Tender.
She was exhausted. And despite the trauma she’d suffered earlier in the night, she began to drift.
We’ll hurry home…
Home.
Home to him was still among the Sioux.
She wondered a little bit wistfully if home to him would ever mean her.
She was riding with Sloan the following day when he suddenly turned and told her, “There are good things about the Plains way of life as well, you know.”
Startled, she looked at him.
“Few people make better parents than the Sioux,” he continued, gazing her way. “They are generous to a fault, finding the only good in collecting material possessions to be in the act of giving them away. We cherish the wisdom of our aged and take the greatest care of them.”
“We care for our aging people!” she protested.
He looked at her.
“Most of us do,” she said.
He smiled.
“You said ‘we,’ you know,” she told him. “A cavalry officer who considers himself one with the Sioux.”
He shrugged. “Striped like a zebra. What can I say? I’m telling you this because you seemed so appalled last night. Glad to be rescued—yet almost as horrified by your rescuers as you were by your kidnappers.”
“That’s not true at all,” she protested. “I just—Sloan, I’ve just never seen such bloodshed.”
“I’m afraid there will be a great deal more of it on the plains,” he said matter-of-factly. “Bad things happen.”
“I didn’t say that I’ve never seen bad things happen,” she murmured. “Sometimes I think that I’ve seen the worst. Just not so much…blood.”
He glanced back at her again sharply. “So life in the East was wretched, eh?”
She smiled slowly. “We were talking about the West.”
“But we can talk about the East. How did you and Hawk wind up married? I hadn’t heard a word about it. And suddenly, a bride appears. A stunning beauty, at that, like a princess out of a fairy tale.”
“Hawk hasn’t told you?”
With a devilish grin he leaned toward her. “There were rumors, you know. Tales about a woman arriving claiming to be Lady Douglas yet seeming to have no idea that there was a Lord Douglas, or at least a live one. Now, one could think that you might have been an impoverished beauty, cast upon hard times, seeking whatever fortune the wind might blow her way.”
“I see. You think, too, that I somehow took advantage of Lord David Douglas?”
“Not in the least,” Sloan said, and she was surprised to realize that he was speaking honestly. “David might have been ill, and we might not have realized it. He was a man of great strength. If he chose not to reveal a weakness to others, then no one would know about it. But he was no fool. No young woman, no matter how lovely, could have taken advantage of him.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean to be insulting.”
“I really meant ‘thank you.’ I didn’t take advantage of him, nor did I ever try to.”
“Agreed.”
“Between us.”
