Broken Silence by Maggie Shayne & Eileen Wilks & Ann Marie Winstom

Author:Maggie Shayne & Eileen Wilks & Ann Marie Winstom [Maggie Shayne, Eileen Wilks, Anne Marie Winston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Genetics; Experimental, Genetic engineering, Contemporary, General, Romance, Adult, Fiction, Texas, Love stories
ISBN: 9780373218110
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2003-03-19T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 6

For the next five days, Aiden kept his promises— those he'd given or implied, and one Noelle hadn't asked him for. The one about not touching her except when they were in public.

He came over after school and helped her dig, weed and compost two of the front beds. He took her to the Italian restaurant, a popular Chinese place and the movies. Saturday afternoon they went to a busy nursery, where she bought sacks of mulch and two flats of annuals for the beds they'd prepared. In public he was cheerful, attentive, touching her now and then in the casually proprietary way of a lover—and they were always in public. On display.

When he wasn't asking her questions about Greg,they talked of all sorts of things. Gardening. Foreign affairs and foreign countries, many of which he'd visited, though he said nothing about his reasons for being in those places.

They spoke carefully about Georgia Ann and a few others he'd known in Greenlaurel twelve years ago—carefully, because that was mined territory. The questions she didn't ask pressed on her, but Noelle wasn't ready to risk explosions, not yet. They talked about the World Bank Heist and cats, the kids she taught and the annoying and strangely similar thought processes of administrators—those in high schools, and those in what he called The Company.

He said very little about what he'd done over the past twelve years, and even less about his plans for the future. And she didn't ask. Every night when he brought her home, he said good-night. And that was all he did.

Noelle knew she should be grateful for that. But it had been a long time since she'd been touched the way a man touches a woman he desires. It had been even longer, she gradually realized, since she'd wanted to be touched. Like a foot that has fallen asleep, part of her was coming back to life. She was all pins and needles, wobbling between numbness and sensation. And it hurt.

On Saturday they'd played tennis. At least, they started to. It took only a few serves for Noelle to realize that Aiden had never held a tennis racket in his life. She'd stalked up to the net and demanded to know why he'd lied.

"I didn't," he said mildly. "I asked if you still liked to play tennis. You said you did, and I suggested we try the courts at the country club, since I bought a membership. Very public."

The local country club wasn't terribly expensive or exclusive, but buying a membership there sounded very permanent. And not much like Aiden. When had he done that? Why?

But she never could bring herself to ask the important questions. "I still don't see why didn't you tell me you'd never played before."

He grinned. "Well, it was bound to be blindingly obvious." His amusement faded quickly, though. "There's more to lying than words, Noelle. A successful lie is lived, not just spoken. I know too much about that. I've done it over and over and I'm sick of lies.

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