The Sunstone Brooch : Time Travel Romance by Katherine Logan (comprehension books .TXT) 📗

Her legs almost went out from under her. She stabbed the spear into the ground to hold on to it for support while she recovered.

“Ensley, it’s safe. Come on out.”

Am I hallucinating? If I am, it doesn’t matter whether I show myself or not.

She stepped out into the open, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, and asked, “What are you doing here?”

JC laughed as he dismounted. “Looking for you. I almost lost you a few days ago, crossing the Badlands.” He looked around. “Is someone with you?”

She rubbed her forehead, her thoughts in tumult. Was someone with her? It was possible, but if she told JC about the shaman, he’d think she’d lost her mind.

“I didn’t invite anyone to come along. It’s just me.”

“It’s good to see you.” He hugged her, and her soul absorbed the warm wool of his jacket, the muscular strength flexing beneath it, and the sweet scent of wildflowers.

“I’m a bit shell-shocked.” She broke away from him. “I need to sit down.” She returned to her spot by the fire.

“I’m sure you are.” He unsaddled his horse and led him to the river. “I lost your footprints a couple of days ago, and it took half a day to pick them up again.” When the stallion finished drinking, JC picketed him with enough slack that he could graze on the native grasses. “The other footprints disappeared for several miles, reappeared briefly, then disappeared again, only to reappear miles later.”

“How many times did you see them?”

“I found them at every campsite, but only twice were the footprints near the campfire. The other times they were several yards away.”

She stared at him. “At every campsite? Unbelievable.” Maybe the shaman was here now. She shot up, hurried into the woods, and walked a full circle around the camp, but she didn’t find any footprints or trampled grass.

“I don’t think he’s here now,” JC said.

She returned to the firepit, one hand on her hip. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I’m here.” JC grabbed a currycomb from his saddlebag and took his time, rubbing the horse in circular motions to remove loosened dirt, hair, and other detritus, and then followed it up with a stiff-bristled brush to remove all the material stirred up by the curry.

A defensive stirring in her gut urged her to defend her shaman. “He’s not scared of you. He’s a noble warrior.”

“He is? So you know who he is and where he’s from?”

“Of course. He’s a shaman from the Fort Berthold Reservation.”

JC returned the grooming tools to the saddlebag. “Did he tell you that?”

“No, I figured it out.” She sat back down and picked up the warm cup of dandelion coffee. “I’ve never actually talked to him. I mean, we had one conversation, but it wasn’t an actual face-to-face meeting. It was more of a meeting of the minds.”

“Did he heal your foot?”

Her head jerked up. “How’d you know I hurt my foot?”

“I found the place where you fell and followed your hobbling footprints to Spring Creek.”

“God, that seems so long ago.” She stretched out her legs and leaned against the tree. “I heard a man talking to me, telling me to get up, to follow him to the creek. I saw the grass move as if someone was walking through it, but I never actually saw him. He was persistent, so I followed, or rather hobbled behind him until I reached the creek.”

“Were you walking in the wrong direction?”

“No. He was leading me to a better camping spot. When I reached the creek, he demanded I take off my boot. I didn’t want to because I knew it would hurt like hell. But he wouldn’t quit.”

“Did you see him then?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know where he was, but I heard him. It was weird. I finally got the boot off and soaked my foot in the cold water. Then, I went to sleep, and when I woke up, there wasn’t a thing wrong with my foot. I thought I imagined it, but the leather on the side of my boot is scuffed up. So something happened to my foot.”

JC squatted and spread his hands to the fire. “I found your footprints. You hobbled in and walked out. So you were injured, no doubt about it. Do you think it was broken or sprained?”

“It was similar to an injury I had several years ago when I broke a bone on the side of my foot. It swelled up and turned black and blue and stayed like that for weeks. My orthopedist put me in a walking boot, but this time the injury healed in less than twenty-four hours.” She looked at JC. “Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah, it does. Did you ever hear from him again?”

“A few days ago, before I reached the river, I ran out of drinking water and couldn’t go on. The shaman carried me to the river. When I woke up, a roasting rabbit was waiting for me. I thought I was hallucinating, but the rabbit was real, and I didn’t trap it.”

JC didn’t react, taking her story in stride as he sat cross-legged next to her. “You broke your foot, and then it healed. You were dying of thirst, and then you were next to the river. Why do you think he’s a shaman?”

“Because he has blue tattoos”—she ran her hand from her shoulder to her wrist—“down his arm. I’ve never seen that before.”

“Was he carrying a weapon?”

She thought a minute and nodded. “A single-handed battle-ax.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Dark trousers and a red cloak.”

JC tugged at his chin, his head nodding slightly. After a moment, he said, “I think I know who he is. If I’m right, he’s a Viking warrior.”

Her surprise morphed into what the hell. “Not a real Viking. Just some reenactor playing a role. Right?”

JC put his elbows on his knees and tapped his fingertips together. “No. He’s an honest-to-God twelfth-century Viking. Dad met him and four other warriors