The Color of a Dream

by Julianne MacLean

  The Color of a Dream

  by

  Julianne MacLean

  The Color of a Dream

  Copyright 2014 Julianne MacLean

  ISBN-13: 978-1-927675-09-0

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or a portion thereof, in any form. This book may not be resold or uploaded for distribution to others.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art design by Kim Killion

  Photo credit: Charles E. Doucet

  Editing: Patricia Thomas

  Formatting: Author E.M.S.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Prologue

  A New Life

  Revisiting the Past

  Dreams

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Questions for Discussion

  Other Books in the Color of Heaven Series

  Praise for Julianne MacLean’s Historical Romances

  Other Books by Julianne MacLean

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Jesse Vincent Fraser

  Sometimes it’s difficult to believe that coincidences are simply that: coincidences.

  How could it be that easy when the most unlikely events occur and we find ourselves connecting with others in ways that can only be described as magical?

  Until recently, I didn’t believe in that sort of thing—that fate, destiny, or magic played any part in the outcome of a man’s life. I always believed that what happened to me later, when I became a husband and father, resulted from the decisions and choices I made along the way, with a little luck—good or bad—tossed into the pot for good measure.

  Things are different for me now. How can I not believe in something more, when what happened to me still feels like a dream?

  It’s not difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when my world began to shift and all the puzzle pieces began to slide into place. It was a month before Christmas almost twenty years ago. A heavy, wet snow had just begun to fall.

  I was fourteen years old, and it was the day I began to hate my older brother.

  Chapter One

  Some people said we lived in the middle of nowhere because the road wasn’t paved and ours was the only house for many miles.

  I didn’t think it was nowhere. I liked where we lived on the distant outskirts of a quaint little town where our father was the only dentist.

  I suppose it was a bit remote. Once you drove past our house, which stood at the top of a grassy hill with pine trees behind it, you reached a bend in the road and were suddenly surrounded by thick forest on either side. It was extremely dark at night.

  That didn’t stop people from speeding, however, because it was the only alternate route between our town and the next and there were plenty of country folk who preferred to avoid the interstate. Partly because our road provided a more direct route into town, but mainly because it was where the bootleggers lived. If you wanted liquor after hours—or if you were underage—a fifteen-mile drive down a deserted gravel road was only a minor inconvenience.

  More than a few times, we were awakened in the night by drunks who drove into the ditch where the road took a sharp turn not far from our home. We always left our outdoor lights on all night, so we were the first house they staggered to. Luckily, the ones who came to our door were always polite and happy drunks. There hadn’t been any fatalities and my father never refused to let them use the phone to call a tow truck.

  The event that changed my relationship with my brother, however, occurred in the bright cold light of day during the month of November, and we weren’t coming from the bootlegger’s shack. We were on our way home from a high school football game where we’d just slaughtered the rival team—thanks to my brother Rick, who was captain and star quarterback.

  Earlier in the day, Rick had been coerced by our mother to let me tag along to the game. Now he was dropping me off at home so that he and his buddies could go celebrate.

  * * *

  As we turned left onto the gravel road, the tires skidded and dust rose up in a thick cloud behind us. Rick was doing the driving and I was sandwiched into the back seat between two keyed up linebackers.

  “Did you see the look on the other coach’s face when you scored that first touchdown?” one of them said. “We were only five minutes into the game. I think that’s when he knew it was going to get ugly.”

  “Ugly for them, but not for us,” Greg said from the front seat. He high-fived Rick, who lay on the horn five or six times.

  The car fishtailed on the loose gravel as he picked up speed, eager to get rid of me no doubt.

  “Hey,” Greg said, turning to speak over his shoulder to Jeff, the linebacker to my right. “What are you going to do if Penny’s there?”

  I may have been only fourteen years old, but I’d heard all the gossip surrounding the senior players on the team. They were like celebrities in our town and if the school could have published a tabloid, these guys would have been on the front cover every week.

  “She better not be there,” Jeff replied, referring to the house party they were going to as soon as they dropped me off. “She knows we’re done.”

  “She won’t take no for an answer, that one,” Rick said.

  “He speaks from experience,” Greg added, facing forward again.

  Everyone knew the story. Penny dated my brother for three months the year before, but when she got too lovey-dovey he broke it off with her. She wouldn’t stop calling him though. Then she had a minor mental breakdown and lost a lot of weight before her parents finally admitted her to the hospital. She was out of school for a month.

  This year, she’d set her sights on Jeff and they’d had a brief fling a few weeks ago. Now he was avoiding her and everyone said he had a thing for some girl in the eleventh grade who just broke up with her longtime boyfriend. I heard he went off to college in September, joined a fraternity and decided he didn’t want to be tied down anymore. She was heartbroken and Jeff wanted to step in and lift her spirits.

  We all knew what that meant.

  I felt sorry for her. I also felt sorry for Penny, who kept getting her heart stomped on and would probably end up in the hospital again. From where I stood at the sidelines, it seemed obvious that she should steer clear of the football team and maybe join the science club instead, but girls just didn’t seem to go for guys like me who were good at math. They liked big muscles and stardom. Even if it was only small town stardom.

  We drove past the Johnson’s hayfield and I wondered what the cows thought of the dust cloud we were creating as we sped up the gravel road.

  When at last our large white house came into view at the top of the hill, Rick didn’t slow down and I wondered how he was going to make the turn onto our tree-lined driveway.

  That was the moment I spotted Francis—our eleven-year-old golden lab—charging down the hill to greet us.

  Chapter Two

  I grabbed hold of the seat in front of me and pulled myself out of my sandwiched position between Jeff and Rob.

  “Slow down,” I said to Rick. “Francis got loose.”

  What was he doing out of the house? I wondered. Our parents weren’t home. They’d left early that morning to visit my grandmother. Rick was the last one to leave the house and before that I was sure I’d seen Francis asleep on his bed in the family room as I walked out.


  “I’m not slowing down,” Rick said. “We’re already late for the party, thanks to you.”

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion after that…as I watched Francis gallop down the hill, his ears flopping. The sound of our tires speeding over the packed dirt and gravel was thunderous in my ears.

  “I think you better slow down!” I shouted, hitting Rick on the shoulder.

  “Shut up,” he said. “He’s not stupid. He’ll stop when he gets closer.”

  My heart rose up in my throat as our two paths converged. I prayed that Rick was right about Francis knowing enough to stop when he reached the road.

  Then whack!—the horrendous sound of the vehicle colliding with my dog.

  Only then did Rick slam on the brakes. “Shit!”

  “Did you just hit your dog?” Jeff asked as the car skidded sideways to a halt and we were all tossed forward in our seats.

  “Lemme out!” I cried as I scrambled over Jeff’s lap.

  Rick was quicker to open his door and leap out to see what had happened.

  My whole body burned with terror at the sight of Francis, more than ten yards back, lying still at the edge of the road.

  Chapter Three

  I ran to Francis as fast as my legs would carry me and dropped to my knees. I laid my hands on his belly, rubbed them over the contours of his ribs and shoulder blades.

  “Francis!” I cried, but he didn’t move.

  Rick shoved me aside. “Move Jesse! Let me check him!”

  I was practically hyperventilating as I stood up, only vaguely aware of the other three guys coming to take a look.

  “Is he okay?” I asked, while Rick pressed his ear to Francis’s chest to listen for a heartbeat. Then he put his fingers to Francis’s nose. “Shit!” he shouted. “He’s dead.”

  “What? No! He can’t be!” I dropped to my knees again and laid my head on Francis’s side. There were no signs of life. I stared at his belly, willing it to rise and fall. I needed to see him breathing, to know it wasn’t true.

  “Maybe we should take him to the vet!” I pleaded, unable to accept what I knew to be true. “Maybe they can save him!”

  “It’s too late,” Rick said. “He’s gone.”

  The words, spoken so straightforwardly, made my eyes fill up with tears while blood rushed to my head. My temples began to throb.

  “Why didn’t you slow down?” I demanded to know. “He was running straight for us.”

  “I didn’t think he’d hit us,” Rick explained.

  “What a stupid dog,” Greg said.

  “He’s not stupid!” I sobbed. Then I stood up and slammed my open palms into Greg’s chest to shove him away. He was built like a tank, however, and barely took a step back.

  “Settle down,” Rick said, hitting me in the shoulder and shoving me.

  “This is all your fault!” I cried. “And what was he doing outside? Didn’t you shut the door when you left?”

  He stared at me for a long moment, then shoved me again. “This isn’t my fault. It’s your fault, jerk, because we wouldn’t even be here if Mom didn’t force me to drag you along. We wouldn’t be late for the party. We’d be there right now, and Francis wouldn’t be…”

  Thank God he stopped himself, because I don’t know what I would have done if he’d finished that sentence. Actually said the word.

  Still, to this day, I fantasize about tackling Rick in that moment and punching him in the head.

  But my anger was tempered by grief. I felt as if I were dissolving into a thousand pieces. I swung around and sank to my knees again, gathered my beloved dog—we’d had him since I was three years old—into my arms and wept uncontrollably.

  “Jesus,” Jeff said. “What are we gonna do? We can’t just leave him here.”

  “No,” Rick agreed. “We’ll have to take him up to the house.”

  I felt his hand on my shoulder and this time he spoke more gently.

  “Come on Jesse. We have to get him off the road. Help me lift him. We’ll put him in the car.”

  I glanced back at my father’s blue sedan. “How?” I asked, wiping at my tears with the back of my hand.

  “We’ll put him in the trunk.”

  “The trunk?” I replied. “No. He can’t be in there alone.”

  “It’s the only way,” Rick replied. “We’ll cover him with the blanket. Now get up and help me. Guys? You gotta help too. He’s gonna be heavy.”

  Each breath I took was a hellish, shuddering ordeal as I slid my hands under Francis’s torso and raised him up. He was limp and it took four of us to carry him to the car. In hindsight, we should have backed the car up closer, but we were all pretty shaken. Well, at least I was shaken, and I can only assume Rick was as well, though he certainly didn’t show it. Maybe it was because his friends were there. He seemed more irritated than anything else.

  Awkwardly we placed Francis in the trunk and Rick covered him with the green plaid blanket my father always kept on hand in case we got stranded in a snow storm.

  “Stop crying,” Rick said as he shut the trunk. “It’s over now and we can’t do anything to change it.”

  I felt the other guys staring at me as if I was a wimp, but I didn’t care. I opened the car door and got into the front seat, forcing the other three to pile into the back together. I’m sure they weren’t happy about it, but they had the sense not to object.

  Before Rick got in, he went around to the front of the car to check for damage.

  “How’s it looking?” Jeff asked when Rick got in.

  “The fender’s dented.”

  “At least it’s just the fender,” Greg replied. “You won’t even need to tell the insurance company. You can just hammer that out.”

  Rick started up the engine. This time, he drove slowly as he turned up our driveway and began the long journey up the hill.

  I could barely think. I felt like I was floating in cold water, bobbing up and down while waves splashed in my face. I had to suck in great gulps of air whenever I could.

  At last we reached the house and everyone got out of the car. I have no memory of the next few minutes. All I recall is sinking down onto the cool grass in our front yard next to Francis while Rick stood over us.

  “We have to go,” he said. “When Dad gets home, make sure you tell him it was an accident and that Francis came out of nowhere.”

  “But he didn’t,” I replied.

  “Jesus, he was running like a bat out of hell.”

  He was just excited to see us, I thought, as I ran my hand over Francis’s smooth coat.

  “You better tell him it was an accident,” Rick warned me as he returned to the car, “because you were there, too, and this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t.”

  “I told you to slow down,” I insisted.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “It’s your word against mine,” Rick said, pausing before he got into the car, “and I have witnesses. On top of that, I’m pretty sure you were the last one to leave the house, remember? Mom’s always telling you to shut the back door.”

  It wasn’t true. I hadn’t left the door open. I was waiting in the car when Rick came out with his gear slung over his shoulder, running late as usual.

  I couldn’t wait to tell my father the whole story when he got home. And I was going to tell the truth, whether Rick liked it or not.

  Chapter Four

  I’d always suspected that Rick was my father’s favorite. He was his firstborn child after all, my father’s namesake—though my father went by Richard.

  When you compared Rick and me, I realized it must have been difficult for my mother to pretend I was as special as him because he excelled at everything he did. He was good looking and popular, he played a number of sports equally well, and he possessed a fierce charisma that seemed to put most people in some sort of hypnotic state. Every other person in a room seemed to disappear when Rick walked into it. All eyes turned to him and everyo
ne was mesmerized. He knew all the right things to say, especially to grownups, and everyone who met him was suitably impressed.

  ‘You sure hit a home run with that boy, Richard,’ friends of my father would say when they came over to the house—or ‘He’s going to be a heartbreaker,’ women said to my mother at the supermarket.

  I suppose I was invisible in the glare of such perfection, but to be honest, I didn’t mind because I was a bit of an introvert, which was why I didn’t go seeking a spotlight by trying out for sports teams or running for student council. I was quite content to sit quietly in the corner of a room while Rick carried on conversations or told stories that made everyone laugh.

  Naturally he was voted most likely to succeed during his senior year of high school—which turned out to be a good prediction because he ended up working in LA as a sports agent, earning millions from celebrity clients.

  But that came much later. I shouldn’t be skipping ahead when you probably want to know what happened when my parents came home and found me huddled in the front yard with Francis in my arms.

  Chapter Five

  It was dark by the time they drove up the tree-lined drive. I should have at least gone into the house to get a warmer jacket at some point, because it was late November in Connecticut and near the freezing point on that particular day after the sun went down. But I didn’t want to leave Francis, so I sat there shivering in my light windbreaker until the car headlights nearly blinded me.

  My mother was first to get out of the car. “Oh my God, what happened?” She strode toward me and crouched down, laid her hand on Francis’s shoulder.