The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time Read Online Free Page B

don’t care!” she ranted.
    Poor Jenn was white as a sheet by that point. She took hold of my hand and squeezed it.
    The outraged girl backed out of the line. “That’s it, Ethan! I’m done with you! You wouldn’t know a good thing if it bit you in the ass. I’m leaving!”
    Ethan folded his arms across his chest, ignored her and faced forward. I felt his anger and frustration like a hot radiator, three inches from my back.
    “Seriously?” the girl shouted from the middle of the street, spreading her arms wide. Everyone in the lineup turned to look at her, including Jenn and me. “You’re just going to let me go? You’re not going to say anything or try to stop me? Because I promise you Ethan, this is it. It’s the end. No second chances.”
    The guy named Ethan continued to face forward with his arms folded at his chest, staring up at the list of ice cream flavors next to the service window.
    Our eyes locked and held and I felt a spark of excitement at how impossibly gorgeous he was with that dimpled chin, chiseled cheekbones and tousled, sun-bleached hair.
    We shared something in that moment—a look of intimate commiseration.
    “Sorry about that,” he whispered with an apologetic shrug.
    “It’s okay,” I replied. “It’s not your fault.”
    His girlfriend must have been watching because she suddenly stomped back toward us with her sights set on me this time. “Hey you! What are you saying to him?”
    “Nothing,” I defensively replied, facing forward again.
    She stood beside me. “I saw you talking to him.” Then she shoved me and I stumbled into Jenn.
    My temper flared. I wasn’t used to getting pushed around, so I retaliated by taking a threatening step toward her. “Try that again. I dare you!”
    Jenn backed away.
    Ethan stepped between us, took the girl by the elbow and quickly ushered her into the shade around the side of the ice cream truck.
    “Leave her be,” he said. “She was just standing there, minding her own business.”
    The girl inclined her head to check me out from head to foot. “Minding her own business… Yeah, right. What are you looking at?” she asked me.
    “Not much,” I replied with a big dose of attitude because this girl was seriously grating on my nerves.
    Her cheeks flushed and Ethan turned to look at me with a mixture of shock and amusement.
    I was so wrapped up in how handsome he was—and how badly I wanted to shove Corrine’s face into the side of the ice cream truck—that I didn’t notice Jenn backing into the intersection.
    Only the scream of a woman across the street alerted me to the fact that a car was coming, and my sister was standing right in its path.

Chapter Nine

    I didn’t see what happened until it was too late, but I’ll never forget the sound of steel colliding with bone. It was an abrupt thunk, followed by an unnatural silence.
    “Jenn!” I ran into the street where she’d been knocked down on the pavement. The car stopped and the driver—a young woman with two children in the backseat—got out.
    I knelt down beside Jenn. She rolled onto her back and blinked up at the sky in a daze.
    “Are you okay?” I asked.
    “I think so.” Her voice was weak and shaky, but thank God, she was conscious.
    The driver leaned over me and covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh, my God! I’m so sorry! Is she all right? She came out of nowhere!”
    Another woman knelt down beside me. “I’m a nurse. Can I help?”
    “Yes, please,” I replied, vaguely aware of Ethan whipping out a cell phone behind me and calling 9-1-1. That was significant at the time because none of my friends had cell phones.
    “Where does it hurt, sweetheart?” the nurse gently asked.
    “My arm,” Jenn replied, sitting up.
    “Anywhere else?”
    Jenn shook her head. “No.”
    “Can you tell me your name?”
    “Jennifer Nichols.”
    The nurse took hold of Jenn’s wrist to examine it, but Jenn cried out and cradled it close to her chest.
    “She’ll definitely