returned in an amazingly short time with their food. “Is this one of your writer friends, Gideon?” she asked casually as she served them.

  “My agent,” he replied, reaching for the salt shaker. “Adrienne Corley, meet Carla Booker.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Booker.”

  The older woman chuckled. “You just call me Carla, hon. Everyone does. Are you from up north?”

  “New York.”

  “Well, isn’t that something?”

  “I think Joe Huebner is trying to get your attention over there,” Gideon said. “Probably wants to start on his second pot of coffee.”

  Carla grinned. “You’re probably right. Nice to meet you, Miz Corley. Y’all give a holler if you need anything else.”

  The platter in front of Gideon was completely filled with a huge omelet oozing with cheese, ham, onions, peppers and mushrooms, a side order of buttered grits and two fat, fluffy-looking biscuits with a bowl of cream gravy. She watched as he dumped salsa on the omelet. “Are you always this undisciplined?”

  “When I eat breakfast at home, I usually have cereal or a bagel. But when I eat here, I have what I want.”

  Had to be a guy thing, she thought with a slight sigh. She was probably gaining weight just looking at his breakfast. Gideon, on the other hand, was shoveling it in with almost sensual pleasure, and there wasn’t a superfluous ounce anywhere on his extremely fine body.

  She speared
a chunk of cantaloupe from a bowl of mixed melons and strawberries. “Are you ready to discuss business?”

  “Not while I’m eating.” He scooped a bite of grits into his mouth.

  Gideon McCloud was definitely a difficult client, even among the group of often demanding, sometimes neurotic and frequently temperamental writers she dealt with on a daily basis. The others were usually eager to hear exciting offers, to grab every chance to advance their careers and increase their recognition. Gideon seemed to want to write in complete anonymity.

  Though he had turned down a few early offers he didn’t consider rewarding enough, he didn’t seem to be motivated solely by money, since he’d also shown little interest in several very lucrative propositions. He had approved the release of very little biographical material, had not provided photographs for publicity purposes—even though he certainly had the right look—and had expressed absolutely no enthusiasm for book tours or interviews or even a promotional Web site.

  Because she sensed that he was on the verge of a breakthrough with his writing, his lack of cooperation frustrated Adrienne. Her father was becoming impatient with her inability to get Gideon to commit to the newest offers, and he had been hinting that he might have to take this client in hand himself.

  But she sensed that she would get nowhere by pushing Gideon before he was ready. She concentrated on her breakfast and directed the conversation away from his work. “We seem to be attracting attention. I suppose your acquaintances are wondering who I am.”

  He glanced around briefly—causing several heads to turn abruptly away—and then returned to his food. “They all know who you are by now. Carla’s told them you’re my agent from New York. Now they’re wondering why you’re here. She’ll be back in a bit to try to find out for them.”

  “Word travels fast here.”

  “You have no idea.”

  She watched the other diners with discreet curiosity during the remainder of the meal, intrigued by the contrasts between big-city and small-town dynamics. Here, everyone seemed to know everyone else, and even those who appeared to be strangers tended to exchange “good mornings,” even to strike up conversations as they stood in line to pay at the old-fashioned cash register.