But here I am today, married to an incredible man who loves me with a passion and devotion I can barely fathom. His love is mind-boggling to me, yet I return it with equal measure.
These days, Marissa is busy starting a psychiatry residency in Ottawa. She’ll be specializing in geriatrics. She married Sean two years ago, and he works for the Federal Government. They hope to eventually return to Nova Scotia and raise a family here.
Becky spent a few summers with us in Chester, working at the yacht club as a sailing instructor. She stayed in Gladys’s apartment downstairs, and she and I were able to catch up on some of what we missed over the past twenty years.
But let me reiterate: I never surrendered to regret. My glass is half-full, not half-empty. The way I see it, our separation was only for the first twenty years. There is still so much living left to do. Things left to discover and enjoy.
When Becky finished her doctorate at Oxford, she accepted a position at King’s College in Halifax – only an hour away from us – teaching Classics in the Foundation Year Program. I sometimes smile at the thought that she chose to major in the arts, not science, while my stepdaughter, Marissa, not biologically related to me in any way, is the medical geek. It just goes to show that our children are not carbon copies of us, even if we imagine that is how they will turn out. They have their own souls; they choose their own paths.
Becky is happy and fulfilled in her work. She visits often, and last year, she met a wonderful man who owns a winery in the valley. They just got engaged, so Ryan and I have our fingers crossed that in time, when Marissa comes home, we’ll be blessed with a house full of grandchildren.
As for my father, I never saw him again, though he did leave one voicemail on my phone: ‘I did you a favor, and you know it. And I did that kid a favor. You should be thanking me.’
Ryan and I, together with the Moore’s, were considering our options about charging him with fraud, when he died of a heart attack. It happened about a month after I was reunited with Becky. His neighbor called to tell me that he collapsed in his kitchen. He was alone at the time.
Do I feel guilty about the nasty voicemail I left? Sometimes, yes. I wonder what might have occurred if I’d been less confrontational. Maybe he would have expressed some remorse. I will never know, however, so that is something I must live with.
I will finish now with this thought: Sometimes life is cruel, and it can seem pointless and tragic. But occasionally – surprisingly – certain hardships can lead you down a new path you never dreamed possible.
Maybe that new path was your destiny all along. And when you look back, you do so with acceptance, forgiveness, and peace.
I hope you find the path you are meant to be on. If you haven’t yet, it may be just over the next rise.
Or if you have found it, I hope it is everything you dreamed it would be.
Especially for Book Clubs:
Questions for Discussion
1. In the Prologue, Kate says ‘I’ve often wondered if a person’s life follows a path that is laid out long before he or she ever takes a first step. Or are we in control of what happens to us?’
What do you believe is the answer to this question, and how much control did Kate have over her fate in the end?
2. In Chapter Seven, Kate’s mother says, ‘You’re only fifteen, Kate. There will be plenty of other boys.’ Do you believe it’s possible for a fifteen-year-old girl to know that she’s found her mate for life? Do you think Kate was foolish to believe this? Why or why not?
3. If there had been no ambulance accident, and Kate had her baby according to plan, do you think her father would have kept his promise and allowed her to marry Glenn? Would the marriage have been a success?
4. When ‘Elizabeth’ makes her first appearance at Ryan’s house, had you forgotten about Kate’s story? At what point in the novel did you begin to suspect that Elizabeth and Kate might be the same woman?
5. Do you think Gladys met Becky years earlier? What might have happened? How, or why, did Bubba end up with Marissa?
6. Kate chooses to remember her father’s kind act of making sure that her teddy bear went with Becky to the adoption clinic. Is this a form of forgiveness on her part, and do you believe he deserves it? How did you feel about what happened with her father in the end? Would you have preferred to see things end differently between them? How? And why?
7. In what ways are Kate and Ryan mirror images of each other? How does this relate to the idea of soul mates?
8. What is the significance of the woman from the lake? Kate never learns if she wakes from her coma. Why do you think the author chose to leave that question unanswered for Kate?
9. What are the key themes in the novel? Can you provide a few examples of where the themes are conveyed through the characters’ dialogue or introspection?
10. Do you believe in miracles or real life magic? Or is it all luck and coincidence?
11. Are there any events in your life that seem pre-destined? Why do you believe this?
Read on for an excerpt from The Color of Hope
Available Now
Diana Moore has led a charmed life. She’s the daughter of a wealthy senator and living a glamorous city life, and is confident her handsome live-in boyfriend is about to propose. But everything is turned upside down when she learns of a mysterious woman who lives and works nearby – a woman who is her exact mirror image.
Diana is compelled to discover the truth about this woman’s identity, but the truth leads her down a path of secrets, betrayals, and shocking discoveries about her past. These discoveries follow her like a shadow.
Then she meets Dr. Jacob Peterson—a brilliant cardiac surgeon with an uncanny ability to heal those who are broken. With his help, Diana embarks upon a journey to restore her belief in the human spirit, and recover a sense of hope - that happiness, and love, may still be within reach for those willing to believe in second chances.
Includes Bonus Content: A Bookclub Discussion Guide
The Color of Hope
Copyright Julianne MacLean 2013
Chapter One
Nadia Carmichael
HAVE YOU EVER done something you wish you could undo?
What am I saying? Of course you have. Everyone has regrets. Some are just more life changing than others, and some go beyond a single moment of carelessness. Some regrets are born out over a period of months, or even years of misbehavior, because you didn’t have enough self-awareness or life experience to recognize the error you were making at the time.
For me, the greatest mistake of my life resulted in a shock one autumn morning when I was twenty-seven years old and couldn’t hold down my breakfast.
“Are you all right in there?” Rick asked, pounding hard on the bathroom door. “I need to get in. I’m going to be late for work.”
I moved to the sink to splash water on my face and swig some Scope, which I swished around in my mouth from cheek to cheek. “I’m almost done,” I replied, wiping my mouth with a tissue I’d pulled from the gleaming – and no doubt expensive – silver-plated dispenser. “I’ll be right out.”
I paused to take a breath and calm the sickening sensation of panic that rose from my belly to my chest.
Or was it really panic? Maybe it was nervous excitement. If this wasn’t a flu bug or food poisoning, and I was actually pregnant – pregnant – what would it mean for my future?
By the time I collected myself and emerged from the bathroom, Rick had moved on. He was no longer pounding on the door.
I padded softly across the polished hardwood floor to the kitchen, where I found him with his back to me at the cappuccino maker.
“The bathroom’s free,” I mentioned as I slid onto one of the high stools at the kitchen bar.
“Thanks.” He picked up his coffee cup and disappeared down the hall.
I heard the sound of the bathroom door closing and the water running.
By the time he finished showering, I was dressed and heading out t
he door to work. “See you tonight,” I called out, and went straight to the pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test.
Chapter Two
THAT NIGHT, I picked up some groceries to cook dinner for Rick. Not that I had much of an appetite. I’d felt queasy all day, which wasn’t easy to cope with because I worked as a receptionist in a law firm in downtown LA, and my face was the first thing clients saw when they walked through the door. The pay wasn’t great, but at least I wasn’t cleaning toilets.
It was half past seven before Rick finally walked through the door. I turned on the stove and slid the wok – fully prepped with freshly chopped vegetables – onto the burner.
He entered the kitchen but didn’t look up from his iPhone. “I’m here,” he said. “What did you want to talk about?”
I faced him and wished he wasn’t so impossibly handsome. With that athletic build and thick, dark hair, he always looked like a dream come true in his tailored black business suits. He wore suits to work every day, which always turned me into an idiotic puddle of infatuation, despite my sincere efforts to keep my head.
How could one man be so difficult to resist? There was no point questioning now. It was too late, because I’d already lost every shred of integrity I possessed when I dove head first into this terrible disaster of a relationship five months ago.
Now here we were, facing each other in his kitchen, dealing with the fallout while I feared karma was about to bite me in the ass.
“Go take off your tie and pour yourself a drink.” I turned back to the stove and stirred the vegetables. “Then I’ll tell you all about it.”
I deserved what was about to come my way, I told myself as I spooned the stir fry onto two plates and carried them to the table. I knew, before I sat down, exactly how this was going to play out. Rick might be every woman’s romantic fantasy – because he was a drop-dead-gorgeous professional who earned millions, and when he looked at you, he made you feel like the most beautiful woman alive – but that’s where the dream ended. He had made it clear on countless occasions that he wasn’t the marrying kind. He wasn’t looking for a lifetime commitment. It’s part of the reason why we ended up together. He enjoyed the fact that I had plucked him out of a suffocating relationship, even though I had destroyed my own happiness in the process.
‘Thank God for you,’ he whispered in my ear one night on an elevator. ‘You’re the escape hatch I need.’
I am ashamed by how those words seduced me, and how happy I was to be anything at all to him.
After setting both plates down on the candlelit table, I poured myself a glass of sparkling water.
“You’re not having wine?” Rick asked as he stood up from the computer chair to join me.
“Not in the mood,” I replied, formulating how I was going to explain why.
I decided to eat first. I’d let him finish that glass of wine.
Then I would drop the bomb.
Chapter Three
“I BEG YOUR pardon?” Rick’s eyebrows lifted. He set his glass down, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and leaned back in his chair.
An ambulance siren wailed in the street below his luxury high rise condo, but I was not disconcerted by it, or by the fact that he was clearly shocked and displeased. There was a time I might have crumbled and wept over the loss of a man’s attentions and begged for a second chance – but after what I had done to reach this juncture in my life, I was astoundingly calm and firmly braced for the oncoming rejection. I expected it. Perhaps I even wanted it – because I needed to believe there was some justice in the world.
“I’m pregnant,” I said. I gave him a few seconds to digest my words before I continued. “I threw up this morning, in case you didn’t notice. So I took a test on my lunch hour.”
He stared at me with those spellbinding blue eyes. “I thought you were on the pill.”
“I was,” I explained. “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t forget to take any.”
He frowned at me. “You must have. You were careless and forgot. Or you’re lying. Maybe you wanted this.”
“No,” I argued, dropping my fork with a noisy clank onto my plate. “I didn’t do this on purpose. Our relationship has enough bad blood in it to begin with. I wouldn’t dare add any more poison.”
His eyes narrowed. “How am I supposed to trust you? You?”
Rage, hot and brisk, flooded my bloodstream. How dare he suggest that I was the one who caused all the hurt, as if I were a wicked siren who seduced and lured him into this wreckage. I wiped my mouth with the linen napkin and threw it onto the table. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?”
“Is it?” He shoved his chair back and rose to his feet. “I feel like a damned trout that was flipped around in a frying pan and tossed into the fire. And you know what I’m talking about.”
I picked up my plate and carried it to the sink. My chest was heaving, as if I’d just climbed ten flights of stairs.
I hate you. I wanted to say that and more as I ran the water and rinsed my plate, because I blamed him for everything – for the inconceivable magnitude of my disgrace. For the destruction and collapse of this new world that could have been so good for me. Five months ago, I’d been blessed with a miracle, but I threw it all away for the dream of being with a sophisticated man with money.
Why?
Was I that shallow? That much in need of security? That weak to temptation? That self-destructive? And if so, was it really my fault that I had turned out this way? How much bad luck could one woman take before losing touch with her soul?
Or maybe I was just shifting the blame. Maybe I had to accept the fact that I’d screwed up a lot of things recently, and this was my comeuppance.
“It doesn’t matter if I forgot to take the pill,” I said. “But I didn’t. All we can do is move on. We have to decide how we’re going to handle this.” I shut off the faucet, set my plate in the dishwasher, and made my way back to the table.
Rick sank back into his chair. “You’re sure?” he said. “Maybe you should go to the doctor to get it confirmed.”
I shook my head. “A positive test result is over ninety-five percent accurate. I’m pregnant, Rick. It’s a fact. I know it wasn’t something either of us planned, but this is where we are. So what are we going to do?”
Purchase The Color of Hope
Book Three in the Color of Heaven Series
Available Now
Also Available Now
The Color of Heaven
“A box of tissues should be included in the purchase price of this book.... I finished THE COLOR OF HEAVEN in a matter of hours, but I’ve no doubt the read and the lessons imparted through Sophie’s story will stay with me... probably forever. THE COLOR OF HEAVEN is an incredibly poignant and unbelievably gripping novel, deserving Romance Junkies’ highest rating.” —FIVE BLUE RIBBONS - Chris at Romance Junkies
A deeply emotional tale about Sophie Duncan, a successful columnist whose world falls apart after her daughter’s unexpected illness and her husband’s shocking affair. When it seems nothing else could possibly go wrong, her car skids off an icy road and plunges into a frozen lake. There, in the cold dark depths of the water, a profound and extraordinary experience unlocks the surprising secrets from Sophie’s past, and teaches her what it means to truly live... and love.
Full of surprising twists and turns and a near-death experience that will leave you breathless, this story is not to be missed.
“A gripping, emotional tale you’ll want to read in one sitting.” - New York Times bestselling author, Julia London
“Brilliantly poignant mainstream tale.” – 4 ½ starred review, Romantic Times
Purchase The Color of Heaven for your Kindle
About the Author
Julianne MacLean has written 19 historical romances, including her popular American Heiress Series, which began with the award winning novel, To Marry the Duke. She is a three time Rita Finalist with Romance Writers of America for best hi
storical romance of the year, and has won the Booksellers Best Award, the Colorado Romance Writer’s prestigious Award of Excellence, a Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for her novel Love According to Lily, and was the overall grand prize winner for the More Than Magic Contest in 2004. The Color of Heaven was a USA Today bestseller and is the first book in the Color of Heaven Series. Julianne is also on Facebook and Twitter, and loves to hear from readers.
Contact Julianne through her website at http://www.juliannemaclean.com
Facebook
Twitter
She lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her husband and daughter.
Books by Julianne MacLean
The American Heiress Series:
To Marry the Duke
An Affair Most Wicked
My Own Private Hero
Love According to Lily
Portrait of a Lover
Surrender to a Scoundrel
The Pembroke Palace Series:
In My Wildest Fantasies
The Mistress Diaries
When a Stranger Loves Me
Married By Midnight
A Kiss Before the Wedding - A Pembroke Palace Short Story
Seduced at Sunset
The Highlander Series:
Captured by the Highlander
Claimed by the Highlander
Seduced by the Highlander
The Rebel – A Highland Short Story
The Royal Trilogy:
Be My Prince
Princess in Love
The Prince’s Bride
Harlequin Historical Romances:
Prairie Bride
The Marshal and Mrs. O’Malley
Adam’s Promise
Time Travel Romance
Taken by the Cowboy
Contemporary Fiction:
The Color of Heaven
The Color of Destiny
The Color of Hope
Contents
The Color of Heaven Series [02] The Color of Destiny Page 19
