Quiet Walks the Tiger - By Heather Graham Page 0,82
have three children; we’ve discussed this before—”
“Wes!” Sloan pressed a finger against his lips. “Don’t worry, please don’t worry.” In a hurry to assure him, she began to trip over her words. “I’ve known for some time...I waited to tell you to make sure...Wes, I’m past the real danger point, and I had ultrasound today. Everything is fine. I promise.”
He caught her hand, kissing the palm, then each finger. His eyes met hers; the love and joy she saw in their green depths were all that she would need to sustain her for a lifetime, come what may.
“When,” he asked, his voice absurdly shaky.
“April.” She smiled.
“Oh, Sloan,” he murmured, clasping her hand to his cheek. “You have to be so very careful. I don’t think I could bear the thought of losing you again—”
“I intend to be very careful,” she said softly, the fingers she held moving against his cheek. Was it possible that he could love her so very much? That all their trials had come to this magnificent result? The past—the time they had spent crossing in the night but never touching—was now so worthwhile. It made their lives so infinitely more precious; it made them both realize how important it was to always value the love that they had learned to share.
Suddenly stern, Wes lowered his voice, still holding her hand, but clasping it firmly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life, Sloan, but this will be it—I want your promise. A son or a daughter will be wonderful—but then we will have four. No more risks, promise.”
Sloan twisted her lips into a wry smile. “I’d like to promise, Wes, but—”
“No ‘buts,’” he said sternly.
“Wes!” she chuckled, eyes wide. “I’m not trying to dispute you, but I can’t change what already is.”
“What are you talking about?”
Sloan took a moment to refill their champagne glasses. “I think you’re going to need a drink,” she told him sagely.
He accepted his glass from her fingers, his green gaze wary upon her face. “I have my drink.”
“Well...” Sloan took a sip of her own champagne. “I told you I had been to the doctor...or did I? I’m not sure. By my own choice, not his—he says I’m as healthy as ever—I’ve decided to curtail the dancing for a while. Tonight was the last performance I’ll be doing with the company until next summer—”
“Sloan,” Wes interrupted, “I approve, I’m glad to hear all this, but why do I need the drink?”
“Because we are going to have five children,” she explained with a guileless smile. Laughing at his stunned confusion, she lightly tapped his cheek. “Twins, Wes. We’re having twins.”
“Twins.” He repeated the word.
“Twins.” She agreed.
“Wow,” he said blankly.
“Aren’t you happy?”
The slight edge of nervousness in her voice spurred him out of his shock. Oblivious to any other patrons in the restaurant, he inched around the booth and enveloped her into his embrace, claiming her lips fully with both tenderness and passion, love and desire. Sloan had no objection. Her lips parted beneath his as they always would, savoring his love afresh each time.
At long last he broke away. He lifted a champagne glass to be shared between them. “To our twins,” he murmured, his eyes caressing her with his love, “to our family of five,” he continued, his voice lowering to the husky sound of velvet she would always thrill to, “but most of all, my darling, to you. A dream of a lifetime come true.”
Wes started to sip the champagne, but Sloan held him back. “Wait a minute,” she murmured, lashes lowering as she lifted the glass to him. “To you, Wes.” Her eyes raised back to his. “To knights in white armor who do come along!”
“To us!” Drawing her into the firm shelter of his arm, he was finally able to sip his champagne.
A Biography of Heather Graham
Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country’s most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.
Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.
After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel, When Next We Love (1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.
In 1989 Graham published Sweet Savage Eden, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in Runaway (1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.
In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as Tall, Dark, and Deadly (1999), Long, Lean, and Lethal (2000), and Dying to Have Her (2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003’s Haunted she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.
Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.
Graham (left) with her sister.
Graham with her family in New Orleans. Pictured left to right: Dennis Pozzessere; Zhenia Yeretskaya Pozzessere; Derek, Shayne, and Chynna Pozzessere; Heather Graham; Jason and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere; and Jeremy Gonzalez.
Graham at a photo shoot in Key West for the promotion of the Flynn Brothers trilogy.
Graham at the haunted Myrtles plantation, Francisville, Louisiana.
Graham and the Slushpile Band playing the Memnoch the Devil Ball at the Undead Con in New Orleans, 2010.
Graham with dear friend, actor Doug Jones.
Graham (third from left) with F. Paul Wilson, R. L. Stine, Jon Land, and other friends at the seventh annual ThrillerFest, held in New York City, 2011. The authors participated in the “Be Book Smart” campaign organized by Reading Is Fundamental, the nation’s oldest and largest children’s literacy organization.
Graham (seated center) with her local Romance Writers of America group in Broward County, Florida, 2011.
Graham (second from left) with fellow authors Stephen Jay Schwartz, F. Paul Wilson, and Barry Eisler participating in a panel at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, Los Angeles, 2011.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1983 by Heather E. Graham
cover design by Connie Gabbert
978-1-4804-0829-6
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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New York, NY 10014
EBOOKS BY HEATHER GRAHAM
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Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
A Biography of Heather Graham