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

I couldn’t find him. I paid a dozen operatives to search for him. When I got word he’d escaped, I returned to the States.”

“You should have told me.”

Elliott flashed a stern look at Meredith and then another one at Paul. “Ye two barely know each other. What the hell is going on here?”

Meredith replayed the conversation. Had she outed herself? She cringed. Yep, she had. “It’s not what it seems.”

“It’s exactly what it seems. Ye two”—Elliott wagged his finger from Meredith to Paul and back again—“have something going on. And I want to know what it is.” When neither Meredith nor Paul said anything, Elliott yelled, “Now!”

Paul stepped away from the bed. “I’ll be outside.”

Elliott grabbed Paul by the lapels. “Sit yer ass down. Ye’re not going anywhere.”

“Stop it, Elliott,” Meredith said. “Let’s focus on James Cullen, and I’ll explain everything when we get home.”

Elliott released Paul with a slight shove, and his eyes flashed like daggers at her and Paul. “Ye’re not going anywhere until ye tell me what ye’re hiding.”

She never wanted Elliott to find out what she’d done, and now really wasn’t the time to explain it. “It’s complicated.”

“Bullshit!” Elliott walked over to the table where he’d left his drink earlier and tossed it back. “I don’t know what the hell ye two have been doing, but if ye don’t tell me the truth right now, ye won’t like what comes next.”

Elliott wasn’t a man to throw down threats and not act on them. If he wanted to keep her away from James Cullen’s bedside, he could do it.

“A few years ago, my researchers came across Paul’s family. His mother is a McBain, and she is distantly related to David’s father.”

“Does David know?”

“I’ve never told him.”

“Don’t you think ye should have?”

“Probably. But David will understand why I didn’t.”

“I doubt it, but go on.”

“I had background checks done, and when James Cullen went to work at the CIA, I opened some doors for Paul and put him in a position to work for James Cullen while Paul finished at Georgetown.”

“Did Paul know what ye were doing?”

“Not at first. But after about a year, James Cullen was driving me crazy because he rarely took my calls and wouldn’t answer my text messages. I talked to Paul and asked him if he would text me two to three times a week to let me know James Cullen was okay, and maybe once a week encourage James Cullen to call me. He agreed to do it if I stopped bugging James Cullen.”

Elliott pointed his angry eyes at Paul. “Did ye tell James Cullen what ye were doing?”

“No,” Paul said. “The point was to make life less stressful for him.”

“It was an easy and uncomplicated way to tell me James Cullen was okay,” Meredith said.

“So ye both knew James Cullen went back in time?”

“I told you I left JC at the stables. What I didn’t tell you was that I watched him disappear, but I thought it was part of the work he was doing at the CIA,” Paul said.

“I didn’t know anything until you came back from Washington,” Meredith said. “I tried to call Paul, but he didn’t answer.”

Elliott poured another drink. “Ye lied to me.”

“It wasn’t a lie.”

He shot her a look exactly like the one he’d given her that night all those years ago that sent her running back to California. “How many times have we gone through this, Meredith? Failing to tell someone the truth is a lie of omission. Yer actions were both a lie and a sign of disloyalty. After all our years together, how could ye do that?”

“If I had suggested we arrange for someone to work for James Cullen to report back to us about his health and well-being, what would you have said?”

“It’s out of the question.”

“Well, it wasn’t out of the question for me. I hired a family member to work for James Cullen as an insurance policy.”

Elliott took his drink and dropped into the chair by the table. “How much did she pay ye?”

Paul looked at Meredith, and she nodded. “Nothing directly. She made large annual contributions to a charity of my choice—the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.”

“How much are you getting from James Cullen?”

“Fifty thousand, plus room and board.”

“How much were you making at the CIA?”

“Elliott, stop it!” she snapped. “What’s your point?”

“There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t worried about James Cullen. But unlike ye, when he told me to stay out of his life, I respected his request.”

“But you knew he worked for the CIA, so you didn’t stay completely out of his life.”

“Unlike ye, I didn’t act on what I knew.”

“You might respect his boundaries, but I never could,” she said. “He’s my only child. I carried him for nine months, knowing cancer might kill me, but his life was and is more important than mine.” She stopped and stared at her son lying motionless on the bed, completely covered by the red fabric. “I don’t regret anything I’ve done.”

“I’m sorry ye see it that way.” To Paul, he said, “Give me yer pistol.”

Paul handed it over, and Elliott did a pistol press check. “Now give me yer brooch.”

Paul handed that over, too.

“Now take her to the house and send Cullen down here.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

“Fine.”

Fine?

Elliott never gave up that easy.

He went to the cabinet, poured her a glass of whisky, handed it to her, and then picked up his glass. “Slàinte mhath.”

Meredith raised hers, finding his actions highly suspicious, but she tossed back the drink and set the glass aside. If he could act normal, so could she.

Fifteen to twenty minutes later, the quiet, the warmth in the room, the eucalyptus-scented air, and the whisky all combined to make her so sleepy she could barely hold her eyes open.

“Ye look tired, Meredith. Go back to the house and rest.”

She couldn’t argue with him. If she didn’t lie down, she’d fall over. Everything in the room was going out of focus, and it