Quiet Walks the Tiger - By Heather Graham Page 0,8

returned his sister’s doll. With a sigh, Sloan returned to her conversation.

“I’m sorry about the payment, Mrs. White, it must have been an oversight. I’ll put it in the mail immediately. Please don’t turn off the electricity!”

The woman on the other end spat off a few epitaphs about people who didn’t pay bills on time and finally agreed to give her four days to have the payment in. Sloan hung up the receiver and rested her head tiredly on the phone.

“Mommy?” A tiny hand tugged on her sleeve, and she opened her eyes. Jamie—her devil, her love. “Mommy, I love you.”

She picked him up and hugged him. “I love you, too, sweetheart. Now run along and see what your brother is doing.”

She set him down and rubbed a hand across her forehead. No wonder she was getting wrinkles. She was always frowning.

“Mommy!” It was Jamie again. “Terry is putting the laundry in the toilet!”

“Eeeeeek!” Sloan screamed, racing into the bathroom. Lord, what next? She unstuffed the toilet and washed the baby, who gurgled happily with pleasure and lisped a few words. Then she returned to the kitchen to morosely sip her coffee, slumped into a chair.

“The morning,” she told herself aloud, “is not going well at all.”

Her mind, for no explicable reason, turned to Wesley Adams. He was a handsome man, polite and gracious. She unconsciously moved a hand over her face. He was attracted to her; she knew it intuitively. And he was rich. Wheels began to turn in her mind.

She sprang to her feet and raced back into the bathroom to anxiously study her reflection again. She smoothed the worried frown from her brow and smiled brightly. That was better. Much better. Maybe Jim’s ideas for her future weren’t quite so bad...

She continued to stare at herself unseeingly for several seconds, oblivious to the playful ramblings of the children.

“I don’t love him, I don’t really like him, I hardly even know him!” she told the face that was forming before her, the face that had a bewitching but frighteningly predatory cast.

The children...I have to think of the children...and I’m so dreadfully tired of dealing with it all!

The face wasn’t really predatory, she assured herself. Conniving, maybe, devious, yes perhaps...and hard. But not predatory! She swallowed, wincing, ashamed of her thoughts.

Sloan closed her eyes and turned away from the mirror, burying all sense of shame with purpose and determination as she did so. Like a marionette she jerked back to the phone and dialed her sister’s number.

She chatted idly for a few minutes, then casually brought up the subject on her mind.

“What do you really know about Wesley Adams?” she asked.

Cassie rushed on with enthusiasm. Wes was wonderful. He had led his team to victory in the Super Bowl. He donated to charities all over the country. He had a beautiful spread in Kentucky where he raised his horses and held a summer camp for deprived children every year...

“Does he really have that much money?” Sloan queried innocently, thankful that her sister couldn’t see her face over the phone.

“Tons of it!” Cassie laughed. “His salary was unbelievable, and he seems to have the Midas touch with investments. Everything he touches turns to gold, silver, and green. They had a big write-up on him in Fortune magazine when he left pro ball a few years ago...”

Cassie had more to say, but Sloan was no longer listening. A slow buzzing was seeping coldly through her. She couldn’t allow herself to think; she couldn’t afford to moralize.

“Sloan?”

“I’m here, Cass.”

“So—you’ve decided you like him after all! I knew you would. He’s such a super guy! And he’s interested in you. Half the women in this country would sell their souls to be in your place!”

“Yes, Cass.” Sloan held her breath for a minute. She wasn’t much of a liar, and she had never lied to Cassie in her life. Suddenly she felt hot, dizzy, and nervous—what she was planning was preposterous. She might have joked, but the idea of actually doing it had never occurred to her. Until now. And it had hit her with a jolt. It would be wrong; she couldn’t...

But the last two years of her life flashed through her mind in a split second—a tumult of events that was dark and sobering. Terry’s disappearance, the baby’s premature birth, her own long haul back to health, having to quit the Fife Dance Company, moving back to Gettysburg and teaching at a salary that was more than she had made with