Conflict of Interest (The McClouds of Mississippi 2)

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.”