Chapter 10
Sabrina swore at him, reaching for her blanket, but he held it beyond her grasp and tossed it behind him. When she tried to rush past him to retrieve it, he waylaid her with a hand on her arm.
“Let’s see…” he drawled. Then, releasing her, he walked around her. She started to lunge for the blanket, but he drew her back again. “Stand still. Let me make me make my assessment. Sabrina Connor, a spoiled young lady indeed, out from the East—”
“How dare you say that?” she demanded. “You know that I grew up with a murderer—”
“Yes, the man who murdered your father—Senator Brad Dillman. So you hated Dillman, but you had your mother and Skylar—and Dillman was determined to create the perfect family, so naturally you were educated in the proper manner, dressed in the best clothing, pampered—and you traveled in the best social circles, where the young men fawned over you.”
“You don’t know anything about my past—”
“But I do.”
“How could you—”
“You’re not stupid, so you know that you’re beautiful.
And you know how to flirt and charm—and manipulate.
You’ve got courage—I’ll grant you that. It certainly took a will of steel to stand up to Dillman when Skylar fled out here, and to wait for her to send you the funds to follow her.
You definitely have courage. But you are a flirt and a manipulator. ”
“Indeed. One would think you’d be eager to get rid of me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you really want me to get rid of you.”
“Major, your high opinion of yourself is showing.”
Amazingly, she didn’t feel cold anymore. She was hot with anger because she was on display.
He stood, his arms crossed over his chest, continuing to study her, assessing every inch.
She folded her own arms over her chest, staring at him in return.
“There’s nothing new here,” she informed him casually.
He smiled. “Well, you know, the memory isn’t perfect. It’s been some time.”
“May I have the blanket back? Are you through finding fault?”
“There is no fault, is there, Sabrina? Not a fault anywhere on your perfectly formed little body!” He turned away from her with such violent speed that she nearly cried out, but all he was doing was grabbing the blanket and tossing it back to her.
She retreated slightly even as she rewrapped herself in the blanket because two long strides had brought him right back to her, and his hands were on her shoulders.
“You are perfect in every way, perfectly desirable, a wife any man would envy. But it doesn’t mean a damned thing.
No amount of beauty means anything, Sabrina, when there is no heart to go with it. ”
“Why are you doing this, then? Making me keep my vows?” she demanded in a pained whisper.
“I told you. Once, I touched fire. And I don’t believe that you didn’t feel it. And I’m going to find it again.” He paused, grinding his teeth, then shrugged. “Besides, I do find you incredibly—damnably!—desirable. You are beautiful, and it would take a saint not to want you.”
He released her abruptly, turning from her. He hunkered down by the fire, took tin camp cups from his saddlebags, and poured out the coffee.
She stood dead still, shivering and angry.
And more hurt than he might ever have imagined.
He wanted her. No emotion involved. He wanted the girl whom he had thought had been sent to him from the Ten-Penny Saloon.
Oh, God. If only she had not gotten so tipsy and let him take her to bed…
She wouldn’t be caught in this terrible situation. Discovering that she did admire him, that she was compelled by him. Fascinated. And very afraid that if she reached for what was tempting her, she would find herself terribly hurt....
She lowered her head. Maybe she had been just a bit offensive herself, immediately trying to talk him into an annulment. If only…
Oddly enough, she realized both suddenly and painfully, she did want to be with him. But on her terms. With him, at Mayfair. No military, and no Sioux involved. And no tales from other women to make her feel such a strange piercing of jealousy…
“Coffee’s ready,” he said.
Coffee’s ready, just like that. All those things he had said, and then…coffee’s ready.
“No, thank you,” she said smoothly.
Walking away from him, she found her own bedroll. She laid it out on the ground, then lay down to sleep, curled in her blanket, her back to him.
Sloan said nothing more. A tense silence filled the tipi.
Minutes later, she heard him moving about, then stretching out on the other side of the fire.
She was exhausted, but she was too cold to fall asleep. She had settled down too far from the fire.
Still, she didn’t want him to realize that she hadn’t fallen instantly to sleep, so she didn’t want to move. She started to shiver again.
More time passed, and she heard a clicking sound. She realized it was her teeth, chattering. Still, she didn’t move. By that time, she wasn’t quite sure she could have done so if she had tried.
Then she nearly jumped sky-high, because Sloan so suddenly and loudly swore at her. “Damn you, Sabrina, you haven’t the sense of a buffalo!” She felt his strong arms lifting her not at all tenderly. He moved her closer to the fire—and against his warm body.
She realized dimly that when she had heard him moving about earlier, he had been undressing. He was wrapped in a blanket as well, nothing more, and stretched out on his bedroll.
She stared blankly at the tongues of light and shadow cast upon the tipi walls by the flickering firelight.
She felt his arm, wrapped around her waist. And she felt his warmth.
The fire was good, the blanket was comforting, but it was the heat from his body that warmed her through and at last allowed her to sleep.
When she awoke, daylight was filtering into the tipi. The fire was down to embers, but the sun had come up and was shining brightly.
Sloan had kicked his blanket off in his sleep.
Sabrina noticed that hers had fallen to her waist. She quickly drew it up around her chest. She lay very still for a long time, hoping that he wouldn’t move, wondering if she dared leap up and try to dress quickly before he awoke. Yet as she lay there, barely breathing, she found herself…
Studying him.
His back was to her. The color of his flesh was a perfect bronze except in those many places where scars marred his back.
She frowned at the scars, then wondered again at the slight difference in the color of his flesh above and below the waist, and then she realized that in warmer weather, he probably rode without a shirt some of the time.
Did he do so with the cavalry—or the Sioux?
He was really quite incredibly…well-formed, she decided. His shoulders were very broad, handsomely muscled. His back then narrowed to the lean line of his waist, while beneath that…
His buttocks were tightly muscled as well. As were his thighs.
She dragged her eyes upward, to the back of his head. His hair was dark, thick, and glossy…she was tempted to touch it, feel its texture.
Her eyes slipped downward again.
And as they did so...
He suddenly rolled over, facing her, one brow slightly arched, a curious smile curving his lips.
Leaning on an elbow, he observed her gravely in return. Her gaze jerked quickly to his.
“Good morning,” he told her.
She felt a flood of color washing over her, and she drew the blanket closer to her breasts, her lashes fluttering low over her eyes.
“Good morning.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said primly.
His smile deepened.
“But you’ve been awake awhile.”
“Not really. I—”
“Long enough to take your turn and assess me?”
She met his dark gaze, ready to protest. She smiled sweetly instead and informed him, “I’m just trying to see what all the excitement is about.”
“Oh? Well?” he asked and smiled. “Nothing has changed since you saw it before.”
“You’re covered with scars.”
“None of them is new.”
She hesitantly touched one of the thin white lines on his chest. “What’s that from? It looks very old.”
He nodded. “It is. I was a boy. I was told to watch the ponies when I went with a number of older boys to raid a Crow camp—stealing back horses they had stolen from us.”
“And?”
He shrugged. “I wanted honor and glory. I wanted to count coup—touch and mock my enemy, and ride away.”
“But?”
“A big Crow with a big knife touched me when I touched him. Amazing how humbling fear can be.”
“Fighting the Crows taught you to be afraid. So you became a soldier.”
“You should have seen the Crow.”
She was surprised to find herself smiling. “I thought that—I thought that the scars in your chest might have come from a Sioux ceremony I’ve heard about,” she said somewhat hesitantly, shuddering slightly as she continued. “Where they hang a man by skewers through his chest.”
Sloan shook his head. “Ah—the Sun Dance. My father died before I was quite ready to take part in that ceremony, and they didn’t practice it in Georgetown.”
“Georgetown?”
“My White grandfather’s home.”
“Oh,” Sabrina murmured.
She had known that Sloan had lived in the White world, but she was surprised to learn that he had spent part of his youth in the East, and very close to her own home.
“You did tell me once that some of your relatives had a large home in Georgetown, but I didn’t realize that you grew up there.”
“I didn’t exactly grow up there, but I spent time there. As a matter of fact, my grandfather has met you.”
She arched a brow at him, then realized that she had heard the name Trelawny before.
Then she remembered the gentleman and gasped softly.
“Of course—Colonel Trelawny. Colonel Michael Trelawny. An older man, very tall and dignified, but kind. He rescued me once!” she blurted out, staring at Sloan.
“But I’m afraid I’d never have made the association—” she began, then broke off with a wince.
“I know—I haven’t exactly got his coloring,” Sloan mused with a trace of dry humor. “How did he rescue you?”