The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time by Julianne MacLean

Author:Julianne MacLean [MacLean, Julianne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 25921569
Publisher: Julianne MacLean Publishing Inc.
Published: 2015-09-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-one

A feeling of peace washed over me as I stood on the dock, watching Chris step into the wooden rowboat. He set the oars down with a gentle clatter, and reached out to me.

Taking his hand, I stepped in. The boat bobbed and rocked beneath my feet, upset my balance, so I made haste to sit down in the stern while Chris untied us and sat on the center bench, facing me. He rolled up his sleeves, set the oars into the rowlocks, and soon we were cutting through the still water, moving away from the dock and out of the secluded cove.

The steady, smooth thrusts of his oars against the resistance of the water lulled me into a state of pure tranquility. Neither of us spoke, for we were attentive to the sounds of the natural world—the water dripping from the oars each time Chris raised them up, the seagulls calling out to each other, the perfect calm of the windless evening.

We both looked up when a flock of ducks flew over us in V formation. They were silhouetted against the twilight sky, quacking noisily. As soon as they were gone and their sounds faded over the treetops on a distant point, our eyes met.

“It’s beautiful here,” I said.

“Yes,” Chris agreed. “We’ll go along the shoreline to get away from the neighborhood lights. I know a great spot for stargazing.”

With the soles of his sneakers planted firmly on the floorboards, he rowed with a physical strength that impressed me. I found myself watching the thick bands of muscles in his forearms flex and relax with each long stroke of the oars. His gripped the handles tightly and my eyes fell again upon the scar I had noticed at the table.

“Where did you get that scar at your knuckle?” I asked.

He glanced at it briefly. “That’s from a surgery I had when I was a kid.” He was slightly out of breath as he spoke. “I fell out of a tree and broke my hand. I have another scar on my back from the same fall. I went down through a bunch of branches and got scraped up pretty bad. I can’t complain, though. If I’d landed two feet to the left, I would have been impaled on a wrought iron fence. I’m lucky to be alive.”

“Wow. That was lucky,” I replied. “I guess it wasn’t your time yet.” I lifted the hem of my skirt to show him my worst scar. “I have a bad scar on my knee from falling outside my school when I was twelve. I never told my mother this part, but I was late and I didn’t go to the intersection to wait for the lights to change. Instead, I ran across a busy street where there were cars coming from both directions, and they were all going really fast. I stumbled, but managed to stay on my feet long enough to get to the other side where I wiped out really hard. Luckily, I didn’t fall in the middle of the street, or I would have been flattened like a pancake.

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