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.”