Quiet Walks the Tiger - By Heather Graham Page 0,3

around her.

But remained absolutely untouched inside. Jim was the only person she saw steadily, and that was because he was a friend. He never pressured her.

Sometimes she felt as if her heart had frozen solid. She was hard, she was cold, she was cynical. She had to be a dead set realist. There were times when she still hurt too much, but she had to shelve loneliness and pain. Terry was dead. Point-blank. Fact. She had managed a life for herself, a fairly good one. She liked people, she saw people, she looked forward to the future. To a time when she could leave the survival pay of the college and work for a professional dance troupe again. Hire some help...

“What am I worrying about?” she asked herself impatiently as she drove up to her own house. She glanced at the pretty white building with the green trim with pride. She had purchased it herself, a great deal that her brother-in-law had found for her. She had made a good down payment, and now she only had the mortgage and taxes...and damn! A payment was due.

Sighing, Sloan decided to deal with that problem later. She walked briskly to her door and started to use her key, then thought better of the idea. Cassie startled easily. Better to knock than to scare her sister half out of her wits.

“Hi, kid!” Cassie greeted her, opening the door. “How was your night?”

Sloan shrugged as she tossed her purse onto a chair and bent in the doorway to slip off the straps of her heeled sandals and nudge them beneath the same chair. “Nice. The usual. Jim is a dear.” She smiled at her older sister with resignation. “I do enjoy the evening out. Jim may not be exciting—but he is adult companionship!”

“I’ve got a pot of tea on,” Cassie said. “Want some?”

“Naturally.” Sloan laughed, following her pretty, slender sister into the kitchen. The women, only two years apart, were best friends. They shared the same tall, graceful build, but there the similarities of their appearances ended. Cassie had huge, saucer brown eyes and hair so light as to be platinum. At thirty-one, she was still looked at and asked for identification when she ordered a drink.

“Any problems?” Sloan asked as she accepted a mug of tea and curled her legs into a chair at the sunny yellow kitchen table.

“Not a one,” Cassie replied, leaning her elbows on the table. “Jamie and Laura crawled into bed right after their super-hero program. And the baby, well, he’s always an angel. He was sound asleep at seven.”

Sloan warmed her face comfortably with the steam from her cup. “They know better than to mess with their aunt!” She chuckled. “Anything else new?”

Cassie hesitated, and Sloan watched her sister’s beautiful brown eyes, puzzled. “What is it?”

“A man called for you, a Mr. Jordan.”

“And?” Sloan prompted her sister casually, then held her breath as she waited for her answer. Mr. Jordan was with a professional dance company in Philadelphia.

“He said the job was yours,” Cassie told her with troubled eyes. Then Sloan began to understand her hesitance.

“The salary?” she asked, holding her features in composure.

Cassie named a figure, and Sloan’s heart sank. She couldn’t accept the job. She sighed as she realized she would probably be with the college dance department for years to come—she couldn’t afford to quit. Not that she didn’t like her job; she did. It was just that she so dearly longed to dance professionally again!

“Well then,” Sloan said briskly with a forced smile. “That’s that, I guess.”

Cassie looked as if she were about to cry. “If only you hadn’t had so many children!” she exclaimed miserably. Then she hastily added, “Oh, Sloan! I didn’t mean that. I love the kids. But it’s so hard for you alone.”

“Well,” Sloan said wryly, curling her lips a shade so that Cassie would know her words had been understood. “When Terry and I planned the children, we didn’t intend that one of us would be raising them alone.”

Terry had been a dreamer, and she had dreamed right along with him. They seemed perfectly mated, a dancer and an artist. In their first years they had struggled. Then, while Terry had been making his name as a painter, Sloan had gotten a terrific job with an ensemble in Boston. Luck followed the dreamers. When Sloan became pregnant with Jamie, Terry’s oils caught on with the flurry of a storm. They lived happily. Terry was established; Sloan was able to