Read The Colors of Love for Free Online

Here, and here. Yes.
    Enough now.
    She loved the way the colors of rain blended with the colors of man, car, and pavement. Now, with the discipline she'd learned over the last six years, she knew it was time to stop, to let go until she could return, her eyes cold and critical.
    She turned away, forcing her eyes to break contact with the canvas. As she carried her tin of solvent and brushes into the kitchen, she heard a soft thud, turned, and remembered Squiggles with a sense of pleasure.
    How amazing that she'd forgotten the cat entirely while she painted, that Squiggles had allowed her to forget. Now, as she washed her brushes carefully, he prowled back and forth between her legs and the kitchen cupboards.
    "You already have food."
    "Meow."
    She laughed and picked him up, cradling him in her arm as she carried the brushes back to the cart beside the easel. Almost ten o'clock. She'd intended to be at the hospital by now. She carried him into the bedroom, put him on the bed, and then shed her blue painting smock and nightgown.
    Squiggles jumped off the bed and followed her into the bathroom, purring as she started the shower. Five minutes, she thought, in and out. She grabbed a hair clip from the vanity, caught her hair back, and stepped into the shower. Soaping her body under the beating water, a memory caught her, a dream memory... his fingers trailing across her naked flesh, evoking a trembling wave of hunger.
    She turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, but he wouldn't leave her mind, and she wondered if he would be there, in the hospital, when she arrived. He might be somewhere in the multistoried building, and she'd never know; or he could be standing beside the little girl's bed when Jamie arrived, his eyes watching as she walked into the room, narrowing with—
    With criticism, she decided, rubbing herself briskly with the towel, remembering the wariness in his eyes every time he'd looked at her. She didn't think either one of them had meant that kiss to happen, explosive enough to blow the top off Liz's pressure cooker even though he didn't really like her.
    Of course he didn't dislike her. He didn't know her, any more than she knew him. She'd painted a fantasy of Dr. Kent on her canvas, but the real man remained a mystery.
    She put on jeans and a loose, colorful shirt, then used a hair pick to untangle her curls before she clipped them back with a fastener.
    She dug in her closet for the small, patchwork leather backpack she'd bought for her trip into the redwood forest last year. She put a hand towel in the bottom, and a few pieces of dry food from the kitten's food dish. When Squiggles sniffed at the pack curiously, she opened the top wide and left him there, exploring, while she put on her shoes. When she was ready to go, she put him into the pack, relieved that he seemed happy enough to burrow inside.
    Two steps from the door, she reached to grab her purse from the telephone table, but there was no purse, only her keys lying sprawled over the small table.
    Of course there was no purse, and no car outside waiting for her either. Her car was parked on Magnolia Bluff, outside the old house where Sara lived.
    She slipped her keys into her jeans pocket, put the pack on properly with straps over both shoulders, then reached back to free her hair from the straps. Squiggles shifted in the pack, thrusting his body against her spine. She couldn't feel his warmth, but thought it would seep through the pack by the time she got to the hospital.
    Outside, the overcast was high and bright, a sign that the sun might break through later today. She walked quickly, saw the bus waiting at the traffic light a block away as she reached the corner. The light turned green, and as the bus began to move, Jamie started to run, racing Metro for the bus stop in the middle of the block.
    As she ran, she felt a wild exhilaration pumping in her veins. She loved the way the sun threatened brilliance through the thin overcast, the way