The Ties That Bind

during the past year. Slowly but surely during the past few months he had been coming to terms with some of the dissatisfaction and restlessness he had been feeling for a long time. He still hadn't reached all the conclusions but he knew that deep within himself he was getting ready to alter his life.
    The only problem had been that, although he sensed he needed to make a change, there had been no clear alternatives. He had been running Sherilectronics on automatic pilot for a while and he knew it. That knowledge had been one of the reasons he'd decided to go after the Carstairs bid with such relentless effort. It was as if he had to prove to himself that he wasn't really relaxing his grip on his company or his way of life. He could still compete with the best of the Silicon jungle predators and he could still win. Getting the Carstairs contract would prove it.
    The trouble was, Garth wasn't certain what he would do after he had won the contract.

* * *
    SHE COULDN'T SLEEP. Shannon tossed and turned on her bed and tried to will herself into unconsciousness. The harder she worked at it, the more elusive sleep became. She caught herself trying to listen for sounds from the next room, but there were none. Apparently Garth wasn't having the same problem she was. For some reason that irritated her.
    Everything annoyed her tonight. She was feeling frustrated, angry and apprehensive. The last thing she had expected was Garth showing up on her doorstep suggesting marriage. It seemed to have sent her into a tailspin.
    Giving up on trying to get to sleep, Shannon kicked aside the covers and slid her feet into a pair of slippers. Dressed in only her soft flannel nightgown, she went to the door of her room and opened it. There was no sound in the hall and no sign of light under Garth's door. She slipped out of her room and started silently toward the kitchen. A medicinal shot of Garth's whiskey might be what she needed.
    The whiskey bottle clinked slightly against the glass as she poured, but there was no sound from the hall, so Shannon decided Garth hadn't been awakened. Picking up the glass, she went into the living room and sat down to sip the potent whiskey. She curled her feet under her and thought about how out of control her life seemed tonight. It had been a long time since she had felt this off balance, and it was all Garth's fault. Perhaps it all would have worked if only he'd been the brooding poet her imagination had insisted he was. Morosely Shannon contemplated the cruel workings of fate and her own impulsiveness. She wasn't sure which was more depressing.
    Sometime later she realized the whiskey wasn't lulling her to sleep. Instead it seemed to have set her mind into a chaotic spin. She found herself silently asking questions for which there were no answers. But above the morass of uncertainties, two things seemed suddenly clear. She would not be able to throw Garth out of her life, and she would not marry a man who saw marriage merely as a way of protecting her and himself. The only answer was to continue the weekend affair.
    "Mind if I join you?"
    Shannon turned her head at the sound of Garth's voice and saw him standing in the shadows. He was barefoot, wearing only the pants he'd had on earlier. His bare shoulders gleamed briefly in the vague light as he went into the kitchen and collected the whiskey bottle and a glass.
    "Did I wake you?" Shannon asked uncertainly as he sat down across from her and poured himself a shot.
    "No. I haven't been to sleep. Did you decide to come out here and get drunk by yourself?"
    "I've heard it's an effective therapy under certain circumstances," she muttered.
    "I tried it Sunday night in San Jose after you made it clear you weren't going to answer your phone. It didn't work very well. The effect is quite temporary." Garth put his feet up on the old leather hassock and took a swallow.
    "You got drunk Sunday night because of me?" She couldn't imagine Garth that out of control.
    "The memory is vague now, but as I recall I just quietly went unconscious. I took a lot of aspirin the next morning."
    "At what point did you decide to ask me to marry you?" she couldn't resist asking. "Sunday night or Monday morning?"
    "I'm not going to answer that," he informed her. "It's a loaded question."
    They sat sipping from their glasses in silence for a long time after that. Neither tried to force a conversation. For some reason the whiskey and the darkness made it easy to stay curled up in her