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

seemed outside. His footsteps echoed in muted thumps as he moved about the room, stepping over the bear rug.

Guess he figured out he’s going to sleep on the floor.

“If you’re through, I’d like to wash up, but if you could use more time…”

“I’m done.” She opened the window and dumped the dirty water out of the washbowl. “I used your soap.”

“Everything I have is yours. You know that.” He cocked his head and looked between her and the window. “Aren’t you supposed to yell a warning before you dump dirty water out a window?”

“Only if you’re on an upper floor and if you’re dumping the contents of a chamber pot.” She brushed the dust off her jacket before slipping it back on. “I’ll see you at the table.” She opened the door but then closed it again. “How long do you intend to stay?”

His head jerked, and he pointed a glance at her that held a truckload of something she couldn’t decipher. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” he asked.

“Ah, no, but I want to go on the roundup, and I know you want to go to Lexington. It looks like I could have three weeks with TR. But I don’t know how long it takes to get to Kentucky or how long you want to spend time with your family. I’m just trying to figure out how we can both get what we want.”

He removed his jacket and hung it over the chair back, then unbuttoned his shirt, slowly and methodically, almost like he was doing a striptease, but he wasn’t intentionally provocative. It was just the way he did things.

He hung the shirt on top of the jacket. “You want to sleep outside on the trail for another three weeks, work your butt off, and irritate the hell out of your hip?”

“Yep. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what I want.”

“You’d rather live in the dust and mud than go to MacKlenna Farm and live in the lap of nineteenth-century luxury.”

“Even with mud and dust and hard work and hell. Look, I’m not opposed to living in the lap of luxury. I’m just willing to sacrifice comfort for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

“A once-in-a-lifetime experience isn’t always what’s it’s cracked up to be.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed, wrapped her arms around the bedpost, and pressed her cheek against it. “I’m betting this one will be.”

“If a roundup was the only option on the bill of fare, I’d go. But eating dust and sleeping on the ground again doesn’t sound appealing, and I don’t want to put Mercury through that hardship.”

“I thought you said Mercury could handle being out here.”

“Cowboys ride about a hundred miles a day during a cattle drive, and they go through a string of horses. And from what I’ve read, some of the horses are at best green-broke. Are you prepared for that?”

“I can break a horse, and I’ve chased the clouds more times than I can remember.”

“I guess that means you’ve been thrown high off a horse. But think about this, sweetheart—”

“Don’t sweetheart me.”

“Sorry. But listen, when you rode bulls and broncs before, you had the benefit of a twenty-first-century hospital to put you back together. How many bones have you broken? Huh? That’s probably why your hip hurts you all the time.”

“I don’t complain.”

“You don’t have to. I can see it on your face. You’re hurting now and probably helped yourself to a couple of naproxen to get through the night.”

“How many bones have you broken?” she demanded.

“I don’t fall.”

“Bullshit!”

JC poured water into the washbowl. “If this cattle drive is what you want…”

The muscles rippled in his arms and upper back as he soaped up his hands and slathered his face. He could be a cover model on any of the popular men’s magazines: Esquire, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health. He was fit, sexy, and photogenic.

“If I leave, that will solve the sleeping-together issue,” he said.

“Hmm. I wasn’t even thinking about that.”

He chuckled. “You’re a terrible liar. You know that, don’t you? You’ve already planned for me to sleep on the bear rug. Haven’t you?”

She ducked her head. “Well, maybe.”

“I’ll do my best to work it out for you. Let me look at the map and see where we can meet en route to New York. Probably Cleveland.”

She looked up at the ceiling, picturing a United States map, and visually traced a path from Medora to New York. “I think you’re right, but we’ll have to look at the train schedule. How will we communicate, though?”

He splashed water on his face to rinse away the soap, and then he reached for the towel hanging from a hook on the side of the washstand. “Dots and dashes, darling.”

She made a face. “Ditto on the word ‘darling.’” She stood and stretched. All the talk about her injuries reminded her hip that it was time to give her a painful nudge. “So, by dots and dashes, you mean a telegram?”

He nodded behind the towel covering his face.

“Medora should have a Western Union telegraph office,” she said.

After he brushed his teeth, he reached for the hairbrush. “If you go to Medora and send a telegram to MacKlenna Farm—depending on how long it takes to get the message from Midway out to Old Frankfort Pike—I should have it within a couple of hours.”

She continued stretching forward, backward, and sideways. “Do you know how obscure that information is? Why would you know that?”

He parted his hair with his finger and brushed the waves away from his face. “Uncle Braham taught me Morse code when I was a teenager. That led to a study of communications techniques from smoke signals and drums to cell phones. I’m sure Medora has a telegraph office at the train station. So if I have any news to share with you, I’ll send a telegram and vice versa.”

“How will I get it?”

He emptied the washbowl just as she had. “I’ll hire someone in Medora to find you and deliver the message.”