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

ye’ll find notebooks and pencils in the small trunk.”

Sean looked over at the door. “Guess they’re talking about what happened.”

“Maybe. Now, let’s get to work before the storm hits.” David did a visual search. Among the scattered elms and birch trees was a giant oak, and near it was a mini rocky defile that had thrust up from the forest floor like the edge of a serrated knife. It was a unique and out-of-place land feature. Trees would die, but that defile would last through the centuries—a perfect X to mark the spot.

He squatted at the last footprint, and Kenzie did the same. “What do ye notice first?”

“Whoever made these prints wore flat-soled shoes,” she said.

“Aye. How tall? Can ye tell?”

“You love testing me, don’t you?” She used her forearm to measure the distance between footprints. “Based on the distance between them, I’d say six feet.”

“And weight?”

She stuck her finger into the heel of one of the prints. “Based on the depth, I’d say one-seventy-five to two hundred pounds. I never met Erik, but that fits his description, don’t you think?”

“Close enough.”

“That’s large for a Viking, isn’t it?”

“He’s an unusual man.”

“Was,” Kenzie corrected.

“Aye. Which reminds me, if Tavis isn’t home when we return, we should get moving on his rescue.”

Her eyes were suddenly as wide as a deer’s facing headlights. “To Jarlshof? In 1100 AD? No, you can’t go. What if your vision comes true?”

The question caught him unprepared, and he tried to gather up his thoughts by focusing harder on the dark mass of trees.

When he didn’t answer, she said, “McBain. What if it comes true?”

Although he tried to hide his fear from her naked gaze, it was fruitless. “I don’t want to talk about it, Kenz.”

The vision had haunted him every day since it first invaded his mind, and now that he knew he’d probably have to go back for Tavis, it was even more terrifying.

He didn’t want it invading his mind right now, or ever, but there it was…

Dozens of warriors with tattoos of mythological creatures from the tips of their fingers to their necks filled the vision. Each warrior carried a broadsword with ridged blades and wore a cloak covering half his body. They were spread out on a slanting, rocky field, yelling, frightening the red grouse that flew low over a peat bog, squealing.

Warriors stood guard over a man lying on the ground—a man believed to be James MacKlenna. One of the warriors removed a torc from around his neck. He poured water from a drinking horn to wash off the blood and then placed it around David’s neck.

A woman standing nearby aimed a tall longbow made of yew at a target he couldn’t see. Her arm muscles were lean, flexed, and still.

Now, three years later, David knew the woman’s identity. But, goddamn it, that only increased his fear of the vision.

“Don’t snap at me,” Kenzie said. “Your vision has been on my mind since I heard Erik was dead. If you’re planning a trip to Jarlshof, it could come true.”

“Not now, Kenz.”

“I understand why you don’t want to talk about it, but just so you know, if you go there—to Jarlshof—I’m going, too.”

“That sure as hell won’t happen.” When he saw the shock in her eyes, he knew he had to backtrack. He’d never had any success telling his bride what she could or could not do. “Let’s talk about it later.”

“You bet we will. Now, start the clock. I’m going to win the bet.”

David stood and turned in a slow circle, studying the landscape from the ground up, finding bootheel prints, broken twigs, and smashed ground cover. The bootheel prints matched Austin’s.

He checked the time. “It’s three ten.”

“You’re on, McBain.”

Kenzie took off, following leads of her own, while he followed broken twigs and crushed leaves until he reached a huge boulder impossible for one person to carry. Kenzie arrived simultaneously, coming from a different direction.

“Let’s call it a tie and figure this out together,” David said. “It’ll save time.”

“If you want to do that, ask Austin and Ensley where it is. Otherwise, get to work. The defile is one marker, and this boulder is another. It’s somewhere in between. Austin said the entrance was behind a boulder. But I don’t see a way in.” Kenzie removed her shoes and started climbing the rocks next to the boulder.

“Be careful. Lichen and water stains cover this gray monolith, which means the rocks will be slick. If we take another patient home to Charlotte, she might close up shop on us.”

“But we have Emily here with us, and we have time to get patched up before we go home.”

David stepped back and watched her climb, prepared to catch her if she slipped. The distance gave him a different perspective of the boulder. It was too large to fit into a camera frame unless you stood back several yards. But if you stood back that far, trees would block the view. Clever.

The fifteen-foot-tall boulder was half-buried in the side of a grassy knoll that Kenzie had now scaled. But at the top, gnarly trees and underbrush made it all but impossible to stand at the edge and look down on the boulder without first clearing a path.

If there was an entrance behind the monolith, the knoll and trees had it so well camouflaged that he wasn’t surprised it had gone undiscovered, except for Austin and JC.

The bramble bush on one side had several broken shoots, and blackberries were rotting on the ground. He pushed the thorny, arching stems aside and smiled. “Beat ye, Kenz.”

“Where is it?”

“Ye’re standing right above it. The top of the boulder is buried in the side of the knoll, so ye can’t see the opening. Come on down. I’ll help ye.”

“Wait a minute. Do you have your phone? I didn’t bring mine. There’s a petroglyph up here.”

“Of what?”

She squatted and brushed away debris. “Call me crazy, but it looks like a Viking longship. Long and wide with a shallow-draft hull.”

David climbed up halfway and