Reckless In Love (The Maverick Billionaires #2)(3)
“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.