“You said that I only need ask?—”
“That was the wrong question.”
“Sloan! You don’t have to?—”
“I don’t have to what?” He reached out, lifting her chin to study her eyes.
She shook her head. “You don’t have to be responsible.”
“How do you ask someone not to be responsible for a life?” he demanded.
“Sloan, I don’t need your help?—”
“I’m not offering my help.”
“No? I do need a drink!” Sabrina insisted.
“No,” he said firmly.
“I’ll not be told what to do?—”
“You need to be told what to do. You think you’re a cat with nine lives, but you’ve used up several that I know about already.”
“Damn you, Sloan, will you please leave?”
“No.”
“Then truly, I need a drink. Just a small brandy. Some doctors suggest that a small amount is actually good for women—women in the family way.”
She reached for the snifter. He took it smoothly from her fingers. His eyes moved over her in a way that made her entire body seem to burn again. “Not that I didn’t enjoy you when you had imbibed whiskey so heavily, but this doesn’t seem the time…Alas, my dear, you need to learn to be careful with liquor. Too often your goal is to drown yourself in it.”
“How can you be so wretched!”
Sloan’s dark eyes grew very serious. “Drinking isn’t good for expecting women. I’ve heard it from many wisewomen.”
“What women? Sioux women?”
He arched a brow. “Yes,” he said simply.
She looked down quickly at her hands. They were still trembling. This was all so absurd. She and Sloan had met under such awful, hostile circumstances.
And maybe she was just a little bit afraid. Afraid of the night she had been with him, afraid of his strength, afraid of the way he’d made her feel. And truthfully, mostly, she was afraid because he might be US Cavalry, but he was also Sioux, and he was very dangerous, and what he wanted, he would take. What was right, he would demand.
She closed her eyes, casting a hand against her forehead. “I really can’t talk about this right now…”
His laughter infuriated her. She sat up, staring at him. “I shall throw something at you in a minute!” she cried, aggravated.
“You really do a wonderful Southern belle, but I can’t begin to imagine you with the vapors, Sabrina.”
“What vapors! I was cruelly kept a prisoner in a tomb.”
He sobered. “Indeed, you were. You can’t seem to stay out of trouble.”
“I certainly didn’t ask for this trouble?—”
“You did, if I remember your words correctly, go wandering off into a cemetery alone in the dead of night?”
The way he put it, she felt like a fool.