Quiet Walks the Tiger - By Heather Graham Page 0,76
hearing that their marriage was still on a trial basis—not complete until she had actually delivered the child Wes craved.
In that respect, she wasn’t frightened. She had three beautiful children—even Terry, born early in the midst of grief and shock, had clung tenaciously to life and health.
They were becoming a rounded family, and Sloan loved becoming that family in all the simple ways. Sharing dinners, watching television, planning their time. The money that Sloan had once longed for now meant so little. Her pleasure was in the man—watching him help Jamie with projects, chastising Laura while still treating her like a little princess, taking Terry with his toddling precociousness beneath his own wing. As it had always been with him, what was hers was his. No blood brother could have been better to Cassie, more companionable to George.
If only she didn’t carry that edge of nervousness over his refusal to bring up his own life, and the home far away...
It was two and half weeks after his return that the bomb dropped. It was late, near midnight, and she was comfortably curled to Wes’s side as they both read paperbacks, when the phone rang. Their mutually curious expressions as Wes picked up the phone signified a loss at who could be calling so late.
Curious, Sloan’s raised brows knit into a frown. After Wes’s initial “Hello,” he went silent, listening, as seemingly countless seconds ticked by. Then his reply was a brief “Hold on a minute.” Handing the receiver to Sloan, he slipped from the bed and into his robe. “Hang that up for me, will you please? I’m going to take it in the den.”
Not waiting for her acknowledgment, he exited the room. Sloan was glad he didn’t turn around—he would have seen her jaw drop and her eyes widen with startled pain. He had just dismissed her as nothing more than a personal secretary—not trusting her, and not caring that she was worried...
But then Wes had the sure capability of turning from ardent lover to cold stranger—hard stranger—in a matter of seconds.
Staring bleakly after him, Sloan eyed the receiver she held. Temptation was overwhelming, because her pride had been wounded. She had a right to know what was going on in her home at midnight. She was, after all, Wesley’s wife...
Sloan brought the receiver to her ear just in time to hear Wes pick up downstairs. She intended to announce herself, but he began to speak immediately. “Okay, Dave, I’m here. I can get there immediately; I picked up a little jet the other day. In the meantime, call Doc Jennings—I don’t care what you have to do to find him or what you have to take him away from. If our entire stock is down—” Wes’s voice didn’t fade away; it stopped abruptly. She was startled by his tone becoming as curt and precise as an icicle, although, because of his brother’s hearing of his words miles away, he did couch his request politely. “Sloan—I have it down here, thank you. You may hang up now.”
“Hey, Sloan,” Dave cut in cheerfully. “Didn’t know you were there. How are you?”
“Fine, thanks, Dave,” Sloan murmured quickly, feeling as if her face had gone afire. She mumbled a good-bye and set the receiver hastily into its cradle, wondering with bleak but increasing anger how Wes could have managed to be so curt, so icy cold, to her. And then she realized that he had left the room purposely so that she would not hear his plans—his full intention had been to shut her out...
Alternating between the despairing realization that nothing had really changed—Wes trusted her less than one of his well-nurtured horses and had no intention of sharing his life with her, even if he did humor her and join into hers—and the infuriating proof that he would continue to do what he pleased with no regard to her feelings, Sloan sank into the bed, her limbs also torn between racing heat and numbness.
He was leaving; he was going to Kentucky. And he was leaving in a plane he had purchased—and neglected to mention to her.
And on top of all that, he would shortly come stalking back up to the room to coldly denounce her as an eavesdropper, condemning her with that oceanic stare that was like a razor’s edge...
The hell he will, she decided grimly, slipping from the bed in his wake. For a moment her body protested her movement; her stomach, always a little queasy in her first months