Color My Heart: A Red Hot Summer story. by Red Garnier

Chapter One
    Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing?
    Pablo Picasso
    Billy Hendricks slammed the door of his red Toyota Camry and crossed the parking lot toward the two-story apartment complex. Looked like it was about to rain. Odd for this time of summer. Clouds—heavy and angry—gathered in gray clusters above him.
    Good thing he’d decided not to wash the car today, he thought with a grunt, and slapped the magazine he’d picked up at the corner store to his thigh.
    Taking the stairs two steps at a time, he reached the second-floor landing and heard whimpers. A figure was huddled down the hall, looking more like a sack than a human being. Frail shoulders racked with sudden, jerky movements, while sharp, heart-wrenching sobs tore into the air.
    Billy moved forward, rolling the magazine into a tube and slipping it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Hey,” he said gently, on his knees as he cupped one bony shoulder in his hand. “Are you all right?”
    Her head snapped back and a pair of wide blue eyes that shimmered with tears looked up at him through a fringe of wet lashes. He’d expected a kid, but he found a woman.
    Young, maybe in her mid twenties, with a tiny nose and a very small, plush mouth.
    Her hair was cropped, so that maybe looking at her from behind, she’d be mistaken for a boy. Yet Billy found nothing boyish about her face. It was delicate. Pretty. Not sexy, not beautiful, but pretty all the same. It was smeared with mascara and moistened with tears.
    “Are you okay?” he asked.
    She stopped crying and gave one last sniffle before she wiped her hand across her face. “I’m fine.”
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    Red Garnier
    Billy required no PhD to know she was far from fine. She looked vulnerable and lost, and by the way her shoulders slumped, he guessed she was in sore need of a friend. “You don’t look fine. Can I help with anything?”
    She gave him a quick once-over, as if debating whether he could deliver or not. “No, I-I’m fine. Really.”
    “Do you live here? Are you waiting for someone?”
    She put a thumb out and pointed farther down the hall, then grudgingly said, “I’m at 221.”
    “Really? I’m 229.” Strange he’d never seen her before. Or had he? She was small, a bit on the plain side, easily overlooked perhaps.
    She tried to return his smile, but hers was brief and broken, the kind you shouldn’t even bother with in the first place. “Guess I’d better get back to my place,” she said as she scrambled to her feet.
    Billy followed her up, noting the top of her head didn’t even make it to his chin.
    Thunder rolled across the skies, the soft pitter-patter of rain hitting cement and the scent of dampened soil stirring in the air. “You sure you’re all right?” he insisted, falling into step beside her.
    She nodded, and her eyelashes pointed toward the pair of old, unlaced sneakers she wore. Billy scrutinized her profile, wondering if the pain etched on her face had been put there by a man. It pressed all his buttons in the wrong way, making him want to do something violent—maybe even illegal. Her nose was tiny as a button, and her doll-like features provided an interesting contrast to the loose green cargo pants she wore.
    She halted at the door, her back to him as she opened it.
    Billy lingered there as she entered, waiting for some sort of indication, a sign that she’d be all right.
    She turned to him slowly, her eyes downcast. Then her lashes rose and her gaze—
    now a vivid, electric blue—shocked the air right out of him. And then she jumped him.
    6
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    Color My Heart
    Billy staggered back from the impact of her weight, her ravenous mouth all over his face at once. His mind reeled as he clamped his hands on her arms. “Whoa, now hold on a sec.”
    She held on, all right. She held on tighter. Her arms firmed around his neck and her legs clenched tight around his hips, her ankles locking behind him. Her