Quiet Walks the Tiger Read Free Page B

for romance!”
    “Hush!” Cassie narrowed her brows, ran a hand over her smooth blond hair, and threw open the front door. “Wes!” she exclaimed happily in greeting. “I’m so glad you could make it!”
    Wesley Adams returned her greeting with a warm smile and a friendly kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for inviting me, Cassie.” He turned sea-green eyes to Sloan. “Sloan. How are you?”
    “Good, thank you, Wesley.” She accepted the hand he offered her and shook it briefly. “Come in. Sit down. Cassie” —she smiled pointedly to her sister—“will be happy to get you a drink.”
    Cassie shot Sloan a quick, murderous glare behind their visitor’s back. “What can I get you, Wes?” she inquired extra sweetly, attempting to atone for Sloan’s ill-concealed lack of hospitality. Her grin became impish. “You and Sloan can have a seat, and I’ll play cocktail waitress.”
    “Terrific, thank you,” Wesley said smoothly. “I’d love a bourbon, if it’s in the house supply.”
    “Certainly,” Cassie murmured. “Sloan—a scotch?”
    “A double—please.” Sloan returned her sister’s grin through clenched teeth as she politely took a seat beside Wesley Adams. He was still, she noted apathetically, a strikingly handsome man, probably more so with age. His shock of wavy hair, so dark as to be almost jet black, created an air of intrigue as it dipped rakishly in a natural wave over a brow. Faint lines etched his probing, intuitive eyes, lines which increased when he smiled with full lips. His face was bronzed and rugged; despite his navy suit and crisply pressed powder-blue shirt, he carried the definite air of an outdoorsman, an air which fit in well with his broad, powerful-looking shoulders and imposing height.
    “I was very sorry to hear about your husband, Sloan,” he said softly, sincere compassion in the sea-green eyes that met hers easily.
    “Thank you.” His unpatronizing sympathy touched a chord in her heart she had thought long since dead.
    “I’m sorry again. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
    “No, no, it’s all right.” She grudgingly gave him a faint smile. “Terry has been dead for two years. I assure you, I don’t become hysterical at the mention of his name.”
    “You’ve changed,” he remarked oddly.
    “Have I?” Her smile became ironic. “I didn’t realize you had known me well enough to judge such a thing.”
    The friendly smile he had been wearing remained glued to his face, but Sloan saw his facial muscles tighten as the warm spark in his eyes went cold. She winced imperceptibly at her own behavior. There was no need for her to be so uncivil.
    Wesley Adams shrugged as he withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his vest pocket. He lit a cigarette, returned the pack to his pocket, and exhaled a long plume of smoke. His eyes were still on her, speculative and cold. Absurdly, she shuddered. Low-keyed and polite as he was, she had the strange feeling he could be dangerous if crossed.
    “I didn’t know you very well,” he said casually, “but I do know that you never used to be out-and-out rude.”
    Sloan straightened as if she had been slapped. Of all the nerve! What a comment to make in her house! She drew breath for a caustic reply but snapped her mouth shut as Cassie gracefully sailed in from the kitchen with a tray of drinks.
    “Wes,” Cassie said as she placed the tray on the mahogany coffee table. “That’s your bourbon on the left. Sloan, scotch in the middle.”
    Sloan fell silent as Wes and Cassie began to converse with a pleasant camaraderie. Moments later, George put in his appearance, and after kissing his wife and sister-in-law, he accepted the Wild Turkey and soda his wife had precipitously prepared and assured her the boys were safe in bed and his mother happily ensconced before the television set enjoying an oldie about a monster that was threatening to eat New York. He, too, readily joined in the light banter, and the talk turned to football.