Conflict of Interest (The McClouds of Mississippi 2)

“And what do you think?”

“I think no other woman since my mother has been willing to put up with his cool, distant, controlling and completely self-absorbed nature.”

“And this is the man you’ve spent your whole life trying to please?”

“Pretty much.”

He sat in silence for a moment, then shrugged. “Your choice, I guess.”

“Yes. It is.”

Nodding toward their hovering server, he asked, “Would you like some dessert?”

The conversation about her father was over before she could figure out a way to ask a few questions about his relationship with his own father—and his father’s second wife. Questions she had no right to ask, of course, but that had been driving her crazy all day.

Gideon’s house was very quiet when they reentered it later that evening. They had been talking about something inconsequential during the drive home from the restaurant, but they both fell silent when they entered his empty kitchen and spotted a little purple plastic bracelet lying forgotten on the table.

“You’ll miss her, won’t you?” she asked, studying Gideon’s face as he looked at the bracelet.

He shrugged and set his truck keys on the counter. “I can see her whenever I want. Take her out for ice cream or something.”

“That’s not quite the same.”

“Are you kidding? It’s better this way.” He took a glass down from a cabinet and filled it with tap water. “I can spend an hour or two with her, then turn her back over to Nathan and Caitlin when she gets bored or tired. I don’t have to worry about dentist or doctor appointments, or whether she’s done her homework every night, or whether she bathes or brushes or eats her veggies—all the day-today minutiae of child-rearing.”

He tilted his head back to drink the water and she watched his throat work as he swallowed. Everything about him was attractive to her. She wanted to press her lips to the pulse in his throat, taste the skin over his sexy Adam’s apple.

Did he feel much the same way about her that he did about Isabelle? He enjoyed being with her while she was here, but would it be nice when he didn’t have to worry if she was entertained or hungry or annoyed—what he would probably call the day-to-day minutiae of a relationship?

Maybe she should look at it that way, too. After all, Gideon was a very difficult man. Living with him on a daily basis would be challenging, to say the least. She should take full advantage of the few hours she had left with him and then walk away with a heart full of fond memories and a sense of relief that she didn’t have to deal with his capricious moods any longer.

That was exactly the way she should feel, she just wasn’t sure that she would.

Setting the empty glass down, he turned to her, his heavy-lidded green eyes somber on her face. “I suppose you’re tired.”

It wasn’t a question, but a question lay behind it. Only a few more hours, she reminded herself, and moved toward him. “No,” she said, sliding her hands up his chest. “I’m not tired.”

He caught her wrists, holding both her hands in front of him. For just a moment she thought he was going to decline her implicit invitation, and she wondered why. Was he still annoyed with her for inviting Dylan inside? Had he already mentally said his goodbyes?

But then he lifted her hands to brush his lips across her knuckles. “Did I tell you how pretty you look tonight?”

She melted, of course. How could such a simple line—one she had heard so many times before—affect her so deeply when Gideon said it? Heaven only knew how she would react if he started spouting poetry. “Thank you.”

Still holding her gaze with his, he dropped her hands

, then swung her into his arms without warning. She gave a laughing gasp and clutched at his shoulders. “Gideon,” she said, her legs dangling over his arm.

Flashing one of his rare, wicked grins, he turned toward the kitchen doorway. “I’m only thinking of your injured ankle,” he assured her, striding confidently down the hallway toward his bedroom. “You should probably keep your weight off it for the rest of the evening.”

“That’s very considerate of you,” she said with as much dignity as possible.

“You could probably use a good massage, too. I’ve been told I have very talented hands.”

She eyed him speculatively. “I won’t ask how many people have told you that.”

“A very select few,” he assured her, lowering her to his bed.

The thought of Isabelle’s mother flashed very briefly through her mind, but she pushed it away. His past was none of her business. Neither was his future, for that matter, except where it concerned his writing. All they had was tonight, and she would be foolish to waste a minute of it.