Free The Color of Love (The Color of Heaven Series) by Julianne MacLean Page B

Nor did I want her to know how Kaleigh and I had been struggling over the past few years—because there was nothing she could do about it anyway. She wasn’t any better off than we were.
    On one particular night as I lay in bed tossing and turning, feeling guilty about my anger towards Seth on so many different occasions, I came to a decision that I would ask my boss if I could be considered for full-time work at the bank. Maybe I could even work my way up to a clerk’s position. I already knew the bank’s daily operations inside out, and I certainly needed the money.
    I felt good about that decision because I believed it was important to take the initiative in difficult situations and not simply drift along in the current. To have a goal would help.
    Nevertheless, I was still unable to sleep. Though I’d cranked the heat up full blast, there was an inescapable chill in the air that night, so I slid out of bed, donned my slippers and fuzzy robe, and went to the kitchen to make a cup of hot chamomile tea.
    While I waited in the silence for the kettle to boil on the stove, I stared at the kitchen wall and tried to recall happier times with Seth. I thought about the day we walked to the Public Garden and went for a ride on the swan boats. That was probably our best day. I was so in love with him back then, bursting with hope and optimism. I truly believed he would stay and we would become a real family. Oh, how I’d wanted it to be so.
    The kettle boiled and I turned around to pour the steaming hot water into my oversized mug, then took hold of the string and dipped the tea bag up and down.
    What a pleasure it was to make tea on a cold night like this.
    When it was fully steeped, I moved into the living room and sat on the sofa to watch some late night television.
    Mindlessly, I flicked through the channels, then settled on The Tonight Show .
    As I cupped the warm mug in my hands and blew on it to cool it, a strange feeling came over me.
    Sometimes I swore I could feel him out there in the cold, and I felt the chill inside myself. It was a strange feeling because in my heart I knew Seth was gone, but sometimes I still felt something —as if he were calling to me, or as if I was the one who was lost out there, lonely and shivering in the frigid, unforgiving North.
    Why was I feeling this way? Was it possible Seth wasn’t dead? What if he was still out there somewhere, surviving and praying to be rescued? What if he was hurt?
    Suddenly I was overcome by a terrible sense of loneliness and didn’t know how to fix it. The tension made my jaw ache and I laid a hand on my cheek, stroking the pain gently away.
    The Tonight Show continued, but I was barely able to focus on the opening monologue. I kept thinking of that one perfect day in the park when everything was so lush and green. When I felt it was possible that my husband would stay. I replayed those memories over and over in my mind.
    A house on a lake, with purple flowers…

Moving On

Chapter Twenty-eight

    Carla

    Six months after we held the memorial service for Seth, Jane—one of the temps at the bank where I now worked full-time—expressed her condolences over my loss, then immediately asked if she could fix me up with her older brother, who was widowed as well.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not ready for anything like that.”
    Though it was true that Seth hadn’t been gone that long, I had essentially been separated from him for quite some time before his plane went down, and for years had considered myself single. So, why I didn’t feel ready to date, I’m not sure.
    I’d always imagined I would love again someday, ever since it became likely that Seth was not coming home to us and I would eventually divorce.
    I also imagined that the person who would come into my life would be decent and reliable, a family man who would appreciate the love he had at home and not take it for granted. For once I wanted to be someone’s whole world, and I wanted that