Conflict of Interest (The McClouds of Mississippi) (19 page)

“I’m sure she didn’t. So what sort of writing did you do? Strictly newspaper articles, or did you ever try your hand at fiction?”

He shrugged and looked away, concentrating for a moment on a group of teenagers who were getting a bit rowdy. “I played around with some fiction. Never seriously, though.”

“Really. Do you still write?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, for a hobby. But don’t tell Gideon. I’m sure he would hate the idea of me dabbling even casually in his area of expertise.”

He sounded lazily amused, but Adrienne sensed that this subject wasn’t entirely frivolous to him. “What have you written?”

Looking vaguely uncomfortable, he shrugged. “I don’t want to sound like Yolanda.”

“You sound nothing like Yolanda. What do you write?”

“I like mysteries,” he finally admitted. “I’ve started a series about a small-town Southern cop who solves crimes in an unconventional way. Hardly a groundbreaking premise, of course, but it’s a little different because he suffers from a couple of phobias that occasionally interfere with his job and that he tries constantly to conceal.”

“That sounds interesting. Have you actually written a complete book?”

He was practically squirming on the bench now, like an embarrassed adolescent. “Yeah, a couple. But it’s just something I do to relax when I’m not working. I’m single, no family, don’t have many hobbies. Writing is something to fill the time.”

“You have no interest at all in being published?”

“Sure, I’ve thought about it. Maybe I’ll send my work out someday—when I’m ready.”

“I don’t suppose you would let me look at it?”

He whipped his head around to stare at her. “Why would you want to do that?”

She smiled. “Something tells me you have talent. I could be wrong, of course.”

He laughed softly. “I doubt you would mince words if you didn’t like it.”

“I like to think of myself as tactful but honest. Not everyone likes what I have to say,” she added, thinking of Gideon’s resistance to her suggestions for his current book.

Seeming to follow the direction of her thoughts, Dylan glanced around as if to make sure Gideon wasn’t nearby when he said, “Don’t tell him I said this, but Gideon’s a darned good writer. I’ve read and enjoyed all his books.”

“Have you really?”

He nodded. “Bought the first one because I wanted to hate it. I hoped his writing would be as unexciting and unpleasant as his personality. I was wrong. The first book was so good I bought the others simply because I wanted to read them. I drove out of town to buy them, of course, then smuggled them into my house in brown paper bags. I wouldn’t want word to get back to Gideon that I read his books.”

“Of course not,” she agreed gravely.

“Remember, you promised not to say anything to him.”

“Cross my heart. Will you let me read your book?”

He groaned. “I never should have said anything about it. I really am as bad as Yolanda.”

“No, because I’m the one asking you. And I warn you, Dylan, I can be very persistent.”

“Are you this persistent when you’re representing your clients’ work?”

“Worse. Editors know they might as well hear my pitch because I’m not going to go away unheard.”

“You sound like the sort of agent a writer would want on his side.”

“I am. So let me read your work.”

“What if you hate it?”

“Then I’ll tell you so. I’ll be tactful but honest,” she said with a smile.

He considered it a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe. But if Gideon finds out, all hell will break loose.”

“I don’t know why. You aren’t writing just to annoy him, are you?”

“Of course not. I didn’t even know he wanted to write until he published his first book a few years back. I was living in another state then. Darn, it griped my hide that I liked it.”

She laughed. “You two are ridiculous, you know that? Just because you dated his sister a long time ago is no reason two very nice men with similar interests can’t be friends now.”

The smile in Dylan’s eyes dimmed then. “There was a bit more to it than that.”

There still was more to it, Adrienne realized suddenly, reading something in his expression that he probably would have liked to keep hidden. She would bet that Dylan still had feelings for Deborah McCloud, no matter how much time had passed since their breakup.

Or was she overromanticizing again—as Gideon had accused her of trying to do to his book?

Carrying a small stuffed bear, Gideon reappeared at that moment with Isabelle beside him. Isabelle had a shamrock painted on her cheek, a green helium-filled balloon tied to one wrist and a cone of green-tinted cotton candy in her other hand. She dimpled. “Hi, Officer Smith. Do you want a bite?”

He glanced at the rather noxiously colored spun sugar with a slight shudder, though he managed a smile. “No, thank you, Isabelle. I’d better be moving along.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Gideon muttered.

Just to make Gideon mad—Adrienne had no doubt that was the reason—Dylan leaned over to brush a friendly kiss against her cheek. “See you later, Adrienne.”

He sauntered away whistling, sounding quite pleased with his exit.

Gideon was practically quivering with outrage when he took Dylan’s place on the bench beside Adrienne. “That guy’s really starting to tick me off.”

She knew better than to smile, though she felt compelled to say, “I like him.”

“I like him, too,” Isabelle offered, climbing comfortably onto Gideon’s knee to eat her cotton candy. Her face was already dotted with sticky bits of green fluff.

Pushing the floating green balloon out of his face, Gideon continued to glare at Adrienne. “Did he ask you out again?”

“No, he did not.”

“Then why was he hanging around?”

“We were just talking.”

“I think Gideon’s jealous,” Isabelle commented without looking away from her sticky treat.

Both Adrienne and Gideon looked at the child in surprise.

“Caitlin says Brad Pitt is cute. Nate pretends to get mad, and Caitlin says he’s jealous. Are you jealous, Gideon?”

“Eat your green stuff,” he muttered.

She giggled and took another big bite.

Gideon wasn’t jealous, of course, Adrienne assured herself. It was just that he disliked Dylan and wasn’t pleased that she had befriended him.

And then his eyes met hers over Isabelle’s head, and she was shaken by the hard glint in them. She knew a look of sheer masculine possessiveness when she saw one.

Maybe Isabelle hadn’t been so far off, after all.

Adrienne was not at all surprised when Gideon retreated to his office again after they returned from the festival. It was a pattern she had learned to predict—any time he felt himself getting too close to someone, he retreated into his sanctuary and made-up worlds.

She spent the evening playing board games and watching television with Isabelle. Surprisingly enough, she had a lovely evening. She hadn’t spent much time around children, but Isabelle was a delight. She could certainly understand why so many people had grown to love the little girl.

When it was time for Isabelle to turn in, she wrapped her arms tightly around Adrienne’s waist. “I had fun today.”

Hugging the freshly bathed, sweet-smelling child, Adrienne rested her cheek against Isabelle’s soft curls. She could hear that previously unnoticed biological clock ticking again. Would she ever hold a child of her own? She was twenty-eight years old and not even involved with anyone. Motherhood seemed rather unlikely at the moment.

Holding Isabelle’s hand, she tapped on Gideon’s office door, then pushed it open. “Isabelle wants to say goodnight.”

He looked around from the computer. “Is it bedtime already?”

Isabelle padded toward his chair. “Past bedtime. Adrienne let me stay up to watch a funny movie on the Disney channel.”

“Oh. Well, good night, then. Sleep well.”

Since he was still seated, Isabelle was able to reach up to wrap her arms around his neck. “Thank you for taking me to the festival and buying me cotton candy and letting me ride the merry-go-round. I had fun.”

He patted her back. He didn’t look as awkward about it as he had only a few days earlier. “I’m glad you had a good time.”

She planted a smacking kiss on his cheek. “G’night, Gideon. I love you.”

Gideon cleared his throat even as Adrienne felt a lump form in her own. “Yeah,” he said. “Me, too. Now run along to bed.”

As she tucked Isabelle into bed, Adrienne wondered when Gideon had last said the words
I love you
to anyone. Had he hidden his tender feelings so deeply that he would never be able to find them again?

Gideon shut down his computer at midnight—not because he was tired, but because the words simply weren’t coming to him. He told himself to stay in the office for the rest of the night, but he found himself prowling the hallways, anyway—just to check that everything was secured.

The outside doors were all locked, the lights all turned off. The automatic coffeemaker was set for the usual time; he wanted coffee immediately available when he stumbled into the kitchen at dawn. Isabelle was sound asleep in her bed. He tucked the covers around her and pulled the door partially closed behind him as he left.

It was only then that he noticed his own bedroom door was standing open.

He remembered telling Adrienne that leaving the door open could be interpreted as an invitation. Surely she had just forgotten to close it. Maybe she had gotten a bit too warm in there.

He was getting pretty damned hot himself.

She stepped out of the shadows of the bedroom, pausing to lean against the doorjamb with her arms crossed under her breasts. Which, by the way, were displayed quite nicely by the deeply scooped neckline of her black nightgown.

He’d thought once that she wore a bit too much black, since that seemed to be a staple of her wardrobe. Now he realized just how flattering the color was with her creamy skin and glossy auburn hair, both of which were softly illuminated by the nightlight he kept in the hallway to facilitate his habit of pacing the house during the nighttime hours.

“You, uh, couldn’t sleep?” he asked, and his voice had a ragged edge to it.

Her own voice was low, probably to keep from disturbing Isabelle. The result was very intimate. “No. You, neither?”

He felt himself drawn toward her, as if by a magnetic force. He planted his bare feet firmly on the carpet to resist. “No.”

She waited a bit, then smiled a little. “Why don’t you come in, and we could ‘not sleep’ together?”

Though the sentence was rather convoluted, the meaning was clear enough. This was most definitely the invitation her open door had implied.

Because he was a normal, red-blooded male, his first instinct was to leap forward before she changed her mind. Because he was the surly and suspicious type, he asked, “Why?”

He couldn’t imagine what he had done to amuse her. Her soft, unpainted lips curved into a faint smile. “Well…if you aren’t interested…”

“I didn’t say that. I’m just curious about what you have in mind.”

Her smiled deepened at the corners, and she took a step toward him. “What I have in mind is seducing you. And if you haven’t figured that out by now, then I must be losing my touch.”

The surge of heat through his body confirmed that she had not lost her touch. “I, er, got that,” he managed to say coherently. “My question, again, is…why?”

She placed a hand on his chest. A muscle jumped beneath his skin. He wished now that he had kept his shirt on with his jeans. Standing there barefoot and bare-chested made him feel oddly vulnerable. As if he were, indeed, being seduced.

She watched her own hand as it slid up his chest to his shoulder. “Does it matter why?”

A faint echo of Isabelle’s innocent comments about marriage and jealousy sounded in the back of his mind. “Maybe.”

Resting her other hand on his other shoulder, she gazed up at him through her lashes. “I’ll be going back to New York in a day or two. Do you really want this to end with the few kisses we’ve shared?”

No, he most definitely did not want it to end with those kisses. He had fully intended to plot his way into her bed—
his
bed—before she left. So why was he suddenly hesitating when it seemed she was offering him a no-strings opportunity to scratch a growing itch, satisfy their curiosity or whatever it would be?

Her hands were looped behind his neck now, bringing her body lightly against his. Her dark eyes gleamed like polished onyx in the shadowy hallway as her gaze held his. “Well, Gideon? Do you want me to go back inside and close the door or do you want to come inside with me? It’s up to you.”

Adrienne couldn’t have pinpointed the moment she decided to invite Gideon into her bed—or rather,
his
bed. Maybe it had been during one of those spectacular kisses. Or perhaps at the festival, when he had been so patient and indulgent with Isabelle.

Or maybe it had been the expression in his eyes when she’d left him in his office again that night. Weariness. Discouragement with his work. Loneliness.

Emotions with which she identified all too well.

She didn’t try to deceive herself that they would have more than a night or two together. But maybe a few stolen hours would give them a reason to smile during the quiet, sleepless nights ahead—for both of them.

Besides which, his kisses made her knees go weak.

Craving another of those kisses, she tilted her face invitingly upward, waiting for his decision. She understood his hesitation; Gideon was a man who guarded his emotions ferociously. She saw the brief debate take place in his eyes before he covered her mouth with his, and she realized with a heady mixture of pleasure and nerves that he had decided to accept her bold invitation.

Before her knees buckled altogether, she took a step backward, toward the open bedroom doorway. Without lifting his mouth from hers, he followed her, walking her backward through the doorway, then reached behind him to close and lock the door.

He lifted his head just far enough to ask, “You’re sure about this?”

She made a face and gave a short laugh. “All I’m sure about right this moment is that I want this. I want you.”