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

He’d been at the foaling barn most of the morning. Maybe he lost the mare or the foal. No, that would upset him but not devastate him. It surprised her that he even came back to the house so soon. He needed time to regroup before tackling a houseful of people he didn’t know.

It was at moments like this that she worried about his health. He looked on the verge of another stroke. She had to get him out of here now.

She stood when he approached the sofa where she’d been sitting with Kit and her father, Donald McCabe, the one person she and Elliott never thought they’d meet. She kissed Elliott’s cheek. “You’re just in time to meet our wonderful surprise. Kit’s father came from Washington with his granddaughters.”

Elliott smiled, but it was one of his I-don’t-have-time-for-you smiles, and he expected her to bail him out. Although he was gracious enough to extend his arm. “Captain McCabe. I would know ye without an introduction. Ye look exactly like Kit’s paintings of ye. I never thought we’d meet, though.”

The captain offered his bruised, purple-veined hand. “I didn’t, either, Dr. Fraser.”

Meredith could see Elliott meant what he said, but it didn’t ease the tension in his jaw and around his eyes.

A line of concern drew Kit’s brows together as she searched Elliott’s face. “What’s wrong, Elliott?”

He reached for Meredith’s hand and squeezed it, an urgent request to help him out. How could she orchestrate a polite see-you-later?

But Elliott beat her to it. “An issue’s come up. I’ll tell ye later. But yer father looks tired. Why don’t ye take him to his room to rest before dinner?” Then to Captain McCabe, he said, “I have dozens of stories to tell ye over a glass or two of whisky and a cigar. Why don’t ye get some rest first?”

The captain smiled at Kit. “Dr. Fraser’s a wise man. I would like to lie down for a bit.”

Elliott managed to chuckle. “I believe that’s the first time anyone’s called me a wise man. People usually say I’m a goddamn son of a bitch.”

Captain McCabe laughed, but it quickly turned into a coughing fit. He put his handkerchief to his mouth, and when he pulled it away, there was blood. Meredith’s heart leaped to her throat. When Captain McCabe arrived an hour ago, his frail appearance shocked her, but she chalked it up to exhaustion from a long trip. Now she knew why he was so tired. He was dying.

Meredith glanced up toward the bedroom where James MacKlenna died over thirty years ago, surrounded by his family singing him into Heaven. She’d heard different versions of the story from Kit, Cullen, and Braham, and now Kit would bury her birth father in the same cemetery where her adoptive father would eventually rest.

Kit stood. “Come on, Dad. I’ll show you the way.”

Elliott helped the captain stand, and then Kit held on to his arm. “When you wake up, you can have a whisky with Elliott. Would you like that?”

Captain McCabe looked back over her shoulder. “I don’t know, lass. From what ye told me about yer Elliott, there might not be any left.” The captain laughed and coughed as he shuffled out of the room.

“Come on,” Meredith said to Elliott. “Let’s leave through the side door.”

They crossed the brick drive that fronted the stallion paddock and walked down to the lake, delaying their conversation until they reached the wrought iron bench sitting in the shadow of a large oak tree.

Meredith didn’t want to sit. She had too much pent-up energy, but she sensed Elliott needed to get off his feet, so she sat close beside him, gazed out over the water, and enjoyed the lovely scent of nearby azaleas. Elliott rested his arm across the back of the bench and toyed with the lace around her collar.

After a couple of minutes, she asked, “Did you lose the mare or the foal?”

“Neither one. They’re both fine.” That was all he said, and they sat in silence, letting the gentle breeze waft over them. The quiet stretched longer than she wanted, and it fed her anxiety. But it was his issue to share, and when he was ready, he’d tell her. She closed her eyes and let the sun warm her face.

She was almost dozing off when he said, “Paul arrived.”

Her eyes flew open. There was more in what Elliott didn’t say than in what he did. “Where’s James Cullen?”

“They’re both at the cabin.”

“Then why are we still sitting here? Let’s go see them.” She popped to her feet and headed off toward the cabin. She planned to have a few words with her son and Paul, too, but that might have to wait until later.

“Where are ye going?” Elliott asked.

She stopped and turned to face him. “Where do you think? To see James Cullen, of course. Although I don’t know why he didn’t come straight to the mansion.”

Elliott patted the bench. “Come sit down, Mere. There’s a lot to tell ye first.”

Tell me…first?

She didn’t like the sound of that at all, and Elliott’s dire expression only made it worse. She dragged her feet, returning to the bench. “Tell me quickly, then let’s go.”

He cleared his throat, his face nearly bone-white now. “Erik brought James Cullen here.”

Her head jerked as if the words were bullets, and her forehead the target. “Erik? The Viking? How in the world did James Cullen hook up with him?”

“I’m not sure.”

Erik was a violent, uncivilized man from the twelfth century who was capable of unimaginable atrocities. What he and the other Council members did to Colonel Bowes, Penny’s professor at West Point, still made her stomach churn, and the thought of her son being anywhere near the Viking made her heart thump in her ears, behind her eyes, in her throat. Her body was suddenly on fire, like a night’s worth of hot flashes hit all at once.

Her mind took off in fifth gear and tried to speed ahead of what