Chapter 1
“Sabrina! Sabrina, you’re not paying the least bit of attention to me. How did this happen? How did you get…”
From the front of the stables, where she brushed down Aurora, one of the young Douglas mares, Sabrina could see the beauty of the Scottish landscape all around her, almost as if they were characters in a fairy-tale world.
Far down the rolling hills, covered with mauve wildflowers, there was a silver mist over the water.
The air was touched by the slightest breeze.
But she wasn’t in a fairy tale. And her sister, arms crossed over her chest, had leaned stubbornly against the stone and wood wall of the stable. She was being incredibly persistent—even if it was taking her several moments to come out with the exact word she wanted.
“Pregnant?” Sabrina suggested softly. There had been a great deal of progress in the world since the end of the Civil War, but among proper society, “pregnant” remained a rather indelicate word.
But Skylar shrugged then, looking at her levelly. “How did you get pregnant? How did this all come about?”
How? What a question; Sabrina thought that her sister definitely knew how.
But of course, Skylar wasn’t just asking about how she’d gotten pregnant, but how she had managed to be in such a situation that a pregnancy could occur.
There was no way out of this conversation. Naturally. Because they were sisters, only two years apart in age, and closer than most through the hard edge of the realities they had lived. Sabrina had managed to avoid the discussion for several days, but now the time had come to talk.
How…indeed?
Everything that had happened seemed incredibly distant—and of course, they were very far from the Dakota Territory where her fateful meeting with Sloan Trelawny had taken place.
As Sabrina worked, industriously brushing the mare she had taken out for endless hours of walking hill and vale that day, she felt as if her heart and mind were equally as far from the Dakota Territory as the events that had happened in the past. The scenery here was exquisite, the silver water of the loch glittering beneath the powder blue of the sunny sky, the hills stretching away in shades of kelly green and mauve.
Not that Scotland had been peaceful; they had come here because it was her brother-in-law Hawk Douglas’s ancestral home, and because his half brother, David, presumed dead for many years, was, in fact, alive.
And in discovering the truth in the strange occurrences here, Sabrina had very nearly been killed herself.
She shivered suddenly, feeling a slight change in the breeze.
The tempest here was over. The day was glorious, the temperature surely warm for November in the Highlands. Nothing could be more peaceful than this moment, with the dew-damp air swirling around them, and the lush colors of the hills dotted with grazing cattle.
Yet it was here, just days ago, that she had followed a cry in the night and found herself drugged, bound, and locked in a mausoleum vault.
And it was in the hours that she lay so, as a helpless prisoner, that she realized how precious and dear life was to her…
And how much she wanted her child to live.
“Sabrina…” Skylar pressed gently. “How?”
“How?” Sabrina repeated.
She’d entered the room and seen him. And she’d thought that she could manage herself, handle the situation, even once she had realized just who and what he had thought that she was.
She had teased, and he had taken. Oh, God, it was horrible, how clearly and completely she could still remember his hands, dark against the ivory of her flesh, feel his force, the fire in his every supple twitch and movement.
She could remember him drawing her into his arms, taking her down, holding her.
She could remember his whisper, his eyes, the feel of his body…
Sabrina knew she owed her older sister some kind of explanation. Skylar was concerned. They had weathered a great deal together, including a most unusual life.
They had survived the Civil War as children, and, like many children of their generation, they had lost their father.
But their father hadn’t died in the war; he had been murdered by the apparently fine and extraordinary man who had quickly managed to take his place—their stepfather, Brad Dillman, who had become Senator Dillman, as time passed.
Skylar had actually seen Dillman cleaning the murder weapon, but she had been a little girl at the time, and no one had believed that her accusations were anything more than a child’s hysteria over the loss of a beloved father.
So they had grown up with Dillman. And they had both kept their peace, living in the elegant Baltimore townhouse, until their mother had died.
Then there had been the night that had changed everything; the night that Skylar and Dillman had started fighting.
And Sabrina had gone after Dillman, and the violence of the fight had escalated…
Until Dillman had fallen.
But he hadn’t died.
Sabrina could still remember that night so clearly!
She could shiver now, remembering how terrified she had been that Senator Brad Dillman would convince a magistrate that Skylar had been attempting to murder him.
She had forced Skylar to flee, and then she had waited, tending to Dillman while he pretended to be a cripple.
Then Skylar had wired her the money to escape as well, along with directions to Mayfair, the home of Hawk Douglas, Skylar’s new husband, near the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory. But the stagecoach had brought her to a place called Gold Town.
She hadn’t planned her journey well. Dillman had followed her.
She had been ready to settle down for the night at an inn before continuing on to Mayfair the following morning, but then she had heard Dillman’s voice.
And she’d tiptoed out of her room, unable to believe that it could be him. But it had been, and then…
Then she’d been trapped. She’d moved down the hall from her own room, and she’d heard him coming toward her, spouting his evil plans.
She’d almost been caught. She’d ducked into the first door she’d come upon.
And that was how it had happened.
She’d closed the door and closed her eyes. And when she’d opened them, he had been there. Sloan had been there.
She’d never seen anyone like him—so tall in the flickering firelight, so bronze. Ebony eyes, his face both handsome and harsh…
And Indian.
He’d worn a white shirt, opened almost to the waist, tight breeches, and high riding boots.
His dark hair was long, down to his collar.
His eyes had swept over her in a way that had set her on fire even as the corner of his mouth curled into a wicked smile, and he’d bid her come in.
And she’d done so. She’d had to, but even so…
He’d been compellingly attractive. There was a marked sensual quality about him, drawing her even as the force of his dark mood had warned her away from him.
Staring at him, she realized she had come upon a half-breed, a dangerous man.
He was rough and brusque, totally impatient.
Apparently he had wanted to spend his night in solitude.
Even now, she had to admit, he’d tried to get her to leave. But she couldn’t leave.
Dillman was in the hallway.
She couldn’t leave, and she couldn’t ask for help. Especially not from an angry, half-breed stranger, not against a United States senator.
And he had thought that she was a whore. And he had told her to either get in…
Or get out.
She had tried to rally her charms, accept a drink, keep him at a distance…
And keep from being thrown out into the hallway.
“Sabrina?” Skylar persisted.
Sabrina drew her brush energetically through Aurora’s dark mane. She had to say something.
“Oh, dear God. Did Sloan force you?” Skylar demanded, her voice shaking. “If he’s to blame in such a wretched manner—”
“Skylar, no, I told you! I—I—” She broke off, gritting her teeth together because she wasn’t going to cry. She was strong; life had made her very strong.
Then it had played cruel tricks upon her.
“I wish it had been rape,” she said softly. “Then I could live with myself.” She stared at Skylar, who looked at her with such sympathy that she gave herself a shake. “Your precious friend really wasn’t to blame. No, it was Dillman’s fault!”
“Dillman?”
“He was in the hallway at the inn. I tried to spy on him, and I was nearly caught, and so I slipped into a room. And there was a man in it—”
“Sloan? But he was a stranger then, right?”
“Right,” Sabrina agreed.
“So you slept with a stranger to stay away from Dillman?” Skylar asked huskily.
It did sound absolutely terrible, the way that Skylar said it. And Skylar knew just how lethal Dillman had been.
“Sloan thought that I was a whore, sent over by Lor-alee from the Ten-Penny Saloon. I pretended I was exactly that. I would have done anything to stay away from Dillman.”
“Oh, no. It was my fault,” Skylar said. “I started the argument with Dillman that caused everything.”
“It wasn’t your fault, and that’s why I didn’t ever want you to know. It wasn’t your fault!” Sabrina insisted.
It had been her own fault; she had found Sloan’s room.
And it had been his fault as well. The whiskey he’d given her had been his fault.
The fact that he’d had the discourtesy to be in his room when she’d slipped into it had been his fault.
His taking her for a two-bit saloon whore had been his fault.
Her response to the way he’d touched her had been… her fault.
She had never, ever wanted to tell anyone what had happened between them, except that now it seemed she’d been left with no choice because…
She was expecting a child, and he had clearly stated that it was his child, and since it had been absolutely apparent to everyone that they abhorred one another…
Well, no one could understand the situation.
She gritted her teeth together.