Read Online Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3) by Lindsey Fairleigh - Free Book Online

soft pat, “you know where find this if you decide your resolve is in need of some bolsterin’.”
    “Thanks.” My eyes met his. “Really, Tex, thank you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t found me.”
    “Aw, well . . .” Tex hunched his shoulders and made a rough noise in his throat. “I may not be a gentleman, but I know a lady when I see one, I do. You’ve got a kindly way about you, Miss Larson, and with a sweet face like that, well . . . you don’t belong out here.”
    “Trust me, Tex,” I said, brushing off the back of my jeans with my good hand, “I couldn’t agree with you more.” I just wanted to go home. I needed to know .
    “Well then, let’s get you up to Port Madison—traders come in and out of there every couple of days. One of them is sure to be willing to escort you back to civilization.”
    Port Madison—that was the reservation just across the Agate Passage from the northern tip of Bainbridge Island. You could see the shore from the beach just outside the compound’s walls. If we were near Port Madison, then I was closer to home than I’d thought. The realization spurred a surge of excitement, followed by a deluge of grief. Being “home” wouldn’t do me any good. It was just about the worst case of right-place-wrong-time imaginable.
    Regardless, I had to start looking for Marcus— this time’s Marcus—somewhere. I only had a matter of days before the bonding withdrawals would set in, and based on the almost-nothing Marcus had told me about my pending travels through time, I would find him, each and every time. I figured I might as well start looking in Port Madison.
    I bowed my head to Tex. “I’d appreciate that.”
    He turned and started picking his way through the underbrush.
    “You don’t, by any chance, know of any prominent men in the area with the name Bahur?” I ventured as I followed, making about three times as much noise as him. “Or Horus?”
    “I can’t rightly say I do,” he said over his shoulder. “You hunting for someone? That what brought you all the way out here, Miss Larson?”
    “No, I—well, yes, I suppose I am.” Crouching down, I picked up a several-foot-long stick, intending to use it to push bushes out of my way as we trailblazed. I don’t recommend tromping through the woods in sandals. “How about Heru?”
    Tex’s head tilted to the side, and he looked at me sidelong. “What sort of a name is ‘Heru’?”
    I pressed down a blackberry vine as thick as my thumb. “Egyptian.” The plump berries bunched together along the vine were a deep purple, practically falling off with their ripeness. They filled the forest with their sweet aroma, mixing with the scent of decaying pine needles in the most intoxicating way.
    Tex whistled. “Can’t say as I’ve ever met an Egyptian. But seeing as they’re supposed to have darker skin like the Indians, I reckon they must be related in some way.” He nodded to himself.
    “I suppose,” I said, not wanting to start a debate about evolution, human migration, and the origin of the human species. I really wasn’t in the mood.
    “So what are you tracking this feller down for? A matter of the heart?” For a rustic old trapper, Tex sure was a chatty guy.
    “It’s more of a matter of life and death,” I said with appropriate gravitas. Once the bonding withdrawals started, it would be only a matter of days until they actually killed me. I placed my hand on my abdomen. Not just me. “I have to find him.”
    “Is that so? Well then, we best hurry.” Tex sort of hopped-leapt over a waist-high fallen log, then turned and held his hand out to help me over.
    We’d reached a beach, the sparkling Puget Sound stretching out beyond the rocky shore, the tide line strewn with driftwood, seafoam, and kelp. Two seagulls swooped low overhead, calling out to one another.
    Across the water some ways, a mass of vibrant evergreens grew out of the sea, several thick plumes of smoke steadily