The Color of Love (The Color of Heaven Series) Read Free Page A

and I were huddled inside the plane, grateful to have a roof over our heads while a vicious blizzard raged outside.
    I didn’t bother to find a place to lay out my tent as a distress signal because it would have been buried within an hour. Either that, or it would have been ripped away by the wind.
    And we couldn’t venture out to search for Jason.
    All we could do was sit and wait out the storm, uncomfortably aware that any potential search and rescue attempts would also have to be postponed until the weather cleared.
    o0o
    “I guess it’s lucky for me that you’re a mountaineer,” Aaron said as he rubbed his palms together over the small fire I’d lit on an aluminum tray inside the plane. “I can honestly say, no one else I know would pull an ice ax, ropes and a thermal sleeping bag out of his carry-on.”
    I leaned back in my seat and regarded Aaron curiously. “I have two axes. One for each hand. But you must know something about climbing if they hired you to film us going up the side of the volcano.”
    He chuckled. “No, I’m a city boy through and through. This isn’t even my day job. I’m just here because I own a decent high def camera and a Go Pro.”
    “You’re kidding me.” My eyebrows pulled together in surprise. “So you don’t know anything about climbing?”
    “Not a thing.” He raised his boot to show me. “I just bought these hiking boots two days ago, and I got the Go Pro because I wanted to film tropical fish when I went snorkeling in Mexico last year.”
    “What’s your day job, then?” I asked, intrigued but unimpressed.
    “I’m a therapist, and I teach guitar lessons on the side.”
    “How do you know George Atherton?”
    Aaron continued to hold his hands over the fire. “He’s a client.”
    Maybe it was bad manners, but I laughed. “So are you his therapist or his guitar teacher?”
    “Therapist. But don’t worry, he hired an experienced D.O.P. to be in charge of the shoot, and from what I hear, the guy’s a real pro.” Aaron leaned to the side and gestured toward his camera case at the front of the plane. “I doubt I’ll be shooting anything now. My camera’s probably wrecked.”
    “Cameras can be replaced,” I carefully reminded him.
    Aaron’s gaze met mine. “Yeah. We were lucky last night.”
    While we considered the loss of life and pondered the miracle of our existence on that day, the wind howled like a beast through the treetops overhead. Then suddenly… boom ! There was a thunderous explosion and the whole plane shook.
    Aaron jolted and looked up. “What was that?”
    I remained seated in a lazy sprawl, slightly amused as I peered up at him. “Relax city boy. A big clump of snow just slid off a tree and landed on the roof.”
    He let out a breath and relaxed. “Ah.” Then he frowned. “No chance we’ll get buried alive in here…”
    “Don’t worry,” I replied. “I’m keeping a close eye on the situation.”
    “Good to know,” he said uneasily.
    As I watched him lay another stick on the fire, I wondered if I should search for that bottle of single malt scotch, because the poor guy was seriously out of his element. He could probably have used a drink or two right then.
    I could have used a couple myself.

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Chapter Seven

    Carla Matthews
    Boston, Massachusetts

    I was in the kitchen cooking cheesy bowtie pasta for Kaleigh when the telephone rang. She had just arrived home from school and was doing her homework on the sofa.
    “Hello,” I said, resting the receiver on my shoulder as I strained the pasta over the sink.
    The voice on the other end caught me by surprise. I immediately set down the colander and turned to face Kaleigh, who was punching numbers into her calculator and scribbling in her notebook.
    “Hi Gladys,” I said. “It’s nice to hear from you. It’s been a while.”
    Over a year, in fact.
    Not that I was counting the days or anything.
    But seriously . One would think a sixty-year-old woman living alone would take