The Color of a Dream

by

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.