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

to Meredith and held out her hand. The diamond brooch glinted on her palm. “Nothing and no one should ever come between a mother and her child. Take it and go see your son.”

60

MacKlenna Farm, KY (1885)—Ensley

Meredith snatched the brooch from Ensley and held it against her heart like it was a secret talisman that would solve all her problems. In Ensley’s limited experience, brooches caused more problems than they solved, and giving one to Meredith wouldn’t fix any of the bad shit between her and Elliott.

Ensley eyed the door and planned her escape. As far as she was concerned, she couldn’t get away from Elliott and Meredith fast enough.

“You’re coming with me!”

Ensley glared at Meredith in a way that should have frozen her feet to the floor. “You’re not serious.”

Meredith crossed the room, locked the door, and pocketed the key. “I most certainly am. You’re coming with me. I can’t do this alone.”

Then take your husband, damn it.

“You can’t lock me in here. I’ll scream. Austin’s sitting on the steps and will barge in here to rescue me.” Ensley glanced out the window overlooking the paddock. Her best guess was that the second-story room looked out over the patio and flower garden outside Sean’s office. She could drop from the windowsill smack into the lilacs and daylilies and come out smelling sweet and maybe a little bruised. So what if the fall hurt her hip more than it already did? At least she wouldn’t get shanghaied.

Meredith put her hands on her hips. “If Austin comes in, he’ll have to come, too. But why involve anyone else? You have to come. If we’re kicked around the vortex and tossed out somewhere else, I want a Viking princess with me.”

That term was annoying as hell, or in cowboy lexicon, as prickly as a burr in her saddle. “I’m not a princess.” She thumped her chest. “I’m a warrior.”

Meredith hurried over to her traveling trunk. “That’s even better. But we should take some money, jewels, or gold with us, just in case. Do you have anything on you? Ring? Necklace? Earrings?”

“A sapphire and titanium ring.”

“Austin needs to give you some jewelry for your birthday next month.”

“How do you know…? Never mind.” Meredith was a font of information about her. And Ensley didn’t like it at all. It put her at a disadvantage, and that was never a good thing. Meredith probably even knew how much she had in her stock portfolio. “I don’t even have any money.”

“I know that’s not true, but you probably mean you don’t have any with you.”

Yep. Meredith even knew Ensley’s net worth. “That’s what I meant,” Ensley grumbled.

“If my son intentionally abandoned you, he should have left you with some money.”

“He did. But I gave that to a man who was very kind to me.”

“That’s valiant and goes with the whole”—Meredith waved her hand around her head—“warrior persona.”

Meredith grabbed a leather case from her trunk. “I have diamonds, rubies, and pearls. That should be enough.” She glanced around the room again. “Clothes. We need capes. It might be cool in the evenings.” She grabbed two from the chifforobe and tossed one to Ensley. “What did you wish you had when you landed by yourself?”

Ensley swung the cape over her shoulders. “A gun or knife, food, water, a container, something warm. Lots of things.”

“Grab the bottle of sherry and two glasses and put them in that basket on the floor by the bed. Our only option for a weapon is a letter opener unless you see something else that will work.”

“That’s better than nothing, but let me get Austin. We won’t need a weapon with him along.”

“No! We’re doing this by ourselves. We’re taking action. No words. Got it?”

It looked like Ensley was stuck. What a story this will make. “A blanket. I would have killed for a blanket.”

“Good idea. Grab the quilt off the bed.”

Ensley folded the quilt and packed it neatly in the basket with the sherry and glasses. The letter opener fit perfectly between her corseted breasts. If something went wrong, she wanted quick access to the only thing they had for protection.

“Meredith, I want to go on the record as saying this is a horrible idea, and if Elliott discovers we left—”

“I’ll leave him a letter just like the one he left me. That’ll make us even.”

“Getting even won’t help the situation.”

“You’re right, of course. But I’ll feel better, and it will shock Elliott senseless.”

“I still don’t like the idea of zipping off into the stratosphere.”

Meredith stared up at the ceiling as she tapped her chin with a manicured fingernail. Then, after a minute, she returned her gaze to Ensley. “I’ve heard your objection, considered it, and passed on it. But you shouldn’t worry.”

“Yeah, right. You might as well tell me to stop breathing.”

“Okay. Here’s the deal. Charlotte, Kenzie, Amber, Amy, Sophia, Penny, and you were all abandoned by your brooches. But we’re traveling with the diamond, and it’s the most reliable one we have.”

“But which one of those women was abandoned by the diamond brooch?”

Meredith let out an exasperated sigh. “Amy, but after it refused to work for her temporarily, it’s been very reliable since. We’ll be okay.”

It wasn’t that Ensley was anxious about traveling again. It was about traveling alone with Meredith. She had no idea how JC’s mother would react in a crisis. If they landed in a Scottish castle in the 1700s, would she be any help at all?

There was only one way to find out.

Ensley looped the basket handle over her arm. “Letter opener, sherry, glasses, and a quilt. But we still need food…”

Meredith snapped her fingers. “I’ve got just the thing.” She returned to her trunk and pulled out a Ziploc bag full of energy bars. “These will get us through a couple of days, I think.”

They would have gotten Ensley through a week in the Badlands.

“We’ve got everything now, so let’s go.” Meredith tried to return the brooch to Ensley. “Here, you