Chasing Rainbows A Novel - By Long, Kathleen Page 0,81
Clair de Lune. Emma had turned her head, eyes wide with wonder, and she’d listened.
I’d keep the bear. After all, who knew what surprises life had in store.
As I watched Diane cradle her new son, happy laughter built inside me, nothing more than a slight bubble at first, building in intensity, growing until it tumbled out of me, spilling into the room.
“Bernie?” David took a step closer, concern plastered across his face.
“Junior,” I said, my laugh growing stronger, my smile spreading wide across my face.
David smiled. Diane smiled. Before I knew it, the three of us laughed and cried while Ashley practiced dramatic eye rolls.
Life was funny...and wonderful.
Sometimes you had to wait a little while for the good times to kick in. But when they did, you realized every moment and experience that came before was necessary…necessary to bring you here.
o0o
The skies that had been threatening all day gave way during my drive home from the hospital. Rain slapped at the windshield, coating the glass with a thick sheet of water.
I could make out the shopping center to my left and realized it had been a while since I’d sat in the café, watching the world go by.
No time like the present to see what new inspiration I could find studying Genuardi shoppers. After all, it looked like I had some columns to write.
I didn’t notice the darkly clad figure racing across the parking lot next to me until we both reached the overhang running the length of the store.
I flattened my back to the wall, grimacing against the squish of rainwater in my sopping-wet sandals.
“Nice choice of footwear, Number Thirty-Two.”
The rumble of his voice was unmistakable and the tightening of my belly undeniable.
Number Thirty-Six.
I looked up at him, relief washing through me at the sight of his smile. “I was going for bold and daring,” I answered. “Not good?”
The rain pelted the awning over our heads, like applause in a too-small space--loud and out of control.
He laughed a hearty, from-deep-inside-the-soul laugh. The kind I hadn’t heard in a long, long while.
“What?” I asked, as if Number Thirty-Six owed me an explanation for his joy.
He smiled down at me, tiny creases framing his dark eyes, laugh lines bracketing his sensuous mouth.
My heart tilted sideways.
“I was just thinking.” The deep timbre of his voice tickled something deep inside me, a craving I’d thought long dead. The desire to be spoken to, whispered to, made love to. Not sex. Love.
I did my best to arch a brow. After all, two could play the neighbors-trapped-under-an-awning game. “Thinking what?”
His lips parted, exposing a wide grin. A great big, wonderfully uninhibited grin.
“Rain like this--” he tipped his chin toward the downpour “--we’ll have to sing a rainbow.”
For one very long moment, the world hushed around me. I saw nothing but the intensity of his gaze. Heard nothing but the reverberation of his words in my mind.
I thought of the inscription in Dad’s book and what Mom had said the day she’d handed me the cryptograms.
I’m sure your father thought he’d have more time.
I thought about the puzzles he’d chosen and realized my dad’s message may not have been complete, but wasn’t that the beauty of life?
Wasn’t that the beauty of learning and growing and stumbling and getting back up and trying again?
“Is that something you say a lot?” I asked Number Thirty-Six. “The rainbow thing?”
Number Thirty-Six frowned slightly and laughed. “No. It sort of popped into my brain just now. Funny, huh?”
“Funny,” I said in a whisper.
It was all so simple, wasn’t it? In the end, life boiled down to whether or not we chose to sing our rainbows.
If possible the rain picked up in intensity.
For longer than I cared to admit, I’d been content to be carried--a loose twig washing downstream with the current.
I hadn’t tried to swim to shore. I hadn’t tried to buck the current. I hadn’t tried, period.
But standing there, looking into Number Thirty-Six’s face, I saw the possibilities and realized I was ready to risk giving everything I had to give.
“So what do you think?” he asked.
I blinked myself back into focus. Number Thirty-Six had been saying something while I’d been lost inside my head. “I’m sorry?”
He jerked a thumb toward the café sign at our back. “Buy you a cup of coffee?”
I stole another look at his laugh lines. At that moment, he looked like...well...he looked like someone I might want to know forever.
I smiled then. A real smile. The kind of smile that pulls you taller, straighter, brighter.
“Coffee sounds great,” I said.
And you know what?
It was.
-o0o-
About the Author
Kathleen Long is a RITA nominated, RIO Award and two-time Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence winning author of thirteen novels of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. Her additional honors include National Readers Choice, Holt Medallion, Booksellers Best, and Book Buyers Best award nominations. After a career spent spinning words for clients ranging from corporate CEOs to talking fruits and vegetables, she finds great joy spinning words for fictional characters, places and plots. She divides her time between suburban Philadelphia and the Jersey shore. Please visit her at www.kathleenlong.com.
Other Books by Kathleen Long
Contemporary Romance
Get Bunny Love
Cherry On Top
Romantic Suspense
Silent Warning
When a Stranger Calls
Without a Doubt
Reluctant Witness
A Necessary Risk
High Society Sabotage
Christmas Confessions
The Body Hunters
Positive I.D.
Cold Case Connection
Undercover Commitment
Novellas
It’s a Wonderful Night
Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
About the Author
Other Books by Kathleen Long
Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
About the Author
Other Books by Kathleen Long
Table of Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
About the Author
Other Books by Kathleen Long