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

at Jarlshof in the Shetland Islands a few years ago.”

“Twelfth century? Really? Wow. I’m still shell-shocked that you’re here. Now I’m double shocked that a time-traveling Viking warrior rescued me.”

“It’s a lot to take in, but Erik and his friends make up the Council and support the Keeper of the Stones.”

She cocked her head. “Stones?”

“Stones. Brooches. We use the words interchangeably.”

Ensley’s jaw dropped, and she slapped her forehead. “Oh, my God, I got all excited about seeing you that I forgot about how you got here. So, you have one of those stones, too, or did you use mine?”

“I used yours.”

She jumped to her feet. “Holy shit! Why are we still sitting here?” Her heart fluttered with thoughts of home. “Let’s go. You can tell me all about the brooches and the Vikings over a bottle of wine.” She looped the costrel strap over her shoulder, grabbed her spear and Clovis Point, and looked around to see if there was anything else she wanted to take with her. “I can’t believe I’m going home.”

“Ensley, sit down. We have to talk.”

“No.” She didn’t want to hear anything else until she was on the other side of the fog. Then he could talk until he was hoarse. “Look. I want to go home. I need a drink, a long, soaking bath, some real food, and a visit to my hairdresser and manicurist—in that order. You can tell me everything later. Let’s get out of here. Do you want me to help you saddle your horse?”

JC reached over and clasped her hand. “Sit down, Ens. I have to explain what’s going on here.”

“You don’t have to. I already know. I came here in a fog after I whispered magic words, and now you’re here to take me home. I don’t know how or why or anything about the Council. But that’s not important right now. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

The tension radiating off JC pinged every one of her nerves, but she planned to continue ignoring them. “Should I leave my spear? I’ve grown accustomed to it, but if you think somebody might need it, I’ll leave it behind.”

JC shot a stern look at her. “Ensley! Sit. Down.”

She jerked her hand out of his grasp. “I don’t want to sit. I don’t want to listen to you. I just want to go home. I miss my life, and my gut’s telling me what I miss doesn’t mean shit. I’m not ready to hear that yet. So don’t say another word.”

She busied herself at the campfire. Doing something constructive with her hands gave her brain a chance to play nice with denial. “Do you want a cup of dandelion coffee?”

“No thanks.” While she filled the bowl of roots with water from the leather costrel, he said, “I changed my mind. If you have enough, I’ll have what you’re drinking.”

“It’s not as good as Starbucks, but it’ll do in a pinch.” After the water and roots heated, she poured the brew into the other bowl, reserving the roots for another cup. “You have to close your eyes and imagine.”

“Are you sure this water is safe?”

The question grated on her last pinged nerve. It was the same one she’d asked herself dozens of times on the first day, not as often on the second, and after the third, she didn’t worry about it again.

“I’m not sick yet, and when you’re so thirsty you can’t work up enough saliva to spit, you drink whatever’s available. Drinking a little bit of E. coli in the water is better than dying of thirst.”

He sipped the brew. “I doubt this would be a hit with the Starbucks crowd, but it isn’t so bad.”

She sat down again, holding her bowl of dandelion coffee in her shaking hand, and tried to relax her face, hoping it would lower her stress. “Okay, start at the beginning and ease me into our current reality. Unless this is all a nightmare, and you’re only making a cameo appearance.”

He didn’t smile. If anything, he had a thousand-yard stare. She waved her hand. “Hey, JC. Come back.”

He refocused his gaze. “The beginning, huh? That’s too far back. Let me start with the most recent events.”

“Whatever works for you. I’m in no hurry.”

“I met George—”

“My cousin?”

JC smirked. “I thought you weren’t in a hurry.”

“Sorry. I’ll try not to interrupt. Go on.”

“I met your cousin at the Porcellian Club the Thursday night you disappeared. He invited me to go to dinner with the two of you. We went to pick you up at the house, and I smelled peat as soon as I entered the house.”

“It’s a gross smell. What’d you think?”

He smirked again.

“Sorry.”

“George yelled for you, and when you didn’t answer, I went upstairs to look while he went to the basement. I found your brooch on the floor, and I knew then that the fog had carried you away.”

“How’d you know that?”

“I have experience with magic brooches. Just let me tell my story. Okay?”

“But you didn’t know where I went. Right?”

“Not then.”

“Did you tell George?”

“I couldn’t. There are a few brooch rules. And the number one rule is, never discuss the existence of the brooches with anyone outside the family.”

“Brooches?” Her jaw dropped again. “There’s more than one?”

He groaned before holding up his palm and waiting for silence. “I can answer random questions that you fire at me, or I can take a systematic approach and explain how we got here. Which do you want?”

She ran two fingers along the seam of her lips in a zipping motion.

“I found your itinerary along with Professor Whiteside’s proposal. Between your connection to North Dakota and a proposal for a Teddy Roosevelt book, I was able to narrow it down to North Dakota in either 1884 or 1885.”

“But that doesn’t explain how you knew I went back in time.” When he glared at her again, she said, “Sorry. Maybe we better stick with answering random questions.”

JC continued without acknowledging her suggestion. “My family has eight brooches like yours,