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

Cullen to the farm, he was in a healing coma. Erik said no one should touch him or lift the cloth to check his injuries until he emerged from the coma in forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”

“If he was that injured,” Braham said, “ye should have come home.”

“Erik said if we touched him, he would die.”

“And you believed him?” Kenzie demanded.

Elliott slammed his fist on the countertop. Ensley jumped, Austin jerked, David glared, Braham clenched his fists, and Kenzie shot Elliott full of eye darts.

“Dammit, Kenzie. I had to do what I thought was best for my son, and ultimately the family. I couldn’t risk any interference.”

Kenzie tapped her fingers on her crossed arms. “You believed a twelfth-century Viking over Charlotte’s medical knowledge. Is that what you’re saying?”

When Elliott showed more interest in his cup of coffee than in answering her question, Kenzie looked from David to Braham, to Austin, to Ensley, and back to Elliott.

“I’ve known you and Meredith for almost twenty years. You are two of the strongest, most bull-headed people I’ve ever met. If you believed in Erik and Meredith believed in Charlotte, then what we have here is the unstoppable force paradox.”

“An unstoppable force cannot be unstoppable in the same universe where an immovable object exists, as it would no longer be unstoppable. And Meredith and I do live in the same universe.”

“I hate your esoteric arguments. You pull them out every time you need a distraction. Well, it’s not going to work this time.”

“Ye started it, lass.”

Kenzie pushed away from the table and approached him. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Not that long ago.”

Kenzie punched him in the chest with the heel of her hand. “You asshole. You shut Meredith out, didn’t you? She disagreed with you, so you took JC and hid him away from her. And then you abandoned her.” Kenzie held out her hand. “Give me the damn brooch.”

“No. I’m the—”

“Don’t throw that Keeper shit at me. You abandoned your wife in another century. That’s unforgivable. I’m going back for her, and if she never wants to see you again, if she wants a divorce, I won’t blame her. She forgave you once, but I don’t see it happening again. Now give me the goddamn brooch.”

Ensley had never heard anyone talk to another person like Kenzie spoke to Elliott, and if she could talk to him that way, why was JC afraid to confront his father?

“Kenzie, get off yer goddamn high horse. Ye’ve overstepped the boundaries we’ve set. After I take James Cullen to the monastery, I’ll go back for her.”

“Bullshit,” Ensley said under her breath.

“Like hell!” David’s brown eyes turned almost black. “If ye leave right now, ye could spend six weeks making things right with Meredith and come back, and ye’ll only be gone a few minutes. JC won’t even be awake from the drug Charlotte gave him. Ye have no excuse.”

“I just want to know one thing, Elliott.” Kenzie tunneled the fingers of both hands through her hair and held it back for a second or two before letting it go. The strands resettled like a fine curtain framing her face. “What was so damn important that you had to hurry back here?”

Elliott sipped his coffee. When she was very young, Ensley had once watched her mother do the same thing Elliott was doing now—stalling, thinking of a way to explain the unexplainable.

She still had no idea what her mother had wanted to tell her father, but it was life-altering. Her mother first ushered her from the room, and by the time Ensley was allowed to come in again, the tension in the air was still there and never went away. Ever. How odd that she remembered it now, after all those years. There was probably even more that she’d blocked out.

And then another memory of that day flashed by. When she was in her bedroom, she looked out the window and saw a man wearing a red cloak watching the house.

Ensley took a deep breath. Now was not the time to strip down those memories.

She glanced at Austin to see how he was handling the confrontation. He looked like a scared kid ready to bolt. If what was happening was a reminder of her parents, what event in his past was Austin remembering?

Elliott carried his coffee over to the stainless steel table and pulled up a stool. When the ceramic mug clinked against the stainless steel, the sound punctured the silence and reminded her of the shell casings pinging on the hardwood floor of the luxury railroad car Tavis had reserved for them. She shivered. The simplest things rolled back to painful memories—a bit of PTSD that probably stemmed from that horrific bull ride.

“I didn’t want Meredith to see her son like this,” Elliott said. “If she heard his screams, if she saw the agony in his eyes, on his face, she’d have nightmares for the rest of her life. We have unleashed monsters that will commit atrocities. I am responsible, and so is my son—the last MacKlenna.”

The only sound in the room was the quiet hum of the generator. And except for Elliott, everyone stared at their feet while the stink of peat mingled with the steam from Elliott’s coffee, the coppery taste of blood, and the sting of antiseptics in the exam room.

No one said anything until Ensley cleared her throat and said, “It’s not your fault. If I had gone with JC, it might not have happened.”

Then she shuddered as another memory, more vivid than the last, surfaced.

If I hadn’t gone to town with Momma that day, we wouldn’t have seen the man in the red cloak who thought I was beautiful. Who said I was born to be a warrior. Who caused the fight between my parents.

“Thank God ye didn’t go, lass. They would have done horrible things to ye, and ye would have begged to die.”

Bile rushed to the back of Ensley’s throat, and she hugged herself and wanted to curl up