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

the tree line onto a rocky clearing—a good place to set up camp and light a fire to dry out our layers.
    It also provided a panoramic view of the valley below where the plane had crashed. Just as I’d suspected, there was a trail of destruction through the trees. Unfortunately, much of it was now obscured by snow that fell during the blizzard the night before.
    “I wonder where we are,” Aaron said, sitting up. “Do we have any idea?”
    I slid my pack off my shoulders and set it down on the ground. “None. But it’s a clear day so we should keep our eyes and ears open for planes or helicopters. We need to be ready to signal to them when they come. The first order of business is getting this tent set up. We’re in a good location here. No one could miss us.”
    Aaron watched me open my pack and hunt around for my water bottle.
    “You seem pretty confident they’re going to come,” he quietly said.
    “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.” I found my water bottle, opened the cap, took a few sips and offered it to him.
    We stared at each other for a few tense seconds. I kept my thoughts to myself.
    At last, he took the bottle and guzzled.
    “But you see,” he began to explain as he wiped his mouth, “I’m a clinical psychologist, so I’m pretty sure that what you’re doing here is trying to keep me busy and distracted so I don’t panic and start to freak out.”
    He handed the water bottle back to me.
    “If I was worried about you freaking out,” I replied, “I wouldn’t have told you that we were standing in an avalanche death zone.”
    He stared at me for a long, steady moment—no doubt trying to read my expression, to get into my head.
    “Just don’t worry about me, okay?” he said. “I may not know how to repel down a glacier, but I have good coping skills. I’m not going to start screaming or doing anything stupid.”
    “I’m not worried about a thing,” I assured him as I unrolled the tent and handed him a mallet. “I just want to get this tent set up.
    As we set to work, I wondered if he knew I was lying.
    o0o
    After setting up camp, it seemed all we did for the rest of the day was sit in silence and watch the sky, listening for the distant, coveted sound of an engine propeller or helicopter blades beating against the frigid air.
    There were no such sounds. It remained eerily quiet on the hilltop, hour after hour.
    Surprisingly windless, it was a perfect, fresh clean winter’s day. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had in fact died in that plane crash and this was my version of heaven.
    But no, if this was heaven, I wouldn’t be sitting here with a city boy who didn’t know what a crampon was. I’d be sitting with fellow climbers— good climbers—who had passed on before me.
    Eventually, thoughts of heaven steered me back to the terrifying moments when the plane was crashing.
    Please God, just give me one more chance. If you let me live, I’ll do better… I won’t break any more promises.
    Promises to whom? Carla of course.
    I couldn’t help but think about what I’d walked away from years ago when I was possessed by summit fever. When all I wanted was Everest.
    Then I thought about the documentary in Iceland, and how badly I wanted to be there.
    “Are you married?” Aaron asked.
    I leaned back against a large rock and took another sip of water. “Yeah, are you?”
    “No,” he replied, “but that’s all I thought about when we were going down.”
    I’m not sure why exactly, but I was intrigued by this. I suppose I was still uncertain about what I truly wanted and what I believed was most important in life.
    I didn’t enjoy disappointing people. Or God—if He even existed.
    Yet my personal version of heaven spoke volumes, didn’t it? It certainly wasn’t a house with a white picket fence.
    I sat forward. “What did you think about?”
    “Regrets, mostly,” Aaron explained. “I wished I’d had the chance to have a family—I always wanted a son or daughter—but life