The Officer and the Traveler by Rose Gordon Read Free Book Online

wants to. He will anyway.”  
    “ You’d better watch it, Captain, the future of your very life depends upon these answers,” General Ridgely said in a tone harder than granite.  
    “ Their bruises came from an altercation that took place between the two of them before they even left,” Colonel Lewis said matter-of-factly. “I was there, and so were Wes and Allison. You can send Sarah next door to ask them to join us, if you’d like to hear them say it.”  
    “ No, I have no desire to discuss why these two got into a round of fisticuffs. We have a far more important matter to discuss—the rape of Soft Dove.”  
    “ She wasn’t raped,” Gray bit off, crossing his arms.  
    General Ridgely’s dark eyebrow rose. “Oh, and how do you know that?”
    “ She’s pregnant.”  
    All eyes in the room shot to the young girl’s barely covered form—more specifically narrowing in on her flat, almost concave stomach.
    “ I don’t mean to do your father’s job, boy, but when a woman is expecting a babe, her stomach grows out, not in,” General Ridgely said gruffly with a tinge of sarcasm.  
    “ I know that,” Gray said with a sneer. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves. “I’m telling you, she’s pregnant.”  
    General Ridgely’s nostrils flared. “And you know this because she told you?”
    “ No.” Gray released another breath. “I’ve never spoken to her. I just know.”  
    “ Just like I just know who did this,” General Ridgely said.  
    “ No, you don’t. You just think you do, but I’m telling you—” he met Ridgely’s gaze straight on— “it wasn’t me.”  
    “ No?” General Ridgely asked.  
    “ No.” Gray confirmed. “You have no proof that I did it.”  
    “ And you have no proof she’s pregnant.”  
    Gray stood quiet. He could try to explain it, but they’d never believe it. At least not without him divulging details. Details he had no interest in telling anyone. Ever. “You’re right, I have no proof as to the state of her body and if she’s carrying a child or not, but I do have to wonder why she’d wait almost a full week to come forward.”
    General Ridgely shrugged. “Perhaps she was scared.”
    “ Yes, of her father that he might kill her when he realized she’d conceived a bastard,” Gray muttered.  
    “ That’ll be enough of that, young man,” General Ridgely snapped. “You have no proof that she’s carrying—”  
    “ And you have no proof that it was me who accosted her,” Gray fired back.  
    “ Perhaps not. But I know your character well enough and that’s all I need,” General Ridgely countered. A superior expression came over his face. “Why just today I witnessed you forcing yourself on—”  
    “ His intended?” General Davis interjected smoothly, stealing the very air from Gray’s lungs and keeping him from voicing the denial he longed to speak.  
    “ Intended?” General Ridgely asked, a dubious expression on his face.  
    Nodding, General Davis pursed his lips and said, “Amos, I had hoped to talk to you before now to introduce you to my daughter Michaela, Captain Montgomery’s intended. But, as you saw, she was...uh...otherwise engaged.”
    The color rose in General Ridgely’s face as he looked back and forth between Gray and General Davis.
    “ You’re allowing your daughter to marry him ?” General Ridgely asked at last.  
    “ And why else did you think I would come to this fort so forsaken it’s not even on a map?” General Davis asked. “As it would happen, I have come to see my daughter and new son-in-law united in a wedding that would outshine the grandest in any of the big cities. Since my other daughter deprived me of that by sneaking off early to marry his friend she hardly knew.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t going to allow that to happen again.”  
    Gray nearly choked on his own tongue. That was the last thing the man had come for and they all knew it. There was no use in lying