Conflict of Interest (The McClouds of Mississippi) (3 page)

Okay, so she liked his home. And more than liked his writing. That certainly didn’t mean she would like
him.

Parking at the end of the long gravel driveway, she climbed out of the rental car. As she hunched into her clothing against the chilly mist, she wished she’d brought a heavier coat. The wind seemed to slice right through the leather jacket she wore over a black pantsuit.

There was only one pole lamp on the property, and as far as Adrienne was concerned, it cast more spooky shadows than it eliminated. Moving swiftly but carefully over the slick rock walkway that led to the porch steps, she could almost feel the eyes of hungry night creatures following her progress. It was so quiet she was sure she could hear her own heart pounding. Who could sleep out here without the soothing sounds of cab horns and emergency sirens, muffled shouts and the clatter of garbage trucks?

She was relieved to duck under his covered porch, out of the mist. Tossing her damp auburn hair out of her face, she paused for a few moments to catch her breath before reaching for the doorbell. There were lights burning in the windows and sounds coming from inside, so she knew someone was home. Showing up unannounced on his doorstep was hardly proper business etiquette, but it wasn’t as if she could have called and let him know she was on her way. He wouldn’t have answered the phone if she’d tried.

She had to ring the bell a second time before the door finally opened. Her first thought was that this could not possibly be Gideon McCloud. This man was young—no older than thirty—and incredibly good-looking, with tousled dark hair, long-lashed green eyes and an athlete’s body clad in a gray sweatshirt, washed-soft jeans and running shoes. Maybe she had the wrong house.

But then he spoke—or rather, barked at her—and she knew she had the right man, after all. “What do you want?”

“Are you Gideon McCloud?” she asked, more a formality than an inquiry.

“Yes. Who are you?” His tone was impatient, his attention obviously focused elsewhere.

“I’m Adrienne Corley. Your agent,” she added, in case the name didn’t immediately register.

At least that got his attention. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Before she could answer, a child’s wail sounded from behind them. “Gideon! I still can’t find Hedwig.”

Gideon grimaced, then held the door wider. “Come in. You can help us look for—”

“Gideon!”

He shoved a hand through his hair, explaining its disarray. “I’m coming, Isabelle.”

Closing the door behind Adrienne, he turned and walked away, motioning for her to follow. Thoroughly confused, she trailed after him, her bulging briefcase tucked beneath her arm.

She noted in a quick, sweeping glance that the room they entered was a neatly furnished, Southwestern-style den. In the center of the room, dressed in a white nightgown with pink ribbons, stood a little girl with the angelically beautiful face of a Sandra Kuck cherub. Framed in a cloud of golden curls, her rosy cheeks were tear-streaked, her huge blue eyes flooded. Even as Adrienne watched, another teardrop escaped to slide slowly down her face.

“Your daughter?” she asked Gideon.

“My sister,” he answered curtly. “Isabelle.”

Sister? The child couldn’t be more than four.

“Gideon?” The little girl’s lower lip quivered as she spoke. “I’ve looked
everywhere.
”

“Then we’ll have to look again,” he said. “My house isn’t that big, and you’ve only been here a few hours. Your toy couldn’t have simply disappeared.”

He turned toward the doorway. “I’ll go look in the office and the kitchen again. You two keep searching in here.”

“Um, what are we looking
for?
” Adrienne called after him.

“Hedwig,” Isabelle replied.

“A stuffed toy owl,” Gideon clarified over his shoulder. “White.”

Left alone with the woebegone child, Adrienne looked uncertainly around the room. “Where have you looked?”

“Everywhere.”

Adrienne drew a deep breath and moved toward the suede couch. She laid her briefcase and leather jacket at one end, then turned toward the child. “Okay, let’s look again.”

They searched behind the cushions and beneath the couch, then peered under a big leather recliner and a couple of armchairs covered in a Southwestern tapestry fabric. Their efforts netted nothing. There weren’t even any dust bunnies beneath the furniture. She wished Gideon’s housekeeper lived in New York; Adrienne could use someone this scrupulous, she thought, recalling her own string of less-than-dedicated domestic workers.

Sitting back on her heels, she looked at Isabelle again. The child had been peering under tables and behind the television cabinet to no avail. Adrienne could hear doors opening and closing forcefully in another part of the house, probably the kitchen, the slams accompanied by a low mutter that was very likely a string of unintelligible curses. Gideon wasn’t having any better luck with his own search, obviously.

Remembering what he’d said, Adrienne spoke to Isabelle. “You’ve only been here a few hours?”

The child nodded. “Nanna brought me.”

“And you haven’t been anywhere else since?”

Isabelle shook her head. “I’ve been right here.”

“You had your owl when you got here?”

Another nod.

“Okay.” Adrienne stood. “Tell me everything you’ve done since you arrived.”

Isabelle puckered her face in thought. “I watched TV, and I drew pictures in Gideon’s office.”

“He said he would look in the office.”

The child sniffed. “He already did. He looked all over it.”

“What did you do after you drew pictures?”

“I had dinner. Gideon made spaghetti. I spilled some on my clothes,” she added, her lip quivering again, “so Gideon told me to change into my pajamas.”

“You changed in a bedroom?”

“No. In the bathroom, because I had to wash spaghetti off my face and hands.”

“Where did you put the clothes you had on before?”

“In the hamper.”

Adrienne held out her hand. “Show me.”

Slipping her little fingers into Adrienne’s, Isabelle led her down a short hallway to a small bathroom papered in a muted plaid and fitted with oak cabinets and a marble sink and tub. White globe lights framed the beveled mirror over the sink, and a wicker hamper stood beneath a print of ducks in flight at sunrise.

Isabelle opened the hinged lid of the hamper and pointed at the brightly colored knits tumbled in the bottom. “Those are mine.”

Adrienne reached in to pick up the spaghetti-sauce-splashed shirt and slacks. Two brown plastic eyes stared up at her from the bottom of the hamper. “Is this a friend of yours?” she asked with a faint smile, holding the toy up for Isabelle’s inspection.

The child’s face brightened with a broad, dimpled smile. “Hedwig!”

Adrienne watched as Isabelle hugged the stuffed owl tightly, and then she said, “We’d better go tell your brother we found it.”

“He’ll be glad. I think he was getting sort of mad. It’s hard to tell with Gideon, though.”

Adrienne couldn’t help chuckling. “Is it?”

“Mmm-hmm.” As naturally as if they’d known each other for a long time, she reached up to take Adrienne’s hand again as they moved into the hallway. “I don’t think Gideon’s used to being around kids.”

Adrienne was intrigued by Isabelle’s mannerisms. She was such a tiny little thing, yet her self-possession seemed years ahead of her age. Adrienne suspected she’d spent a great deal of time with adults. “You don’t
think
he’s used to kids? Don’t you know?”

“I haven’t known him very long,” Isabelle confided, then pulled Adrienne into an airy kitchen, where Gideon was peering into an oven.

The little girl seemed to find the sight amusing. “Hedwig’s not in the oven, Gideon. He’s right here.”

Closing the oven door, Gideon turned to stare at the child who had transformed from tearful to cheery. “Where was it?”

“We found him in the clothes hamper. She, um, what’s your name?” Isabelle suddenly thought to ask Adrienne.

“I’m Adrienne Corley.”

Isabelle nodded gravely and turned back to Gideon. “Miss Corley found him.”

Gideon released a pent-up breath. “Good. Now why don’t you and Hagar go watch TV or something while Ms. Corley and I talk a few minutes?”

“It’s not Hagar, it’s Hedwig,” Adrienne corrected him before Isabelle could do so. “From Harry Potter, right?”

Isabelle smiled and nodded, then skipped out of the room with her owl. Adrienne watched her leave, then turned to find Gideon looking at her questioningly.

“I’m in publishing,” she informed him. “I know about Harry Potter.”

“You want some coffee or something? I could use some myself. Actually, a couple of shots of bourbon sound pretty good right now, but since I’m baby-sitting, I guess I’d better stick with coffee.”

“Coffee sounds good. Thanks.”

He waved her to one of the four chairs grouped around a round oak pedestal table. “Have a seat. Want something to eat? I’ve got some lemon pound cake I bought at the bakery yesterday.”

“That sounds great,” she said, realizing only then how hungry she was. She’d missed dinner during her travel adventures.

A few minutes later she found herself sitting across the table from Gideon, cake and coffee in front of them. It was somewhat disconcerting to be facing him that way, after the unexpected chaos surrounding her arrival. The search for Hedwig had certainly been an ice-breaker, but now she was having a bit of trouble getting her mind back to business.

She couldn’t stop thinking about how attractive he was, with those amazing green eyes and that brooding mouth, and his thick, dark hair. She noted only as an objective observer, she assured herself—someone who had reason to imagine his photograph on the back of a book jacket.

As for anything more than that, she still wasn’t even sure she liked the guy.

Chapter Two

G
ideon studied the woman sitting across his kitchen table. She didn’t look exactly the way he’d pictured her during their telephone conversations. She was younger, for one thing, no older than his own thirty years, if that. And prettier, with glossy auburn hair and dark-chocolate eyes set in a creamy heart-shaped face. Nice figure, too, the type he referred to as “society sleek.” Small bust, narrow waist, slender hips, long legs—all nicely toned.

Definitely a big-city girl, as out of place here in rural Mississippi as he would have been in the juice bar of her trendy health club. “So why are you here? We didn’t have an appointment or anything, did we?”

Apparently savoring every bite of her cake, she shook her head. “I’ve been unable to reach you to set up an appointment. And I
have
tried,” she added, a touch of accusation in her tone.

He shrugged without apology. “I haven’t had a chance to check the mail in a while.”

“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.