Quiet Walks the Tiger Read Free Page A

from public view.” Cassie gave Sloan a wistful smile as she curled a strand of blond hair around her fingers. “I was secretly in love with him for years! And he asked you out! I think it was the one time in my life I absolutely hated you!”
    Sloan frowned again. “I went out with Wes Adams?”
    Cassie groaned with exasperation and threw her hands in the air. “She doesn’t even remember! Yes, you went out with Wes Adams. He had just finished at Penn State, and you were eighteen, about to leave for Boston and your first year as a Fine Arts major. It was the summer before you met Terry. I set up the date—by accident, I assure you!”
    Sloan laughed along with her sister. Cassie could easily talk about her memories; she was married to one of the most marvelous men in the world. George Harrington loved his wife and extended that love to encompass his sister-in-law. It was George who insisted he care for his own two boys on Friday nights so that Cassie could allow Sloan her evening out.
    “I remember him now,” Sloan said, wrinkling her nose slightly. “He reminded me of Clark Kent. Beautiful body, face enough to kill. But quiet! And studious! Our date was a disaster.”
    “Hmmph!” Cassie sniffed. “He was simply bright as all hell. And you, young lady, your head was permanently twisted in the clouds. You didn’t like anyone who wasn’t a Fine Arts major!”
    Sloan quirked her brows indifferently. “Maybe. I was eleven years younger then than I am now. We all change.” She rubbed sore feet. “Brother! I feel like my soles are toe-to-heel blisters. I must have been spinning half the day!”
    “You’re losing your appreciation for your art,” Cassie warned with teasing consolation. “I seem to remember a comment you made once as a kid that you ‘could dance forever and forever, into eternity!’”
    “There’s a slim chance that I did make such a comment,” Sloan admitted dryly. “But if so, I must have been a good twenty years younger than I am now—and twenty times as idealistic!”
    The ringing of the doorbell interrupted their idle chatter. “Gee...George already,” Sloan mused.
    “No...” Cassie was blushing and flustered. “I forgot to tell you...well, actually, you changed the subject before I got a chance.” She was talking hurriedly as the bell continued to chime. “It’s Wes Adams. I told you I saw him today and he asked me about you and I told him and...” She raised her hands helplessly. “I asked him over.”
    Sloan’s mouth dropped with dismay. “To my house?”
    “Don’t be angry!” Cassie begged in a whisper. “He and George are old friends too. I thought we could all chat awhile. In fact, I even broke down and asked my mother-in-law to break up her beauty sleep and go watch the boys so that George and I could both stay out. And you know how the old battle-axe needs that beauty rest!”
    “Cassie!” Sloan wailed.
    “Oh, Sloan! What do you want me to do? I know that that’s Wes at the door.” Cassie bit her lip as she watched her sister. “Damn it, Sloan! Give the man a chance. He’s a better prospect than anyone else around here. This is a small town. And”—she grinned mischievously as she rounded the kitchen corner to answer the clanging of the bell—“he’s absolutely loaded! He moved to Kentucky when he retired and bought a Thoroughbred farm. He breeds racehorses.”
    “Terrific!” Sloan mumbled as she trailed after her sister. “He was dull to begin with, and now he’s a farmer in Kentucky.”
    “He’s not a farmer, he—”
    “I know, I know. He raises Thoroughbreds. It’s all the same to me.”
    “Put your shoes back on!” Cassie hissed.
    Sloan grimaced painfully and slipped back into her heels after diving beneath the chair to retrieve them. “Only for you, sister dearest!” she teased. “But give up on your matchmaking,” she added in a low and serious tone. “I’m a twenty-nine-year-old widow with three children. I am too far-gone