“Well, are you ready to go?” Luke says from behind. “There’s so many places I’d like to take you.”
My head snaps around, and I’m confused by his sudden disinterest in the paintings. But now that I think about it, he started to seem disinterested a few rows down. I didn’t think anything of it before, but now with his sudden suggestion that we leave just when some of the larger paintings are actually taking my breath away—Oh … wait a minute … no way.
I search his eyes and his face for the answer. He appears uncomfortable, though trying hard to suppress it.
Just the thought of it being true takes my breath away a little. My eyes move from Luke and the painting next to me, and back at Luke and then the painting again. Finally I decide only to look at the painting, the rich, dark sky with rolling gray and purple and red clouds. The vast, endless field of high dry grasses, stroked with yellows and browns, their tops leaning in the same direction as if a strong wind is forcing them over. A woman stands tall amid the grass, her long, blond hair blowing in the breeze, her black dress clinging to her form and blowing briskly behind her in a graceful tail of silken fabric. It looks so real I feel like I can walk right into it and join her.
The painting beside it is just as stunning and lifelike, even frightening. A great wall of rock climbs a thousand feet into the sky, blanketed by lush greenery that crawls the stone like millions of fingers, gripping and tearing their way to the top. Down below, at the base of the mountain, a tiny valley of rolling green hills covers the surface, and a pencil-thin pathway made by man snakes along in one direction as it spreads out into the center of what looks like the bottom of the world. At the top of the ancient stone wall, I spot four tiny figures sitting on rocks perched over the edge, and other tiny human figures standing at the bottom looking up through beams of sunlight and large swaths of shadow cast by the scaling rock above.
I look again at Luke, but he’s no longer looking back at me; he seems lost in the painting, but also just … lost. His smile is gone. That bright, playful personality I’ve grown so easily captivated by, seems shadowed by some kind of darkness.
“Luke?”
He snaps out of it and the smile returns quickly as if nothing at all had just invaded his mind.
“Are you ready?” he asks again.
I shake my head slowly. “No,” I tell him and turn to the painting again. Glancing in the far right corner, I see initials, Luke’s initials, I realize when I think back to his full name, which Paige had pulled out of him—Luke Michael Everett. LME stares back at me, so small I might never have seen it if I weren’t precisely looking for it.
“You painted this, didn’t you?”
FOURTEEN
Sienna
I can hardly believe this; I mean I can, but it’s so … No, this is unreal to me. I feel my lips spreading across my face, my eyes getting brighter. Absently, I reach out my hand and touch his wrist underneath my fingertips.
“Tell me,” I urge him, feeling like I’m going to burst with impatience. “Are these your paintings?”
He smiles gently and nods. “These two are”—he points to my left—“and that one is. A few smaller ones you already saw are mine.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I’m just so absolutely floored by his talent, and the fact that he didn’t tell me right away, that I’m beside myself over it.
“Well, I don’t really like people to know. I mean, it’s not a humble thing, per se.” He laughs. “It’s just that painting is very personal to me. I don’t do it much anymore. Not like I used to. But this here”—he waves a hand about the room, palm up—“being on display like this, it makes me uncomfortable.”
“But why?” My fingers are still on his wrist. “These are … I can’t even … Seriously, Luke, you have a gift.”