Conflict of Interest (The McClouds of Mississippi)

by Gina Wilkins

  The kitchen was empty, but a covered plate sat on the counter. Lifting the lid, she found two large, golden-brown muffins oozing with blueberries. Apparently Gideon had stopped by the bakery again after taking Isabelle to school. Certain he had left these out for her, she poured herself a cup of coffee, set it on the table, then carried one of the muffins with her to a chair. Serving herself was quite a balancing act, but she managed.

  She took her time drinking the coffee and eating the muffin, enjoying both immensely. She’d been hungrier than she’d realized, probably because she hadn’t felt like eating much the night before. And she needed the time alone to prepare herself for seeing Gideon. If, of course, he ever emerged from his office.

  He did, in fact, less than ten minutes later. She had just finished her breakfast and was trying to muster the energy to pull out her computer when Gideon entered the kitchen, carrying an empty coffee mug and wearing a rather ferocious frown in addition to his standard uniform of jeans and T-shirt. “How’s your leg?”

  “Better, thank you.”

  His narrowed eyes swept her face. “That’s a lie.”

  “Not entirely. It is a little better.”

  Though he still looked skeptical, he grunted and moved toward the coffeemaker. “Don’t you want your other muffin?” he asked, glancing at the plate.

  “No, one was enough for me. It was delicious, by the way.”

  Snagging the remaining muffin, he nodded and headed toward the doorway again, his filled-to-the-brim coffee mug in his other hand. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  “Gideon?”

  He paused with an expression that combined impatience and wariness. “What?”

  “When are we going to discuss the offers from your publisher?”

  “We’ll get to it. As soon as I—”

  “I know,” she interrupted in resignation. “As soon as you finish the scene you’re working on.”

  He looked at her a moment, then turned without another word and left the room. Adrienne stared after him thoughtfully. Something was different about him today. He was just as blunt as usual, but a bit more distant, perhaps. Did it have anything to do with last night? Had he, too, found that interlude a bit too…intimate for professional associates?

  A telephone rang, distracting her from that line of thought. At first she thought it was Gideon’s phone again. And then she realized it was her own cell phone, which was sitting on the counter beside her briefcase. Fumbling with the crutches, she got to it on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Sorry to interrupt the vacation.”

  Instantly recognizing the apologetic voice, Adrienne settled carefully back into her chair. “Hi, Jacqueline. What’s up?”

  “Your father wants to know where you put the tax file he gave you to look over.”

  “I gave it back to him.”

  “I thought you did, but he swears you didn’t.”

  Adrienne rolled her eyes. “Look in his office, on the credenza behind his desk. It’s the red file on the left side of the credenza in a pile of other papers.”

  “Thanks. I’ll find it. So are you still in Mississippi?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Are you making any progress with Herman the Hermit?”

  Adrienne smiled ruefully at the nickname. “Not really, I’m afraid—though you are not to report that to my father, of course.”

  “Is Gideon McCloud as weird as we thought he would be?”

  “He’s not weird.” Adrienne kept one eye on the kitchen doorway as she spoke. “Just very private. And very focused on his writing. At least, when he isn’t having to deal with other people’s crises.”

  Her own, for example.

  “So will you be coming back to New York today?”

  “Um.” Looking down at her purply, swollen foot, she said, “No, I won’t be back today.”

  “Really? So what will you be doing there in the backwoods of Mississippi?”

  “Ah, recuperating, mostly,” Adrienne mumbled. “But only for a few more days. I’ve actually gotten quite a bit of work done. I’ll be sending you an e-mail later this morning with some things I need you to do for me, and a few letters you can mail—”

  “Adrienne.”

  She sighed. “Yes?”

  “From what, exactly, are you recuperating?”

  “I was in a minor accident with my rental car, but—”

  “Oh, my God, are you—?”

  “I wasn’t hurt in the accident,” Adrienne said hastily. “It was afterward. I slipped and fell on wet pavement and sprained my ankle. I’ve been ordered to take it easy for a few days, so it’s probably best if I don’t try to make the trip home before Friday, but other than that, I’m fine.”

  “I’m so sorry you were hurt. Is there anything I can do for you? Besides the list you’re sending me, of course.”

  “No, that’s all. And, um, there’s no need to mention this accident to my father. As far as he needs to know, I’m simply taking some vacation time. He didn’t really expect to hear from me this week, anyway.”

  “He knows I’m calling you. I’ll just tell him you sound fine, which you do, so it’s not really a lie. I wouldn’t want him to be too worried about you.”

  Jacqueline’s dry tone didn’t quite hide her cynicism. Adrienne’s brusque reply did not entirely conceal a touch of wistfulness. “We both know he would be more likely to be annoyed with my carelessness than concerned for my health. But by all means, tell him I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure you’re okay there? I hate to think of you staying alone in some hotel room when you’re injured.”

  “Actually, I’m not staying at a hotel. Mr. McCloud invited me to stay at his place for a few days.”

  “Oh? Would this be the old, ugly, married Mr. McCloud?”

  Adrienne cleared her throat. She could lie to her father with ease, but she’d never been able to deceive her friend and assistant. “No. This would be the young, good-looking, single Mr. McCloud.”

  “I see.”

  The way Jacqueline stretched out those two syllables made Adrienne add hastily, “His sister’s staying here with us.”

  “Oh.” Jacqueline sounded vaguely disappointed to hear that Adrienne’s visit was being chaperoned. There was no need to tell her, of course, that Gideon’s sister had just celebrated her fourth birthday.

  She couldn’t lie to Jacqueline, but she saw no reason to tell her every little detail of this interesting interlude with Gideon McCloud.

  Deciding that it was entirely possible Gideon wouldn’t reappear at all that day—at least until she reminded him about picking up Isabelle—Adrienne settled in his den with her foot elevated and her work spread around her. She had trouble concentrating on her reading, though. Her thoughts kept wandering back to that late-night visit from Gideon.

  Why was she having so much trouble putting that out of her mind? She’d bet Gideon hadn’t given it another thought. He probably hadn’t given her another thought as he’d lost himself in his writing.

  When the doorbell rang at midmorning, she hesitated only a moment before reaching for the crutches and moving to answer it. She was certainly making herself at home here, she thought wryly, but it wasn’t as if Gideon would rush to open the door. He probably hadn’t even heard the bell.

  Officer Dylan Smith stood on the doorstep, his toast-brown hair tousled in the breeze, his Old-West handsome face creased with a lazy smile. With the studied courtesy she had come to expect from him, he touched a finger to the brim of his hat and drawled, “’Morning, ma’am. How’s the leg today?”

  “Better, thank you,” she fibbed.

  He held out his hand, opening the palm to reveal a purple plastic bead bracelet. “I found this is in the back of my patrol car this morning. Since I don’t think it belongs to the drunk I hauled in for relieving himself on Mrs. Arnett’s prized rose bushes, I thought maybe someone here would recognize it.”

  Laughing, Adrienne reached out to take the inexpens
ive bauble from him. “It’s Isabelle’s. I remember seeing it on her arm. Everything was so hectic yesterday, I don’t think she’s even missed it.”

  He looked down at her right foot, which was still noticeably swollen. “That looks painful.”

  “It hurts,” she replied candidly. “But it really is getting better, I think.”

  “Are you taking the pain pills the doctor gave you?”

  She was immediately transported back several hours, to a gravelly voice in the darkness and a pair of gentle hands supporting her as she swallowed her pills. Feeling the blood warm in her cheeks, she looked away from the officer and motioned toward the den. “I take the pills only when I’m forced to. Won’t you come in, Officer Smith? I just made a fresh pot of coffee. Gideon guzzles it by the gallon.”

  His smile turned wry. “Thanks, but as much as I would enjoy the visit with you, I’d better decline. If McCloud were to see me in his house, drinking his coffee, I’d probably have to haul him in for assaulting an officer.”

  Adrienne shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the hostility between you two. Gideon hasn’t told me what caused it.”

  “Let’s just say he never fancied me as a brother-in-law.” His smile no longer reached his eyes, and Adrienne sensed that his ironic tone was intended to mask a tangle of old emotions he didn’t want examined too closely. And then he stepped back and touched his hat again, falling back into his blandly polite Southern-cop routine. “I’m glad you’re doing better, Ms. Corley. You be sure and give me a call if there’s ever anything I can do for you.”

  “Thank you, Officer Smith.”

  He turned and strolled to his car, whistling cheerily as he went. Still part of the act, Adrienne decided as she watched him leave. Just what was Officer Dylan Smith hiding behind that good-old-boy grin?

  “What the hell was he doing here?”

  Adrienne turned to find Gideon looming behind her, glaring over her shoulder at the departing patrol car. She dangled the purple bracelet from her fingers. “He found this in his patrol car this morning. It’s Isabelle’s. Nice of him to go to the trouble of returning it, wasn’t it?”

  Gideon’s scowl only deepened. “He could have put it in the mail.”

  Adrienne closed the door. “He said he also wanted to make sure I was okay. I thought that was very considerate of him.”

  “I’m sure you did. Smith has always had a way of charming unsuspecting women.”

  Using her crutches to make her way across the room, she lowered herself onto the couch again. “Did you date his sister or did he date yours?”

  “Dylan doesn’t have a sister.”

  “He dated yours, then.”

  Gideon planted his fists on his hips. “What did he say to you?”

  “Only that you didn’t fancy him as a brother-in-law.”

  Snorting, he dropped his arms. “Marriage was hardly in his plans for my younger sister.”

  Thinking about the emotions swirling in the officer’s hard gray eyes, Adrienne murmured, “Are you so sure about that?”

  After only a momentary hesitation, Gideon shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now, anyway. They broke up years ago. Deborah can hardly stand to hear his name now.”

  Adrienne wondered if that meant some of the old feelings still burned in Gideon’s sister, as she suspected they did in Dylan Smith. Not that it was any of her business, of course, and she could be way off base, but there had been something in Dylan’s expression…

  Closing the subject about the officer and his sister, Gideon pushed a hand through his hair. “Guess I’ll get back to work. Unless you need something?” he added as an afterthought. “Are you hungry or anything?”

  “No, I’m fine. But, Gideon, isn’t there something useful I can do for you? I came all this way to help you plan the next stage of your writing career, but since you’ve obviously fallen a little behind, isn’t there something I can do to help you catch up? I’m stranded here for a few days, anyway.”

  He seemed about to refuse her offer, then apparently gave it a second thought. “Actually, you could help. If you’re serious, I mean.”

  “I’m absolutely serious. Tell me what I can do.”

  “Let’s move to my office. You need help getting there?”

  “No.” She thought it was rather cute the way he offered his assistance so awkwardly and self-consciously, but of course she would never tell him so. Cute was probably not a word Gideon would want applied to him.

  “I’m getting rather proficient with these things,” she said instead, reaching for the crutches.

  Gideon’s office was the only part of his home that could be described as cluttered. Both his computer desk and the writing desk on the other side of the room were stacked with papers, files and books, and were covered in yellow sticky notes scrawled with cryptic notes to himself. The room’s built-in bookcases were filled to overflowing, and extra books were stacked in corners.

  A deep metal tray on the writing desk apparently served as his In basket; it was piled so high with what appeared to be unopened mail that the whole stack looked to be in danger of collapsing. Adrienne suspected a couple of unopened certified letters from her were buried in that pile.

  Meticulously neat and organized in other areas of his life, Gideon had lost control completely in here. “Help,” he said simply.

  She didn’t need detailed instructions. “Why don’t I start with the mail?” she suggested, moving toward the writing desk. “I’ll try to separate business correspondence from bills and personal letters.”

  He looked relieved. “Open everything. There’s nothing private in there. I’m sure some of the bills are due, though I try not to get too far behind on those. I don’t know what the rest of the stuff is, but most of it can probably go straight to the trash.”

  His tone effectively erased any hesitation she might have felt about wading into his mail. He sounded almost grateful—for Gideon, at least—that she was willing to do so.

  She spent the next hour opening, scanning and separating the mail. She found bills that needed paying immediately, her own letters and a few from his publisher, several you-have-already-been-approved credit card solicitations, requests from charities, two requests for interviews from area newspapers, a couple of invitations to speak at junior-high career days—and a big stack of fan mail that had been forwarded from his publisher.

  “You haven’t answered any of these?” she asked, flipping through page after page of glowing praise.

  Glancing away from the keyboard he’d been pounding the entire time, he shrugged. “I don’t know what to say to them. I’m glad they like my books, but I don’t know why they’re writing to me.”

  “Just to let you know they enjoy your stories. You brought them pleasure and they wanted to thank you. For heaven’s sake, Gideon, these are people who went to the trouble of complimenting you. You should thank them—both as a courtesy and as good public relations practice.”

  “Maybe you could answer a few of them for me?” he suggested. “You’re probably better at that sort of thing than I am.”

  “I’m your agent, not your secretary.”

  “You did offer to help. And the more time I spend on that stuff, the later I’ll be delivering this book.”

  She gave him a look. “You’re shameless.”

  “What can I say? I’m drowning here.”

  She had to give him that. The office was a wreck. “Bring me my laptop and I’ll see what I can do.”

  He flashed her one of his sneakily charming smiles—the kind that made her hands clench in her lap beneath the desk. “I’ll be right back.”

  “And bring a diet cola with you, too,” she called after him.

  If he was going to manipulate her into serving as his secretary, the least he could do was serve her a cold drink.

  Gideon never would have believed that he would be able to concentrate on his work with someone else in the office with him—he hadn’t even been able to do so when Isabelle ha
d sat at the other desk quietly coloring pictures. But for some reason Adrienne’s presence didn’t bother him. Just as he’d been able to work while knowing she was in another room, he had no trouble focusing on his story with her at the other desk.

  Actually, he had gotten quite a bit of writing done since she’d arrived, even if she had caused a few inconveniences. But she had helped him with Isabelle, and now she was clearing away some of the stacks of mail that had been nagging at the edges of his consciousness lately.

  Yes, he thought smugly, hitting a couple of keys to begin a new chapter, every writer needed a good agent.

  It took Adrienne about two hours to reach the bottom of Gideon’s In basket. She surveyed her work with satisfaction.

  The ads and solicitations had been consigned to the now-overflowing wastebasket. The fan mail had all been answered, the stack of replies printed, waiting for Gideon’s approval and signature. Bills were stacked in order of due date; she had already nagged him into writing checks for the most pressing, which she had then stuffed into envelopes and stamped so he could mail them when he fetched Isabelle.

  The last item remaining in the metal tray was a battered manila envelope with a San Diego postmark dated several weeks earlier. Inside she found a sealed, letter-size white envelope addressed to Gideon, but not stamped, as if someone had intended to mail it, but had never gotten around to it.

  She unfolded the single sheet of paper that had been enclosed with the white envelope. “Gideon?”

  He responded without looking away from the computer screen. “Mmm?”

  “Here’s a letter addressed to you that was found in a box of your father’s belongings,” she said, summarizing the note she’d just perused. “Apparently, it was in the possession of a Mrs. Barbara Houston, who died recently.”

  She saw Gideon’s shoulders stiffen before he answered. “Just set it aside. I’ll get to it later.”