The Color of Love (The Color of Heaven Series)

by Julianne MacLean

  Still, he did not wake, so I sat back down in the chair and continued to wait.

  It was probably a mistake to close my eyes, but I was so tired after the long flight from Boston and the turmoil of the day, that I simply couldn’t stay awake.

  Kaleigh must have experienced the same issues because she didn’t return from the lounge when it was time to leave at midnight.

  It was two o’clock in the morning when I sat up in my chair, startled by the raspy sound of my name spoken from behind the oxygen mask.

  “Carla?”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  I practically leaped out of my chair to lean over the bedrail. “Dr. Cameron?”

  He didn’t move his head on the pillow, but his gaze shifted to meet mine. He looked like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

  I reached out to remove the oxygen mask so he could speak.

  “Carla?” he whispered again.

  “Yes, I’m Carla,” I replied. “You’re in a hospital in Newfoundland, Canada. You were found floating on an iceberg a few days ago. We’re so glad you’re all right. If you’ll just excuse me for a minute, I need to go get a nurse.”

  I probably should have pressed the call button, but I was so frazzled, I set his oxygen mask back in place and ran from the room to the nurses’ station.

  “He’s awake!” I said, skidding to a halt. “Room 403!”

  The duty nurse quickly stood but I couldn’t wait for her. I pivoted on the shiny white floor and ran back to the room.

  “The nurse is coming,” I said to Dr. Cameron as I returned to his side.

  He blinked up at me and nodded, then lifted his arm off the bed. I immediately clasped his hand.

  “You’re all right,” I said with a smile. “You’re home now and you’re safe. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  He nodded again, very weakly, and squeezed my hand.

  o0o

  The medical team asked me to leave the room while the doctor examined Dr. Cameron, so I headed down to the lounge area to wake up Kaleigh.

  Shaking her gently, I whispered, “He’s awake.”

  She opened her eyes and blinked up at me. “What time is it?”

  “It’s just after two in the morning, but I have good news. Dr. Cameron woke up a few minutes ago. They’re examining him now.”

  “Is he okay?” she groggily asked while sitting up on the sofa.

  “He seems lucid, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Has he said anything yet? Did you talk to him?”

  “He said my name, but other than that he’s still pretty weak.”

  She inclined her head at me. “Did you tell him your name?”

  In all honesty, it hadn’t even registered that my name was the first word he spoken, until she asked me that. A strange shiver ran though me. “No.”

  “How did he know it was you?” she asked. “From the picture?”

  Of course that was it. That’s how he knew who I was. He might even have been staring at me for quite some time before I woke up. “I guess.”

  Kaleigh rubbed her eyes, then stood up. “Can I go see him?”

  “Not yet,” I replied. “They’re still checking him over. Let’s just wait here.”

  She sat back down again. “See? I told you. This is why it’s good that we stayed.”

  I couldn’t possibly disagree.

  o0o

  A short while later, the nurse came in to speak to us. “Dr. Cameron’s doing well, all things considered. The doctor just finished with him and he’s asking for you.”

  “For me?” I asked, pointing a thumb at my chest.

  “Yes. You’re Carla, right?”

  “That’s right.” Rising to my feet, I asked, “Can I bring my daughter?”

  “I don’t see why not,” the nurse replied. “Just go easy on him. He’s sitting up but he doesn’t have a lot of strength.”

  We followed her down the hall and the closer we got, the more hesitant I became. He was a total stranger to us. I’d never met him before and I knew nothing about him, yet my name was the first word he spoke upon waking from a coma. It was a little unnerving.

  “Hi there, Dr. Cameron,” I said, cautiously entering after knocking on the open door. I noticed they had removed the oxygen mask from his face. “I’m Carla, and this is my daughter Kaleigh.”

  “I know,” he said. “And call me Aaron.”

  I swallowed uneasily. “Do you remember what happened to you?”

  He nodded. “The doctor explained most of it. I just can’t believe I’m here. That I actually made it.”

  I moved to take a seat in the chair by the bed while Kaleigh pulled the other chair closer to sit beside me.

  “You must have quite a story to tell,” I said. “None of us can figure out how you ended up on an iceberg.”

  I was struck by the warmth in his eyes as he regarded me in the dim light of the room. “That’s kind of a long story.”

  “Please, if you’re too tired…”

  “It’s all right,” he replied, waving a hand dismissively. “They tell me I’ve been sleeping for days. God knows I should be rested enough. Though I’m still not sure this is really happening. Maybe I’m dreaming. Or I’m dead.”

  “It’s real,” I assured him, noticing that Kaleigh had suddenly become shy and quiet. I gestured toward her with a hand. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Kaleigh was reading to you today. We thought it might help for you to hear someone’s voice. I wonder if that helped you wake up.”

  He met Kaleigh’s gaze directly. “Thank you, Kaleigh. That means a lot to me. It’s been a long time since I heard the voice of another person. Or read a book for that matter. What was it about?”

  She went to fetch it out of her bag, brought it over and showed it to him. “It’s called Princess Callie and the Fantastic Fire-Breathing Dragon.”

  “Oh, I love stories about dragons,” he replied with interest as he examined the cover. “And this dragon looks pretty friendly.”

  “He is. His name is Earle and he wears glasses.”

  Dr. Cameron smiled up at Kaleigh and handed the book back to her.

  “We’re really glad you’re all right,” she said as she accepted it.

  When she sat back down, I squeezed her hand.

  Meanwhile I couldn’t help but ponder the fact that this was all very polite and courteous, but what we really needed to know was what happened to Seth. It wasn’t an easy question to ask, however.

  “So you were on a plane that crashed,” I said, hoping to ease into it.

  He looked down at his hands and nodded. “You must be wanting to know what happened to your husband.” After a pause, he lifted his gaze. “Seth was on the plane with me. We sat across from each other. Do you know anything about that yet? I’m not sure what’s been discovered since they found me.”

  I shook my head. “Nothing’s been discovered. No one even knows where you landed. There was a search last year but it was called off after about a week when they couldn’t find any wreckage. It was all over the news and eventually everyone assumed you went down in the ocean.”

  “That’s not what happened,” he said. “We crash landed on an island. It wasn’t very big and I still have no idea where it is.”

  “You say we,” I replied. “So you weren’t the only survivor?”

  His gaze shifted back and forth from me to Kaleigh. “No. But there were only two of us that survived the crash—your husband and me. I don’t know why I’m surprised you don’t know this. I don’t know what’s what.”

  Aaron and I stared at each other intensely, and somehow in that moment I knew what he was about to tell me—that Seth had perished sometime afterward.

  But I still needed to know how, why and when.

  I needed to know everything.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Over the next half hour, Aaron described the horrific events of a year ago when the plane went down. He also explained how Seth had taken charge of the s
ituation and saved them both from a deadly avalanche.

  He described the first few days on the island and how they set up camp on top of a small mountain to watch for rescue planes. Eventually they’d returned to the valley in search of food, but had become stranded under a tree in a storm where they were attacked by a lynx.

  Lastly he expressed his regret over how everything went wrong the next day, and how Seth fell off the ridge.

  “I wish there was something I could have done for him,” Aaron said, “but there wasn’t. I’m sorry. It was a bad fall.”

  For a few minutes I wept softly and held Kaleigh, then we wiped our eyes and faced Aaron again.

  “What happened to his remains?” I asked. “Did you bury him?”

  He hesitated. “I’m not sure if your daughter should hear this.”

  “Please, Mom,” Kaleigh said to me.

  I gave Aaron a nod, so after a pause, he continued.

  “I couldn’t bury him because the ground was frozen. All I could do was cremate him and save his ashes.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. “That must have been very difficult for you.”

  He lowered his gaze.

  Quietly, I asked, “Were you able to save his ashes?”

  I knew it would mean the world to Gladys to finally receive her son’s remains.

  Aaron’s eyes lifted. “I put his ashes in a First Aid kit container, but I lost everything when I hit the iceberg. All my belongings went into the sea except for what I had on me, in my pockets.”

  “How did you end up on the iceberg?” Kaleigh asked. “Did you have a boat?”

  “Sort of,” he replied. “After a whole year on the island, I became so desperate to be rescued, I built a raft out of logs and sections of the airplane. I’d seen a few ships go by and I figured I’d take my chances.”

  “How did you get onto the iceberg?” she asked.

  Aaron took a breath and let it out. “I was only out there for a day or two when a family of orcas tried to knock me off my raft—or that’s what I thought at the time. I’m not actually sure what they were trying to do. Maybe they were just playing, but they ended up pushing my raft up onto a flat section of the ice. The raft sank after that, so in a way they saved my life.”

  “You mean killer whales?” Kaleigh asked with fascination.

  He nodded. “After I climbed off the raft, I was able to use Seth’s axes to get to the top.”

  “Wow!” Kaleigh exclaimed. “That’s amazing.”

  “Is it?” he asked. “I’m still trying to decide if I was extremely lucky over the past year, or extremely unlucky.”

  “I doubt it has anything to do with luck,” I mentioned. “You’re here today because you were smart and resourceful and did what you had to do to survive.”

  Maybe he wasn’t accustomed to receiving compliments, or maybe he just wasn’t used to talking to people, but he didn’t respond. All he said was, “Again, I’m very sorry about your husband.”

  “Thank you.” I turned to Kaleigh. “We’ll have to tell Gladys all of this in the morning. And no doubt the RCMP will want a report,” I said to Aaron. “They may have sent out some helicopters yesterday to search for Seth and the wreckage.”

  “I’ll do my best to tell them where the island is,” he replied. “It can’t be too far from where they picked me up. What’s left of the plane is in a valley, dead center. The pilots’ remains will need to be recovered. I’m not sure what happened to the other passenger. His name was Jason and he fell out of the plane as we were crashing. I explored every inch of that island over the past year, but I never found him.”

  I thought achingly of these people who had died and wondered again how Aaron had managed to stay sane all alone.

  “I should warn you,” I said, “the media’s been all over this story. It’s been on all the news channels and online sites.”

  He seemed surprised to hear that. “Really?”

  “Yes, partly because it was George Atherton’s plane that went down. You might want to have your incoming phone calls screened.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.”

  Kaleigh yawned and laid her head on my shoulder. I stroked her hair away from her face. “I think it’s time for us to go back to the hotel,” I said. “I’m sure Aaron would like to get some rest.”

  He watched me in silence as I stood up and gathered our things, and though I knew we had to go, I dreaded walking out the door and leaving him. It pained me deeply to imagine the loneliness he must have endured on the island. I consoled myself with the reminder that there were nurses here and other patients. He was no longer completely alone.

  But still, I hated to go.

  “Will you come back tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied without hesitation. “My mother-in-law might want to meet you as well, if that’s all right. She may have some questions about Seth’s last days.”

  “I’d be happy to talk to her,” he said.

  “And from what I understand,” I added, “they’re trying to locate your family. I’m sure you’ll hear something about that tomorrow as well.”

  He laid his head on the pillow. “I hope so. After all of this, I’d really like to see my parents. They’ve probably been very worried.”

  I felt a heaviness settle in my chest and expand up into my throat. There was so much more I wanted to know about this man and his experiences, but he needed to rest, and so did we.

  At least he and his family would be reunited soon. Thank God for that.

  “I’m sure they’ll want to give you a big hug when they see you,” I replied. Glancing discreetly down at his ring finger, I asked, “Are you married? Do you have a wife or children?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I hope to remedy that one of these days. If I learned anything on the island, it’s that life is short. Chop, chop.”

  I smiled, approached the bed and clasped his hand. “Well, it looks like you’ve been given a second chance at everything. I’m happy for you, Aaron. I’m so glad you made it home.”

  I bent forward to hug him and kissed him on the cheek. My lips lingered there for a moment longer than they should have.

  “Please come back tomorrow,” he whispered in my ear. The urgency in his voice caused a jolt inside of me.

  As I drew away, I felt myself becoming caught in the pale blue of his eyes, and again I dreaded leaving. Something intense and unfamiliar moved through all my nerve endings. I wasn’t sure what was causing it, but whatever it was, it felt important. My desire to learn more about this man overwhelmed me.

  “I will,” I replied. “You have my word.”

  Chapter Fifty

  When Kaleigh, Gladys and I arrived at the hospital the following morning, we had to rush past the reporters. We were then met by a grim-faced Donna at the nurse’s station on Aaron’s floor.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  My stomach dropped. “Why? What happened?”

  I had visions of Aaron falling back into a coma, or perhaps, because he was so frail, that his heart or some other organ had given out during the night.

  The thought of him slipping away now, after coming so far, was like a hard punch to my stomach, and I lost my breath. I felt woozy.

  “Come with me.” Donna walked out from behind the counter and led the three of us into the lounge. “We’ve had some bad news.” She paused and glanced uneasily at Kaleigh. “Officer Jerome called a little while ago to let us know that they tried to get a hold of Aaron’s family. As it turns out, his parents were killed in a collision involving a drunk driver two months ago.”

  I covered my mouth with a hand. “Oh God, no. Does he know yet?”

  Donna shook her head. “Officer Jerome is on her way here to deliver the news, but they were at least able to locate his sister, Penny. She’s making arrangements to fly here, but it might take a while because she lives in Hong Kong.”

  A lump like a jagged boulder lodged p
ainfully in my throat, and I sank onto the sofa and cupped my forehead in a hand. “That poor man. He’s been through so much. What else will he be asked to endure?”

  Donna nodded in agreement. “We’ll have a grief counselor in the room when we tell him, but I thought it might help for you to be there as well,” she said to me.

  “Why me?” I asked.

  “Because he feels a connection to you.”

  I felt a connection to him as well. I’d felt it the moment he spoke my name, maybe even before that, but this was not something I wished to say out loud to strangers, or to Kaleigh who might read too much into it. At the moment I was still trying to tell myself that it was the intensity of the situation causing these feelings in me. A sense of empathy about his ordeal.

  “We barely know each other,” I said, still unable to make sense of it.

  Donna absentmindedly fingered the tiny gold amethyst pendant she wore. “You should know that after you left last night, he asked for the picture of you from your husband’s wallet. He grew agitated when we told him we didn’t have it. The doctor had to give him a sedative to help him sleep.”

  “But he doesn’t even know me,” I argued, feeling confused and perhaps even a little alarmed.

  Donna sat down next to me and laid a hand on my knee. “I wouldn’t worry about this, Carla. He’s been through a terrible ordeal and it’s not surprising that he would experience some anxiety on his first night. The bright side is that he was quite cognizant of the fact that his anxiety was related to his trauma, and he informed us that he fully expects to suffer from PTSD over the coming months and instructed the nurse to ask the doctor to refer him to a therapist as soon as possible.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Exactly,” she replied. “He’s not what I would call irrational. He’s very self-aware. But even after all that, he made the nurse promise to get your picture, or a copy of it, back today. He just wants to have it with him, that’s all, and he said he knows you’re a stranger, but it was either that or another heavy dose of valium again tonight.”

  I covered my eyes with the palm of my hand. “I can’t imagine what this must be like for him. I’m not sure what to do. I wish I could help him, but I’m afraid it’s beyond me. I’m just a bank teller.”