The Officer and the Traveler Read Online Free PDF Page A

stared at him. For whatever reason, he’d taken some silly notion into his head that she was scheming against him. She nearly laughed at the absurdity of his suggestion. He would be last on her list of possible husbands, were she to ever come down with a brain fever and make such a list.
    “ Have no fear, Captain Montgomery, I’ve already spoken to my father and there will be no wedding between the two of us.”  
    Gray howled with laughter. “Spoke to him? Michaela, I was recently tied to a tree by a group of yelling savages who had every intention of peeling my scalp from my skull. I think I’d have had better luck convincing them not to harm me than using my words to get your father to change his mind.” He shook his head and scoffed. “I have no plans to marry, but I also don’t want to see you get hurt or forced to marry a man who will treat you wrong because of whatever foolishness your father has taken into his mind.”
    “ You’ve become quite the gentleman, haven’t you, Gray?” she said, her voice a pitch higher than normal. “Don’t worry yourself. That won’t happen. I promise. You go have dinner with the men and tomorrow this will all be behind us.”  
    He pressed his lips together. “So then you and your father will be leaving soon and your scheming will stop?”
    She ignored the part where he accused her of scheming or playing some role in all of this and said, “I expect that we’ll be gone from here shortly, yes. Pa just wants to catch up with Uncle George for a bit and make sure Ella is doing well.”
    Gray narrowed his eyes on her, but didn’t say anything. “And that is your intention, too?”
    “ Well, despite your inflated male pride, I didn’t come up here to visit with you.”  
    He nodded once, very slowly. “Very well. She’s in that room.” He pointed behind her to door on the end. “May you have a safe journey home.”
    Michaela watched the bizarre man walk away for the second time since he’d kissed her today. With the whirlwind of events that had happened since she’d awakened alone in her father’s hot and stuffy carriage only to emerge and see a man climbing out his window, she was in desperate need of a respite that only seeing Ella would bring.
    Hesitantly, she went to Ella’s door and gave a delicate knock, suddenly aware that Ella might not be in a state to accept a visitor.
    The worry was quickly banished from Michaela’s mind when the door swung open to reveal a very excited, if not somewhat out-of-sorts Ella.
    “ Oh how I’ve missed you,” Ella said, wrapping Michaela in a strong hug.  
    “ I’ve missed you, too,” Michaela confided, squeezing her sister back in equal measures—and then a little more.  
    “ Is something wrong?” Ella choked, trying to free herself.  
    “ I imagine she finds a great deal wrong after being accosted that way by Gray,” a man, who Michaela presumed to be Ella’s husband Jack, said from somewhere behind Ella.  
    Ella giggled. “Michaela, I’d like you to meet Jack. Jack, this is my sister, Michaela.”
    Michaela forced a smile as she greeted her newest brother-in-law. Michaela hadn’t been so sure about him when Ella had begun writing letters to him, but seeing the way he looked at her sister, with adoration for his wife shining in his dark brown eyes, Michaela was certain this black-haired man was a good match for her sister.
    The sound of Ella clearing her throat brought Michaela back to present. “Sorry,” she murmured, blushing.
    “ It’s all right,” Jack said with a grin. “I couldn’t imagine what must be running through your head as you recover the travesty of being kissed by Gray.”  
    “ Would you stop?” Ella chastised him.  
    Jack threw his hands into the air. “I’m just trying to be sympathetic as she has to begin navigating the rest of her life after such a distressing experience.”
    “ His unwanted kiss was only the beginning,” Michaela said, forcing a wobbly smile.