His blunt assessment made Isabelle smile a little. “That sounds funny.”
“It means they were wrong. Nathan and Caitlin and Nanna and I aren’t sorry you’re here in Honesty with us. You’re a McCloud, and we take care of our own.”
Adrienne swallowed a sigh. What made this man who possessed such an amazing mastery of words on paper come across so stilted and awkward in face-to-face conversations? He sounded as though he were quoting a family-loyalty speech from one of those old TV Westerns.
Isabelle gazed up at her brother with a puzzled look puckering her little face. “Was my daddy really a bad man?”
Adrienne held her breath while Gideon mentally debated his answer.
“No,” he said. “Your father wasn’t a bad man. He made some mistakes, and he made a few people mad, but he wasn’t bad. And I know he was crazy about you.”
Adrienne smiled at him to show her approval of his choice of words. He gave her a brusque nod, then turned his attention back to Isabelle.
“How did he make people mad?”
There was another pause before he answered again. “You’ll hear more details about that later. Let’s just say there were some hard feelings when he and my mother broke up. But Mom doesn’t blame you for anything, Isabelle.”
“Nanna doesn’t wish I wasn’t here?”
“Nanna is very happy you’re here,” he replied firmly. “She thinks of you as her first grandchild.”
Isabelle thought about that for a moment, then looked at Adrienne, as if seeking a second opinion.
“If Gideon says it, you know you can believe it,” Adrienne assured her. “Gideon doesn’t tell polite fibs.”
Even a four-year-old had to concede that. Isabelle nodded solemnly. “Gideon isn’t very polite.”
Adrienne tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. Gideon looked so befuddled, as if he weren’t quite sure whether he’d just been complimented or insulted.
Isabelle looked up at him through her long eyelashes. “I like you, anyway,” she said, just in case she had hurt his feelings.
His expression became even odder then, and Adrienne thought he might have been touched by Isabelle’s innocent sincerity. “Er, thanks,” he said, typically brusque. “Now, what about school today? Are you going to let a couple of jerks keep you away, or are you going to let them see that the McClouds don’t care what anyone says about them?”
Isabelle hugged her book more tightly. “You think I should go?”
“Yeah, I think you should go. If you don’t, Danny and that other creep are going to think you believe all that bull—er, garbage they said to you. And you don’t, right? You believed what I told you instead.”
Isabelle nodded. “But I’d be late if I went today, wouldn’t I?”
He glanced at his watch. “Only a few minutes late. I’ll go in with you and tell Miss Thelma that it’s my fault we’re late. She’ll believe that, trust me.”
“C’mon, Isabelle, I’ll help you get ready,” Adrienne offered, rising to her feet. “You have friends at school that you like, don’t you? Kelsey and Jessica and Justin?”
She remembered those names from earlier conversations. Gideon, who probably hadn’t remembered any of them, looked a bit impressed when Isabelle nodded. “Those are my best friends. And Tiffany.”
“Good. Then you play with your friends who like you because of who you are and ignore the ones who choose to be mean just to make other people feel bad. There will always be people who are nice and people who aren’t. The trick is to be one of the nice ones and stay away from the mean ones as much as possible.”
Isabelle dimpled up at Adrienne as she took her hand. “You’re one of the nice ones,” she said sweetly.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, Adrienne smiled. “So are you, sweetie.”
She glanced at Gideon, who was watching them with an expression she couldn’t read. “We’ll be right back,” she told him.
He nodded. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
Something in his voice made her look at him again, but there was no clue to his feelings on his face. Feeling him watching her, she led Isabelle out of the room.
Gideon seemed to have had his fill of other people that morning. He headed for his office the minute he returned from taking Isabelle to school, and Adrienne sensed he didn’t plan to come out again until it was time to return for her.