The Color of Love (The Color of Heaven Series) (25 page)

“No, but I did a little research on my own. Kaleigh’s on Twitter you know. She posts hints about things every once in a while. You’re following her I hope.”

“Of course. And you are as well?”

“Yeah, I couldn’t help it. I wanted to stay in touch with the two of you somehow, but I didn’t want to come off like a stalker.”

“So you followed my daughter on Twitter? That’s not stalkerish at all.”

We shared a laugh and sipped some more wine.

Aaron slowly spun his wineglass around by the stem. “Can I ask…?” He hesitated a moment, then gazed at me with interest. “Is it serious between you and this illustrious law enforcement officer?”

Feeling warm all of a sudden, I shrugged out of my white sweater, folded it and set it on the picnic table bench beside me.

“I’m supposed to have dinner with him tonight,” I replied. “I think he might want to propose.”

Something flashed in Aaron’s eyes, then his shoulders rose and fell with a deep intake of breath. “Damn,” he softly said. “Will you say yes?”

I felt no desire to be cryptic. “I don’t know. I’m not positive he’s the one.” I gazed out at the lake. “You’d think it would be easier to know these things. Especially the second time around.”

“If you have doubts,” Aaron said, “you shouldn’t rush into anything.”

“That’s what I think, but there are a lot of women out there—good friends of mine—who think I’d be a total nut to say no.”

“It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks,” Aaron said. “You’re the only one whose opinion matters in this.”

“Thank you, doctor. I appreciate the vote of confidence. I need to remember that there are choices. The sun won’t rise and fall forever on this one decision. It will rise again tomorrow, just like it always does, regardless.”

I felt caught suddenly in the striking color of his eyes and couldn’t help but admire the broad cut of his shoulders in the shaded light of the gazebo. His masculine appeal caused a commotion in me.

He stared at me for a long while and I felt completely beguiled. I should have looked away, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the spell I was under. It was like some kind of drug.

The door to the gazebo swung open just then and Kaleigh peeked her head in to ask a question. “Can we go fishing off the dock?”

Aaron grinned at me as if to say
we’d continue this later, then he rose from his place at the table.

“Sure. How about you guys help us clear away the mess? Then I’ll get out the rods.”

“You’ll have to show us how,” she said, moving to gather up the plates. “Neither of us has ever fished before.”

“No problem,” he replied. “It’s not hard. You’ll love it.”

Malcolm came in to help as well, but it took me a moment to reboot my brain before I could join them.

o0o

When no one experienced even the smallest nibble after about twenty minutes, and the idea was presented that the rowboat should be launched, Kaleigh and I offered to remain on shore while the men rowed out to the center of the lake where the fish were jumping.

I was proud of Kaleigh for understanding that Aaron and Malcolm needed time alone to talk.

Before long, the mosquitoes appeared, so we decided to wait inside the house and watch from the windows.

I found Aaron’s coffeemaker and filters and started a pot, then wrestled Kaleigh into helping me do the dishes.

Every few minutes I checked out the window to see how the men were doing. They were still fishing. I hoped Aaron had bug spray in his tackle box.

After we finished tidying the kitchen, Kaleigh sat down on the sofa to attempt the brain teaser game again, while I poured myself a cup of coffee and watched her. When at last she solved the puzzle, I decided to give it a try, so she got up to go and check out Aaron’s books.

I was deeply focused on the game when I heard her call out to me. “Mom, look what I found.”

“Hold on a second,” I said, moving a piece of the puzzle from one spot to another.

“No, you have to look,” she said. “It’s Dad’s journal.”

My eyes lifted and everything seemed to happen in slow motion as she stood in front of the bookshelves, opening it to the first page.

Chapter Sixty-six

“That’s private.” I rose to my feet. “You shouldn’t look at it.”

She didn’t appear to have heard me. She was too deeply engrossed in what she was reading.

“Kaleigh,” I repeated. “Put it away. It’s private.”

“Wow,” she said, still not hearing me at all. “Mom, you have to read this.”

“No,” I said, crossing the room and snatching it out of her grasp. “I’m not going to read it and neither should you. How would you feel if someone read
your
diary?”

She looked up at me in shock. “I didn’t think of it that way.”

“Well, that’s the way it is. This is Aaron’s private journal. He was very generous to share certain parts of it with us, and it was nice of him today to tell us all those stories in the gazebo, but we shouldn’t read this.”

Her eyes were wide. She looked pale.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

She shook her head. “Not a ghost. It was something else.”

I wish I could say I told her to keep it to herself, but the temptation was too great. I was entranced by everything to do with Aaron, and to be presented with something he had written while stranded on the island was too much for me to resist. “What was it?”

Kaleigh stared at me uncertainly for several seconds, as if she wasn’t quite sure if she should tell me. Then she glanced down at the book in my hands. “The stuff that’s written on top of Dad’s entries… Those are love letters,” she finally confessed.

I frowned and looked down at the book. “What do you mean?”

My blood began to race.

“They’re all written to you.”

o0o

A half hour later, I’d read what I could decipher from the vertical writings that crisscrossed over the horizontal lines. At first it was mostly a record of the events that had occurred, similar to the entries written by Seth that Aaron had transcribed and sent to Gladys.

Towards the end, however, there were no further entries about what Aaron caught for dinner, or how he ran from a bear. Every page was a promise—always something specific and concrete—like a vow to take me to a particular movie or cook me a special dinner, and never to disappoint me.

The last thing I read, he had promised to buy me the house I wanted by the lake, with purple flowers.

Eventually I realized that Kaleigh was sitting beside me on the sofa with her hand on my back, asking, “Are you okay, Mom?”

I stood up and walked to the window, and looked down at the flower boxes full of purple and violet petunias.

The screen door opened suddenly and I could barely see straight through my blurry wet eyes. Holding the journal in my hands, I turned to face Aaron.

He stopped just inside the door, fishing rod in one hand, bucket of fish in the other, and all the color drained from his face.

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” he said.

Stomach churning, I set it down on the window sill. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“Did you read it?”

Unable to lie to him, I nodded.

His Adam’s apple bobbed and he bent forward to set down the bucket of fish and lean the rod up against the wall.

The door swung open and Malcolm followed him in. “Did you guys see what we caught?” he asked. “They were biting like crazy!”

“You had a good time?” I asked, not wanting to spoil what had been a perfect day for Malcolm.

Aaron wouldn’t look at me. He noticed the full coffee pot and went to pour himself a cup.

Kaleigh immediately went to check out the fish in the bucket. “Wow,” she said. “Let’s go outside and take some pictures of them.”

“Good idea,” Malcolm replied.

Again, I was amazed by my young daughter’s awareness and discretion.

As soon as the door swung shut behind them, I moved into the kitchen where Aaron was standing at the coffeemaker, looking down at the cup he’d just poured. I laid my hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know what happened to you.”

“I’ve told you what happened,” he said, meeting my eyes. “How much did you read?”

“I read the letters you wrote,” I replied.

He bowed his head and shook it. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t want you to see those. I was half out of my mind, Carla.”

“No…” I softly said.

He turned to me. “
Yes
. All I did those last few months was imagine that I was married to you and that you were waiting for me to come home to you. And I think I actually believed it when I built that raft and sailed for the shipping lanes. What sane man would do something like that?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What you read… It was fantasy. Maybe on a conscious level, but maybe not. I don’t know.” He brushed past me and moved to the window to retrieve the journal. “You won’t need a restraining order or anything. I promise, I’m fine now.”

A deep sorrow filled me, and I followed him to the window. “The purple flowers…” I said, looking out at the window box below us. “Were these for me?”

“No,” he gently said. “They were for
me,
because by the end of it, that dream of yours was mine, too. When I saw this place for sale online, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. It was all here, the lake, the gazebo, even the flowers. I bought it, just as it was. I didn’t plant a thing.”

I looked out at the water. “But it’s so perfect.”

“I know.”

We stood in silence, listening to Kaleigh and Malcolm laughing and talking outside.

“It’s still my dream,” I said. “And I’m not sorry I read those letters, Aaron. It was the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen. I’m only sorry I didn’t ask your permission first. I feel like I stole something from you.”

I felt his hand clasp mine. “No.”

Then he took me into his arms and held me close.

“I’m the one who wants to steal something,” he whispered in my ear. “And from a cop no less.”

My breath hitched in my throat, and my pulse skyrocketed. “I’d really like it if you’d kiss me right now.”

He drew back and took my face in his hands. Anticipation rose up from my depths, on top of the strange, unbreakable connection that seemed to form an electric current between us every time we met. Thoughts of him over the past few months, endless dreams of the two of us together, had dominated my world and filled me with doubts about my future. But all the doubt was fading away now. I knew what I wanted and I finally understood what it all meant—or maybe I always had. It wasn’t until this moment that I became brave enough to trust it.

The sunlight beaming in the window reflected in Aaron’s eyes. Then he pressed his lips lightly to mine.

I closed my eyes and relished the taste of him, the feel of his warm callused hands sliding down to the tops of my shoulders, then pulling my body close, anchoring me to him.

The kiss was hot and wet and filled me with inconceivable desire.

“Carla,” he whispered in my ear, sending shivers straight down to my toes. “Don’t leave. Don’t go to him tonight. Stay here with me.”

Without answering the question, I wrapped my arms around his neck, rose up on my toes and kissed him again, parting my lips and tasting the delicious flavor of his mouth.

My body felt charged and alive, and I wanted him with something close to an obsession. A feeling of profound joy and intimacy flowed through me, and I drew back to hold his face in my hands.

The door opened just then and we stepped apart.

Kaleigh and Malcolm walked in. “Are you going to show us how to gut them?” she asked, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the ultimate shattering of the most romantic moment of my life.

“Sure,” Aaron said, his eyes glistening with joy as he turned around. “And I hope you’ll all stay for dinner because we caught enough to feed an army.” He turned back to look at me again. “Unless you have other plans.”

I gazed up at him with wonder. “No,” I breathlessly replied, feeling a sense of completeness I’d never known before. “I don’t have any other plans. We’d love to stay. Malcolm, you’ll have to call your mom and let her know.”

“Sure,” he replied, and walked outside to dial her number.

Aaron reached for my hand and smiled. “Then let’s go clean some fish.”

Epilogue

Aaron

My story is not common, and today I look back on my life with immense gratitude for all that I’ve experienced, both the pleasures and the ordeals. I am a better man because of all of it, and my world is far richer than it was before.

Of course I am not speaking of material things. For a full year I learned to live without any of that. All I had was the great and astonishing magic of the universe, the company of the animals in the forest, a few tools and gifts from Seth, and the command of my intellect and imagination. But that’s when I discovered the ultimate strength within me. No matter how dark things became, no matter how desperate or lonely, I always believed there was a light somewhere beyond my ability to see.