“Sure,” he said, visibly resigning himself to spending a while longer at the festival. “Why not?”
Leaving the table for other diners, they moved toward the children’s area, Isabelle leading the way. Expressing concern about her overtaxing her sprained ankle, Gideon parked Adrienne on a bench with a good view of the festivities. “I’ll let Isabelle play for a while. You sit here and people watch. You seem to enjoy that.”
Because it was exactly what she liked most about this sort of event, she smiled, propped her crutches against the armrest of the bench and settled down for an interesting voyeuristic session. “I’ll be just fine here.”
Gideon allowed himself to be towed away by his excited little sister. He looked at Adrienne over his shoulder as he disappeared into the crowd, and she had to laugh softly at his lamb-led-to-the-slaughter expression. This outing was good for him, she decided. He needed to get out among people more. He was too young to be an eccentric recluse.
Not that Gideon’s personal life was any of her business, of course.
“Hey, Miz Corley. Remember me?”
The woman’s stiffly teased gray hair and kindly eyes were immediately recognizable. “Of course. You’re Carla, from the diner.”
Pleased to be remembered, Carla grinned and motioned toward the two fifty-something women who accompanied her. “These are my sisters, Gloria and Patsy. Girls, this is Gideon McCloud’s agent from New York. I told you about meeting her at the diner.”
From their avid nods, Adrienne suspected that Carla’s sisters had heard about her in great detail. She spent the next ten minutes answering questions about New York, her job and Gideon’s next book, which she told them they would just have to wait and read for themselves. No, she answered patiently to one arch question, she wasn’t married, and then added that she and Gideon were friends and business associates, nothing more.
“Well, of course you aren’t,” Gloria—or was it Patsy?—said with a roll of her eyes. “What sane woman would want to get involved with Gideon McCloud? Sometimes I think that boy just isn’t right.”
“Now, Gloria,” the one who must be Patsy chided, “you know artists are just different, that’s all. Sure, he’s a little…odd, but that’s because their brains just don’t work like ours.”
The sisters were still arguing about whether Gideon was an eccentric genius or a spoiled bachelor after they bade Adrienne goodbye and moved on.
Adrienne was both amused and a bit bothered by the exchange. Why had Gideon cut himself off so determinedly from his neighbors? Was it only because of the pain of his father’s scandal or was there more to it than that? She didn’t accept the eccentric-author excuse—she knew too many writers who were sociable and well adjusted, despite their individual quirks.
“Excuse me, but you’re Gideon McCloud’s agent, right?”
A forty-something woman with flame-red hair, trendy glasses and a vivid green caftan worn with sandals stood at one end of the bench
, eyeing Adrienne with an expression she knew all too well. “Yes, I am.”
“I’m so excited to meet you. I just saw Gideon standing on the merry-go-round beside his little sister’s carousel horse—a lot of people looked pretty surprised to see him there, I can tell you—and I figured you must be around somewhere, since I’d heard you were in town. My name is Yolanda Krump, and I just know that fate has brought us together like this.”
Only if fate had a really twisted sense of humor, Adrienne thought with a silent groan, knowing exactly what was coming next.
“You see,” Yolanda continued, leaning companionably against the end of the bench. “I’ve written a book. I’m sure if I just had a good agent, I could get it published. I just know the book would be a bestseller.”
“Well, I—”
“I’ve sent it to several publishers already, but they returned it with rejection letters. Probably never even read it, since I don’t have an agent and I live in Mississippi.”
Living in Mississippi had nothing to do with it, of course. Editors had no particular bias against a writer’s hometown. But Adrienne didn’t try to argue. “I would be happy to look at a sample of your writing,” she said politely, pulling a business card out of the small shoulder-strap purse she’d brought with her. “Feel free to send me a query letter and your first three chapters, and I’ll get to them as soon as I have a chance.”
“Don’t you want me to tell you about my story? It’s a saga about four generations of women in a cursed family. It’s told mostly in vignettes and flashbacks, and a lot of it is autobiographical, since I’ve led a rather fascinating life. It—”
“I really can’t make any decisions without seeing a sample of your writing. Send me the chapters and I’ll read them very carefully, I promise.”
“Yes, I will. But let me tell you what happens—”
“’Afternoon, Miz Corley. Yolanda.”
Dylan’s familiar drawl was a welcome interruption. Adrienne looked around with a smile. “Officer Smith. How nice to see you.”
“Dylan,” he reminded her, taking a seat on the bench beside her. “Are you enjoying the festival?”
“Yes, very much, thank you.”
“Dylan, I was trying to tell Miss Corley about my book,” Yolanda began with some indignation.