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

He didn’t do that for you.” Austin then glared at Tavis and Remy. “Or maybe he did but didn’t invite me.”

“JC didn’t tell anybody,” she said.

“That must have pissed Elliott off,” Austin said.

“He was avoiding his father because he didn’t want to have to lie to him.”

“About what?” Tavis asked.

After she cut the distance between her and Norman down to only a few yards, she slowed Tesoro to a walk. “JC told me he’d been working on a project and couldn’t tell anyone about it, not even his dad. So JC was avoiding him. He believed his dad would sense something was wrong, and JC would have to lie, and he didn’t want to do that.”

Tavis looked over at Remy. “JC could have had a run-in with our competition.”

“Or heard something,” Remy said.

“Who’s the competition?” Ensley asked.

“An evil force that’s trying to get our brooches,” Austin said.

“I hope it’s not here in the Dakotas,” she said.

“God, that would be shitty,” Austin said.

“If they knew about JC, they could have followed him here. There’s no way to know,” Tavis said.

“This is so fucked up,” Austin said. “There are significant missing parts to this cock-and-bull story. How’d JC know to come here for the damsel in distress?”

That thought made her dizzy, as if her horse tilted eastward, tumbling her into the early weeks of her adventure. She couldn’t deny that she’d been in distress or how close she’d come to dying. And that pissed her off because she’d always been independent and able to take care of herself.

“Here it is. Now pay attention. If that’s possible,” she said in a snarky tone.

Austin’s brows creased in a slight frown. “Talk about my attitude.”

“Austin, read my lips,” she said, pointing to her mouth. “If people around you develop an attitude, it’s because they have to defend against yours.”

Remy burst out laughing, which spooked his horse and caused it to jump sideways, but Remy quickly got both himself and the bay under control. “Damn, that was good. I wish I’d thought of it.”

She snapped her fingers in Austin’s face. “Are you paying attention? I don’t want you to miss this.”

Austin gave her a crooked smile that surprised the hell out of her. “Coaches have always commented on my attention span. When you get back, read the press reports about my focus under pressure.”

She didn’t have to read his press reports. His manuscript had a chapter about how he’d developed his phenomenal ability to focus, tune out all distractions, and get into what he called “the zone,” which was why his free throw stats were record-shattering. She wouldn’t know one player’s stats from another’s. But Austin’s ability to swish free throws in tight games was indicative of his ability to shut everything else out. Everything but the nail on the free-throw line, and then the basket, and to hold his follow-through.

According to another chapter, he tried to use those same skills during rehab but failed. And that led to his dependence on pain medication.

She didn’t care about what he did to try to play again. She wanted to know how he handled the tragedy, made worse because he had no one to blame but himself, and how he moved on with his life. The manuscript ended without that answer.

Was he still dependent on opioids?

“As soon as I get home, I’ll google you. How’s that?”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter, but his eyes said the opposite. Everything mattered to him. She read that between the lines of his manuscript, and she saw it now in his leaf-green eyes as they flickered from one emotion to another.

“Great. You do that,” Austin said. “Now tell us how JC knew you traveled here.”

“I had dinner plans with my cousin, George, and JC came with him. But when they got to the house, the fog had already carried me away. JC found my brooch on the floor and used it to come back for me. I was by myself for several days before he arrived and probably would have died if not for a mysterious man who healed my broken foot.”

“Tell me about the mysterious man,” Tavis said. “What’d he look like?”

“He was an Indigenous Person, but when JC heard my description, he said he sounded like a Viking warrior named Erik.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“The days have all run together, but two, maybe three weeks ago.”

“Fuck! How long have you been here?” Austin asked.

Damn. She tried biting her cheek, then her tongue, and then she rolled in her lower lip. His tone, language, attitude, and whining were exhausting. She stood up in her stirrups so they’d be face to face, and she poked him in the chest with her finger. “In the last fifteen minutes, you’ve used fuck as a verb, adjective, subject, object, noun, gerund, predicate, and even an appositive! I half expect to hear you using it as a comma next! So if you wouldn’t mind, stop cussing and shut the fuck up!”

Remy and Tavis both howled, laughing so hard they almost fell out of their saddles.

Austin huffed. “Fuck isn’t a cuss word. It’s a sentence enhancer. And what the hell are you anyway? Some fucking editor?”

Ensley bit her tongue again. Tavis signaled Remy, who dropped back and pulled up next to Austin.

“Ride with me,” Tavis said to Ensley. He moved his horse into a trot, and she followed while Remy caught Austin’s horse’s bridle.

“What the hell are you doing?” Austin demanded.

“Stop!” Remy said. “You’re acting like a complete jerk.”

She and Tavis quickly moved from a trot to a gallop, and they rode some distance away from Austin and Remy and past Norman.

“Sorry about that.” Tavis slowed his horse again. “This is the first time he’s been out in months, and he’s forgotten how to behave. If his father was here, he’d disown him.”

“Who is his father?” As soon as she asked, she remembered he was an NBA player who got his girlfriend pregnant when they were both in high school, and no one ever