“I heard a child’s voice,” she reminded him with defensive anger.
“How encouraging. You’re going to make a wonderful mother.”
She looked down at her hands again. “Sloan, I want you to realize, you are not obligated in any way,” she told him, still looking at her hands and not meeting his eyes. “I don’t blame you for anything?—”
“Blame me?” he queried, a brow arched very high. “Since you didn’t speak a word of truth the night we met, you most assuredly should not.”
Sabrina gritted her teeth, fighting the rise of her temper.
“You’re not obligated to me!”
“But you are obligated to me,” he told her very softly. “I know that you need sleep, and I intend for you to have it, after you’ve listened to what I have to say. You won’t be having my child without me, despite the fact that your journey here implies that you meant to disappear.”
“That’s not true—” she gasped. Was that what he believed?
“Nor, Sabrina, will I allow you to endanger your own life in any attempts to rid yourself of an infant with Sioux blood.”
She gasped, staring at him at last with incredulous anger. “I—I never suggested such a thing, you—bastard!” she breathed.
“In the white man’s eyes, that is probably exactly what I am, no matter my grandfather’s standing in the States. No matter, Sabrina, you may marry a bastard, but you’ll not have one.”
She broke off. She was shaking, completely unnerved by not just his appearance here, but the fact that…
He knew! Oh god, he knew. And she couldn’t deny what was happening to her, the life taking root inside of her, any longer.
She probably had wished at first that she might lose the child, and she was afraid of the fact that Sloan was Sioux. She had wished that until she had so nearly died herself, and then the life inside her had become everything. Yet she remained unnerved not just by what Sloan was, but who he was, the man who he was with the power both to infuriate her…and seduce her.
“Sloan, you don’t have to marry me. I—I don’t want to marry you.”
“You intend to hand over the child to me?”
One look in the dark mahogany of his eyes, and she knew that he was in deadly earnest.
“No! You—can’t take my child.”
“My child.”
She moistened her lips, thinking that she might try a new tactic. “You—you don’t know that. You can’t possibly?—”
“Indeed, I know.”
The heat in his words silenced her. He turned away, walking back to the door. Leaning against it, he slid down the length of it to take a seat upon the floor. He lowered his plumed slouch hat over his eyes.
“Sloan, what are you doing?” she asked frantically. “Please go away! I—won’t marry you. I won’t.”
He lifted the brim of his hat, watching her. “You won’t marry me? Or you won’t marry a savage?” he asked her quietly.
“I—” she began and broke off. For her brother-in-law was a very unusual man, and he was married to her sister. She couldn’t help how she felt toward the Indians in the West. She couldn’t help the fear at the pit of her stomach. Sloan was one of them. Despite his charm, there was underlying fire with him. His exceptional good looks were…
Savage good looks. Good looks that seduced any number of women. He would always have a life she could never touch. He was amused by her, entertained by her. Frequently, she angered him. And he had wanted her…
But he would never love her.
“I—can’t—” she began.
“Finish what you’re trying to say.”
“I—can’t?—”