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

and shoot from my parents, but JC is an expert marksman and an incredible equestrian. He could easily qualify to compete in the Olympics.”

“But there aren’t any equestrian events in the Olympics.”

Oops. “Well, if they ever include equestrian events, he could compete, but not me. Give him a course with ten to sixteen obstacles with heights up to five feet and spreads over six feet, and he’ll sail over them as if his horse had wings. But he can’t rope a calf, so we’re even.”

“Where is your family ranch?”

The lie she and JC concocted rolled off her tongue. “Pennsylvania. Not far from Philadelphia.” She didn’t want to talk about her “life story,” she preferred to talk about his, but that took a little massaging. “Mrs. Sewall told me you have a daughter in New York City. How old is she?”

TR looked away from her, and she didn’t think he was going to answer, but he finally said, “Her name is Alice Lee, and she’s fifteen months old. My sister Anna is taking care of her while I’m out here.”

“Mrs. Sewall said your wife died within hours of Alice Lee’s birth. That’s so tragic.”

“Mrs. Fraser, I don’t know if you’ve experienced great loss before—”

“I have. I lost both my parents within a short time. I’ll never stop missing them.”

They rode in silence, and she wasn’t sure what he was thinking or even if he would talk about his family.

“Alice was beautiful in face and form and lovelier still in spirit. Like a flower, she grew, and as a fair young flower, she died.” The pain in his voice was palpable. “She lived her life in the sunshine and never experienced great sorrow. Everyone loved her and her sunny temper and unselfishness.

“She was loving, tender, and happy as a young wife, and when she became a mother, her life had just begun. Then by a strange and terrible fate, death came for her, and my heart’s dearest died, and the light went out of my life forever.”

TR was outwardly alive and alert but inwardly shattered. Ensley was too heartbroken for him to say another word, and they rode in silence for the rest of the morning.

After they stopped for lunch, she couldn’t hold back her questions for a moment longer, and as they mounted up, she said, “Tell me about the trips you took as a child that made an impression on you.”

His eyes lit up. “The family’s first grand tour of the continent. We spent six weeks of the trip in Switzerland and stayed at the famous Hotel Baur au Lac, with its flower gardens and meticulously raked gravel walks. I suffered from asthma, and one of my physicians told my parents the bracing air would be the best medicine.”

“Is that when your love of nature began?”

“No. That started before I turned ten. My family had to learn to live with my passion. I tied snapping turtles to laundry tubs, brought home a litter of newborn squirrels that I had to feed with a syringe three times daily.” He stopped and laughed, clearly reminiscing.

Then he continued, “But when my mother discovered I was storing dead mice in the icebox, she put her foot down and ordered them thrown in the garbage. I was in a state of despair over the loss to science.”

Ensley laughed so hard she almost fell off her horse. She’d heard so many stories from the park rangers, but hearing the anecdotes from TR made them come alive. “I’m sorry it was such a significant loss to science.” It took a few minutes to get her giggles under control, but when she did, she asked, “So then did you read science books instead of performing experiments?”

“No, but I read a lot, especially the works of John James Audubon and Spencer Fullerton Baird.”

“The foremost American naturalist of the day.”

“You’ve read Baird?”

“I haven’t read the entire Catalogue of North American Birds, but I’ve reviewed it. Does that count?”

“Sort of,” he said.

“What was your first experience in the wilderness?”

“The summer before I turned thirteen. Father initiated an expedition to the Adirondacks. Our destination was Paul Smith’s on Lake St. Regis, a favorite summer hostel among well-to-do families. In true Roosevelt fashion, we went in a swarm. My parents, all four children, Uncle Hilborne, Aunt Susy, and Cousin West.

“Uncle Hilborne, Cousin West, and I spent three days roughing it in the bush, and for the first time, I could write in my journal from personal experience of those desolate wilds.”

“And I bet for the whole month you were never sick.”

“Never. But the next summer, Papa changed my life by giving me a 12-gauge, double-barreled French-made shotgun. It was the ideal gun for an awkward thirteen-year-old.”

“I remember my first rifle. I was about the same age. I used to clean that gun every day.” When she moved to New York, she packed up all her guns and put them in a safe deposit box. She didn’t want them but didn’t want to get rid of them, either.

“The year I got that rifle, I also got a large pair of spectacles.”

“I bet that made a huge difference in your life.”

“Nothing could prepare me for the difference in the world around me. Before then, my range of vision was only about thirty feet. Everything beyond that point was a blur.”

“Why didn’t you tell your parents?”

“I guess I thought it was normal, so no one knew how handicapped I was, and I had no idea how beautiful the world was.”

“What happened once you could see?”

“Birds upstaged everything else in my life, and Audubon became my hero.”

A few more hours of in-depth conversation with TR, and she’d have a full notebook, as long as she could remember everything long enough to write it all down.

“You mentioned the first family grand tour. When was the second?”

“The next year, we set out for another extended journey abroad, beginning with winter on the Nile. By mid-December, I was tramping the shores of the great and mysterious river, knocking birds from