Quiet Walks the Tiger - By Heather Graham Page 0,42
Sloan, and I love you, but I can’t stand by and watch you use a wonderful man like Wes because you’ll only make both your lives miserable.”
“What do you mean?” Sloan asked thickly.
“You’re-rushing things, Sloan,” Cassie said, her brown eyes deep with unhappy turmoil as she met her sister’s gaze squarely. “I’ve wanted to talk to you all week, but I keep telling myself I’m not your parent, guardian, or conscience. And I’d hoped from the moment I saw Wes and knew he was interested in you that something would form between you.” She stopped speaking, bit her lip, and drew a long breath to begin again as Sloan stared at her blankly. “Sloan, I know you. I’ve known you all my life. Even when we were kids, you could charm the pants off of anyone you set your mind to. You were never cruel or malicious, but you could turn on that smile and connive just about anything. I saw you get your way with that sweetly subtle cajolery with Mom and Dad and Terry—and me! And it’s not bad, Sloan, it’s tactful and polite and no one usually knows he or she has even been taken! I’m sure that sometimes you don’t even know you’re doing it. But this time I’m sure you do, Sloan,” she said gravely. “This time you’ve turned on the charm for all the wrong reasons! You’re marrying Wes for his money.”
“Cassie!” Sloan gasped, stunned by her sister’s intuitive grasp of her initial motives. “Cassie, you’re wrong!” she insisted, but she had never lied to her sister, and the fact that she was right about the original scheming made Sloan’s protest weak.
Cassie shook her head, her eyes sad. “You said yes to a proposal in a week, Sloan, to a man you were barely polite to at first.”
“Oh, Cassie,” Sloan murmured, loving her sister and unable to bear her condemnation. “You were right. But not now.” The screaming hiss of the teakettle momentarily halted her explanation—and also covered all other sounds in the house. Sloan grabbed the water and poured it over tea bags in the mugs and curled into a kitchen chair before continuing. “Cassie, everything was going to hell! I was overdue on the mortgage, the electricity—everything. So yes, I did set out to charm Wes. I had to get him to marry me; I needed his money.”
“Oh, Sloan!” Cassie admonished miserably. “Without love?”
Sloan was fumbling for a way to explain how things had changed. “No, I didn’t love him when I knew I had to make it be marriage. I—”
The sharp sound of the front door closing froze Sloan before she could go any further. “Wes!” she exclaimed to Cassie in a quiet hiss. Her sister had taken her so off guard that she had forgotten his expected arrival. “Cassie—I’ll finish explaining later,” she begged in a whisper, her eyes wide and pleading.
Cassie might attack her on moral grounds when they were alone, but as a sister she was true blue. Her voice rose cheerfully. “Sloan—I think he’s finally made it here!”
Both sisters set their mugs down and almost knocked each other over in their guilty haste to reach the living room. “Wesley!” Sloan cried happily as she saw his tall form in the doorway. She raced across the room to embrace him, unaware in her own exuberance that he accepted her stiffly.
“You’re late!” Cassie teased from her distance. “I’d better get on home so that you two can have your words out!”
Wes brushed Sloan’s forehead with a kiss and smiled at Cassie. “No, Cass, don’t leave on my account. I did run late, so I’m just stopping by to say that I’m here.”
“Stopping by?” Sloan questioned him with a frown. She blushed slightly, not sure how to phrase her confusion with Cassie present. “Wes, your things are all here. Florence and I cleared out your house except for the things we’ll need for the wedding. I—I thought you’d stay here tonight,” she stammered.
Wes slipped an arm around her and tilted her chin. He smiled, but she noticed how hard the angles of his face could be, how tense the bronzed skin that stretched across them. He was tired, she realized, very tired. His eyes also had a peculiar light, one that glittered icily in the dim light of the doorway. “I wouldn’t dream of staying here tonight,” he teased, his voice husky. “We want to get that wedding ring on your finger, my love, and they say it’s bad luck