Quiet Walks the Tiger - By Heather Graham Page 0,9
Fife but still barely allowed her to make ends meet. “Yes, Cassie,” Sloan repeated. “I think I like Wes very much now. I’m looking forward to our dinner.”
“Sloan! I’m so glad! It’s obvious that he still has some kind of a thing for you...”
Cassie went on talking, but Sloan heard little of what she had to say. Somehow, she made all the right responses.
“...fate and a little time...”
“Pardon?” Sloan inquired. Her mind had wandered a little too far.
Cassie sighed. “I said, ‘who knows? With fate and a little time...?’”
“Yeah,” Sloan murmured. “I’d better get going, Cass. I have to go see what the little darlings are up to.”
“Go!” Cassie chuckled. “I am so glad that you like him! Oh, well! Bye!”
“Bye...” Sloan murmured faintly. She pulled the receiver slowly from her ear and sank into a chair, feeling light-headed. She did not replace the phone correctly, and a dull hum sounded to her ears.
Fate and time. She intended to give both more than a little push.
“God, I hope that I do like him!” she whispered fervently to herself. She rose, a puppet again, and very meticulously adjusted the phone, cutting off the hum. Her plan took substance, and she spoke it aloud.
“I’m going to marry him.”
Her voice was light, toneless, but the grim edge of determination rang clearly through.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE HADN’T ACTUALLY DONE anything, but with her plan set in her mind, she felt the first pangs of guilt.
Rationalizing was in order. She put the baby and Laura down for their naps, supplied Jamie with pails and shovels for his sandbox, and moved into the back of the house, her studio.
The studio had been the one extravagant concession she had allowed herself to retain her art. The floor was an expensive wood to save wear on her feet and knees. A heavy metal exercise bar stretched the length of the left side, backed by a study mirror which covered the height and breadth of the wall. The right side of the room held huge bay windows which opened on the lawn, allowing her to work while watching the children at play. To the rear lay her stereo system, a good, complex one purchased when Terry had sold an elaborate set of landscapes.
When teaching, Sloan covered dance from classic form to aerobics. But to her the base for all dance was ballet, and when she engaged in her rigid workouts, it was to ballet exercises that she turned. Between stretches, pliés, and relevés, she came to terms with herself.
She planned to marry a stranger, a man she didn’t love. It wasn’t because she craved riches for herself, but because she would be able to provide a decent life for herself and her children.
And she swore she would never hurt Wesley Adams. She would never love again, she was sure, but Wesley would never know it. She would be everything he could possibly desire in a wife.
Her mind began to race with turmoil. How could she even think about doing a thing as despicable as marrying a man for his money? Marriage meant living with a man, sharing his life, sleeping in his bed...A sick feeling stabbed her stomach. She changed the Bach on the stereo to a modern piece by a hard rock group and whirled about the room in a series of furious pirouettes and entrechats, hoping to exhaust her mind through strenuous dance. Sweat beaded on her brow, but it was as much from her thoughts as from her leaping jetés.
For a mother of three, she was painfully naive. Most of her friends had had one or two serious affairs before settling into marriage. Several were divorced and involved in new affairs, one after the other.
But for her, there had been only Terry. They had met when both were eighteen, married while still in school before either was twenty. It was all planned. A little over three years later they had their first child, Jamie. And in her years of marriage she had learned what intimacy between a man and woman truly meant. It meant giving oneself completely, trusting, opening up to vulnerability, accepting and loving—a part of a total commitment.
How could anyone even contemplate such a thing with a stranger?
She fell to the floor in a perfect split and stretched her nose to her knee. Don’t be absurd! she snapped silently to herself. Sex was just a normal body function. Plenty of women she knew could easily sleep with any attractive male body. She closed her eyes, pushing