Reckless In Love(2)

She said it as though it had been the easiest thing in the world, but he  knew better. Knew just how hard it was to bring your vision to life.  Knew, in fact, that it could be impossible to see that vision work out  just right. But she'd done it not only with the elephant, but also with  every other creature in her garden. And with an effortlessness that blew  his mind.         

     



 

"I suspect you're the only artist on the planet who can take the bell  from a sousaphone and make it look as if an elephant's ears are  flapping."

She tipped her head as if he'd just performed an astonishing feat.  "Nobody's ever seen the intended effect before. I had to beat them into  submission, of course-bend the rims, manipulate, and add to them, but  that's exactly what I was going for. Flapping ears." She caressed the  tubes forming the basic structure of the animal's haunches and he swore  he could feel the heat of her touch all along his own muscles. "I used  the tuning slides and the rest of the sousaphones back here. I've always  thought musical instruments were like diamonds, that you should never  throw them away."

He turned to find her startlingly green eyes on him again. The marks of  the mask were starting to fade, leaving a beauty so pure, so fresh, it  stunned him all over again. Even if her art hadn't blown his mind,  Charlie herself was worth the price of admission to her backyard art  museum.

"You found all this in junkyards?"

"And thrift shops. Parents make their kids join the school band, but  after two years those kids hate it. And bye-bye trombone." She threw out  her arm, and again he saw the play of muscles in her shoulders and  along her throat. "I saw the sousaphone first. It looked like an  elephant's ear-and suddenly I knew I needed to bring him to life." She  spread her hands to encompass the structure made up of saxophones and  horns, tubas and flutes, even drums. "It took me five years to find all  the instruments."

"Five years?" She continued to surprise him. "For one project?"

"I worked on other pieces at the same time. And I also teach welding over at the junior college."

"It still shows a great deal of dedication to one vision." He understood  that kind of dedication. At the age of eighteen, he and his four best  friends, the Mavericks, had vowed to get out of the Chicago hellhole of a  neighborhood they'd been born into and strike it big. They'd all made  good on that pact. Clearly, Charlie Ballard had the same kind of  single-minded vision.

"Five years of dedication to a piece of junk I can't even give away,"  she said with a smile. A smile content enough that he suddenly wondered  if she'd ever really tried to find a buyer.

"Are you going to try selling it to me?"

"Do you want her?" Her eyes lit with humor as she nodded toward her  small house on the other side of the acre. "I could use a new roof."

This time, he was the one laughing out loud. "Maybe one day I'll succumb  to the need to take the elephant home with me, but today I'm not here  for the elephant, the ram, the lion, the lizards, or the scorpions."

"Scorpions?" She shook her head. "They're Zanti Misfits from The Outer Limits."

"You mean that sci-fi TV show from the nineties?"

"Not the remake," she said with obvious disgust. "The original."

He was hard-pressed to fight back his grin at just how much fun it was  to talk with her. He couldn't remember the last time fun had factored  into his relationship with a woman. Especially a lady he was senselessly  attracted to. Not only was her art magnificent, but so was she. He  wanted her with a sweet kick of desire low in his gut.

"Tell me more about these Misfits." Lord knew he'd felt like one when he  was a kid, living with two alcoholics who often forgot they even had a  son.

"They used to do TV marathons of The Outer Limits when I was a little  kid," she explained. "They had the worst special effects, but the  stories were great. ‘The Zanti Misfits' was my favorite episode-all  about expecting the unexpected. My dad had a big barrel of nuts, bolts,  and screws in his workshop, and I was so inspired by the show I swear  they seemed to build themselves. They were my very first sculptures, and  every once in a while, even though I already have a zillion of them, I  have to make another."

Suddenly, Sebastian realized there were Misfits creeping around  everywhere. Small compared to the rest of her work, they were still  fierce little creatures, their pruning-shear claws ready to snip the  toes off trespassers.

"Is that how you get your ideas?" He wanted to plumb her creative  depths, her mind. Hell, he wanted to delve into every single part of  her. "You see something that inspires you and you just start building?"

"Sometimes," she mused, and he appreciated that all his questions didn't  seem to bother her. "Or sometimes it's a place, like the church in San  Francisco where you saw my dragon sculpture." The sun created a rainbow  of reds in her hair. "A dragon was meant to sweep its tail over the  path, barely missing Sunday parishioners. So I walked inside and asked  if there was any interest in my building one for them."         

     



 

Every day Sebastian put himself out there in a seminar or book or TV  presentation. Through his company, Montgomery Media International, he  strove to help other people fulfill their destinies, something he found  extremely gratifying. But though it seemed he didn't have any secrets,  the truth was that he'd never offered strangers a piece of his heart and  soul. And he sure as hell wasn't willing to expose what he created to  anyone, deliberately keeping his drawings locked away in his den at  home. He was the exact opposite of Charlie, who was so easy about his  visit to her studio, so relaxed in answering his questions, so carefree  about the idea of asking a church if she could build them a sculpture of  a dragon.

Then again, Charlie's talent was in performing a miraculous  metamorphosis of junk heaps into amazing creatures, whereas his talent  was in helping people transform themselves. He'd wisely given up his  dreams of being an artist a long time ago, had accepted as a teenager  that he'd never see his work hung on a gallery wall.

He ran a hand through his hair, not sure why he kept spinning back to  the past today. Especially when it was the future he was far more  interested in-one that had Charlie Ballard playing a starring role.

"I'm glad the church was smart enough to be interested. And I hope they  paid you well for the dragon. It's unlike any sculpture I've ever seen."

"It's Chinatown and everyone loves the dragon at Chinese New Year, so I  gave it to them. The dragon couldn't have lived anywhere else." She  gestured to her crowded garden. "Not even here."

He supported numerous charities, but he still frowned upon hearing that  she hadn't been paid for her work. "You don't need to give your  sculptures away for free."

She raised an eyebrow at the slight scolding in his tone and answered him back just as firmly. "I do just fine, thanks."

He liked that she had an independent streak, her spirit matching her  strong, lithe body. He liked everything about her a great deal, in fact.  And yet, she really did need that new roof, one she could easily afford  if any other collectors discovered her talent. And if she were willing  to charge for her art's true worth.

What, he suddenly wondered, was holding her back from being the  superstar that lurked inside her? With her talent, she brought out the  majesty in mere junk, like revealing the swan hiding inside the ugly  duckling. She had huge vision and saw shape and form in things that no  one else could even begin to imagine. So why wasn't her metal statuary  displayed all over the world, in museums and buildings and parks?

Sebastian vowed to find out. But first he needed to convince her to work  with him. "I'm opening a high-rise office in San Francisco at the end  of September." He'd taken over an existing structure and was rebuilding  it to suit his needs, including a production studio. It would be his new  headquarters and that of the Maverick Group as well. "There's a  fountain in the lobby center." He let silence beat for three seconds.  "It needs you." I need you. The thought hit him hard, right in the solar  plexus, where no other woman had ever gotten to him. "It needs one of  your sculptures."

"You want to commission me to design something?" She still sounded as though she couldn't quite believe what he was saying.

Had no one ever let her know just how extraordinary she was before today?

"I'm planning a grand opening for the building, attended by friends,  business associates, clients, customers, art enthusiasts. The fountain  and its statue-the one you're going to create for me-will be the  centerpiece of the event." Her work would be seen by everyone who was  anyone in San Francisco and beyond. But it was more than her work that  he wanted people to discover and appreciate. "We won't just unveil your  art, we'll unveil you to the world too."