The Sunstone Brooch : Time Travel Romance Katherine Logan (no david read aloud TXT) 📖

bear, meaner than a mad dog, and usually spewing cuss words like a sailor on stormy seas.

Austin was the incarnation of his sports nickname—the Dragon. His height, broad shoulders, muscular arms, and hands the size of a small state would scare sensible people shitless. But men with something to prove would give him what he wanted—trouble, big trouble. Before the accident, Austin had been a marshmallow off the court, but now his attitude screamed, “Try me.”

“Look at him,” Tavis said.

“Yeah. His attitude sucks. We’re in the Wild West. Somebody might just push him hard enough, and he’ll get himself killed.” Remy scratched his chin, and his nose twitched as if nerve endings were collecting sensory information like cat’s whiskers. “We could all be pushed further than we want to be, overreact, make a mistake, and end up dead.” Remy was quiet for a minute. “If I get shot, can you go back in time before that happened and stop it?”

“I asked that question once. I didn’t get a straight answer. But I believe if something happens while we’re out of our time we can’t undo it. It is what it is. If you get shot—”

“That’s not true. Kenzie changed her grandfather’s history.”

“That’s different.” Tavis thought back through the clan’s history to find an example. “Here’s what I mean. If Kenzie had died on Omaha Beach, David couldn’t have rewound the clock and gone back for her at a different time. Dead is dead.”

“Fuck.” Remy thought a minute. “Nope. That isn’t right. Remember what happened to Jack? He died, and Charlotte and David went back to a time before the Union could hang him and kept it from happening.”

“I guess dead isn’t dead,” Tavis said. “But Jack might be the exception. So let’s don’t test the theory, okay. We’re trained soldiers, sailors, and Marines. We know what we’re doing.”

Remy pointed his thumb over this shoulder. “He doan know what he’s doing, and if ya ask me, bringing him was a shitty idea. He’s been doing nothing but complaining. He might push me to do something I’ll regret.”

“What? Cut out his tongue?”

“Doan tempt me.”

“You know he’s doing it on purpose. If he makes us miserable enough, we might give in and take him home. Just ignore him.”

“I wish I could.”

Austin lifted his hat. “You two just going to stand there and whisper about me, or are you going to figure out where the hell we are? I’m done with this. Take me home. I’ve got work to do.”

“We’re not going home, you son of a bitch. Stop complaining,” Remy snapped. “We’ll go home after we find JC.”

Austin dropped his hat over his face and crossed his arms and ankles.

Tavis had been having prickling sensations ever since he arrived, and he wasn’t sure what they meant. There was a disturbance in the unfolding of time. He felt it every time he traveled, but this was different.

He also sensed Erik was here. If so, that meant he was watching over Ensley and JC. They’d still have trouble, but nothing they couldn’t handle. If their lives were in danger, Erik would step in, but sometimes the Viking waited too long. At least in terms of Tavis’s definition of “lives in danger.”

“I’m going down alone,” Tavis said. “If the three of us ride up unexpectedly, unannounced and uninvited, there’ll be trouble. I’ll signal if JC’s there. If not, I’ll come back to get you, and we’ll reevaluate.”

“Does that mean we can go home?” Austin asked, this time not even raising his hat.

“Hell, no. We’re here to find JC, and we woan leave till we do.” Then Remy said to Tavis, “I’ll give you fifteen minutes. If you doan signal for us to come down, we’re coming after ya.”

“Okay. Fifteen. But don’t start counting until I cross the river.” Tavis put the map and compass away and remounted his horse. “Don’t beat the shit out of Austin while I’m gone.”

“I’ll try not to,” Remy said.

Tavis rode down off the butte, crossed the river, and trotted toward the ranch. He checked the time. It was almost noon. There was a chance they’d be back at the Colorado ranch by supper. But if that was the way it was supposed to work out, why bother to kidnap Austin?

Because this isn’t going to be easy, and we won’t be going right back. The shit’s going to hit the fan. I feel it in my bones.

Tavis followed the smoke and arrived at a ranch house built about thirty yards from the cottonwood-lined riverbank. The cabin looked substantial enough, with two chairs on the porch, gently rocking in the breeze. He rode slowly into the yard and stopped a few feet from the porch.

“Hello. Anybody here? I’m not looking for trouble. I’m searching for James Cullen Fraser. Have you seen him?”

Nothing happened for a minute, then another, and another. Tavis was about to ride around to the back of the cabin when the door creaked open, and a woman came out, holding a rifle like she knew how to use it.

“Why you lookin’ for him?”

“He’s my cousin. I heard he might ride out here to do some hunting with Teddy Roosevelt. Is he around?”

She shook her head. “Rode off a week ago.”

“Do you know where he was going?”

“Kentucky.”

“Lexington, I guess,” Tavis said. “Was he traveling by himself?”

The woman shook her head again. “Had his wife with him.”

Tavis’s gut reacted before his mind did. But then it made sense. JC must have found Ensley and used a fake marriage to protect her.

Tavis took off his hat and slapped his leg, grinning. “Hot dang. Guess he finally convinced Miss Ensley to marry him.”

Tavis’s informality relaxed the woman, and she lowered the rifle. “Miss Ensley didn’t go with him.”

That didn’t sound like JC. Something else was at work here. Tavis worked up a laugh he didn’t feel, so the woman would keep feeding him information. “Aw shucks, ma’am. Are ya telling me they broke up already?”

“Oh, no.” The woman smiled. “You could tell they’re mighty