Free Indigo by Gina Linko Page A

sides. A chipmunk stopped in its path near a live oak, standing up on its hind legs to inspect me.
    “Hi,” I said, and it scampered off. I walked into the backyard, eyeing the large vegetable garden, and noticed that even though the gardens seemed overgrown in general, they were all blooming and thriving like crazy, overtaking every possible walking surface—the sidewalk, the modest lawn, the small fountain near the shed.
    I heard a voice then, and splashing. My first instinct was to turn around, go back to my car. But then I saw a figure, large and brown, toward the edge of the lake. My first thought was, How did a bear get down here in Louisiana?
    But a tennis ball came flying past me into the yard and the bear followed it, and by then I had put together that this was no bear, but just a behemoth of a dog. It was taller than my waist, its width ridiculous. Paws the size of oven mitts. It ran right past me, chased down the tennis ball. Then it stopped and shook itself, covering me in lake water.
    “Sorry!” a voice called, and I put my hand to my eyes,shielding them from the sun. I could see it was Rennick. A shirtless, soaking-wet Rennick.
    I gulped hard, telling myself not to stare. “I’m sorry,” I began. “I just had to come. I want to talk.”
    “Yeah, I’m glad,” he said. He stopped to shake himself too, not unlike the dog. I couldn’t help but notice that he was thin, yes, but wiry, built. Defined. And when he reached me in the yard, I tried to keep the blush from climbing into my neck, my cheeks, but I knew it was useless.
    The dog joined us, tennis ball in mouth, as if awaiting an introduction. I was so glad to have something else to look at, something that wouldn’t turn me into a slack-jawed moron.
    “This is Bouncer,” Rennick said, taking the ball from the dog’s mouth, throwing it farther than I could see in the sun. The dog took off. “Want something to drink? I have some stuff in the garage,” he said.
    I nodded, trying to smooth down my ignored and frizzled hair. I wondered how he could seem so easy, so confident.
    I followed him toward the small garage, stealing glances at his tanned shoulders, the way his hair curled up at the nape of his neck. I stopped abruptly when I got inside the door of what I first had thought was just a junky shed. I guess I expected lawn equipment, maybe a rusted-out Chevrolet, an old boat, something that screamed Louisiana hillbilly, but this was altogether different, although the old country honky-tonk music played softly from a radio on the counter.
    The garage was a large, bare space, with a high ceilingand exposed rafters. There were red-painted cabinets along the nearest wall, along with a sink and a mini fridge. In the middle of the room sat a long wooden table, just plywood on sawhorses. On it was a bunch of equipment, electrical cables, batteries, wires, things I couldn’t name. Books were everywhere. Piled in corners, stacks as tall as me. Books open on the table. Books on the floor, near the worn black leather couch in the back. But what really got me was the far wall. It was covered, absolutely covered, all the way up to the rafters, in canvases, papers, and tackboard. Painting after painting after painting. At first look, they seemed to be put up haphazardly, but if you studied them, they weren’t. Each one added to the ones near it. They built on each other. Some kind of messy, intricate design. They were all the same kind of painting, but each one was unique, just a study in color, in shading, in tone, in complements. They weren’t rainbowish, no. More like … descriptions.
    Before I knew it, I had walked past the lab table and was standing right in front of the color wall studying the canvases up close, their brushstrokes, the technique. “They’re beautiful,” I said.
    Rennick just laughed a little under his breath, but I heard it there, the twinge of nervousness behind his cool demeanor.
    But for a second, it’s like I forgot why I