The Genius and the Muse

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “Oh yeah, that Brandon Wylie, he’s an irresistible one, all right.”

  Reed shook his head. “I still can't believe you convinced him that Italian girl was into him.”

  Sam belly laughed at the memory of the assistant’s enraptured face as he stared at the gorgeous print model who was trying to relate in broken English that she only wanted a bottle of water, and not a date. Sam still wasn't sure whether Wylie had understood the girl wasn't interested in him. She was positive the model had no idea, but both Reed and Sam had quietly laughed for weeks every time Wylie mooned over the beautiful Cecilia.

  Reed may have made fun, but Sam knew who the models were really interested in. Her boyfriend was gorgeous and incredibly sexy when he was working; she knew that better than anyone. His intense concentration and focus were enough to convince more than one model that he secretly had a ‘thing’ for them. It had put him in a number of embarrassing situations, which Reed usually reacted to by becoming a huge asshole and wrecking more than a few egos.

  He paused after he slipped on his jeans. “Hey, Sammy, after Vanessa’s visit next month, why don't we go down to Savannah like you've been wanting to? We could take a whole week—just the two of us. I’ll deal with Lydia. It'd be good to get away for a while. We, uh… we haven't been away for months.”

  They hadn't been away since she had lost the baby, but he didn't mention that. Sam looked at Reed and his hopeful expression. She nodded silently and he smiled.

  “Sure.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, that sounds fun. Great idea.”

  He nodded again, “We just need some time away, I think. Just you and me.”

  She smiled again as she watched him pull on a grey t-shirt. He leaned over and kissed her goodbye, whispering “I love you” in her ear and giving her a quick wink and a sly grin.

  Sam smiled and waved goodbye as he left the apartment, ignoring the automatic tightening in her gut. She would never have considered herself an insecure person, but in the months since she’d had her surgery, Sam had become somewhat illogical about the number of gorgeous women who threw themselves at her boyfriend on an almost daily basis. She knew she was overreacting, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to grab hold of her usual composure or confidence.

  There were times since the previous spring that Sam almost felt like she was being held together by bits of string. She was emotional, broke into tears at the slightest provocation, and slept far more than she ever had in the past. She’d also lost an unusual amount of weight because she forgot to eat.

  She hadn’t realized until she lost the baby how much she treasured the idea of having Reed’s children someday. Now, the doctors informed her it was possible, but would be much more difficult when they were ready to try because of the damage from the ectopic pregnancy and the resulting infection and surgery.

  Sam shook herself awake, throwing on a robe and going to the small kitchen to make coffee. She heard the knock on the door just as she took her first sip. Frowning, she walked to answer it, wondering who would be visiting so early.

  “Lydia?” she asked as she opened the door. “Since when are you up at”—She squinted at the clock in the kitchen— “nine in the morning on New Year’s Day? In Brooklyn?”

  Lydia swept into the apartment and collapsed on the couch. “Don’t ask, just give me coffee.”

  She snorted at her friend and went to the kitchen to grab another cup.

  “Are you the one that booked him for the crazy shoot this morning?”

  She squinted at Sam as she thought. “Oh, the Von Rothenberger shoot? Yeah, that guy’s nuts.”

  Sam chuckled. Leave it to Lydia. She walked over and set the coffee down on the end table before she settled down to work in her sketchbook.

  “Sam?” Lydia asked as she dozed on the couch, completely ignoring the coffee Sam had brought her.

  “Lydia?” She was sitting at her drafting table, fidgeting with a charcoal sketch she had started in the subway the other day. It was the closest she had come to drawing people in months, and the toes of the busker peaked at her from behind the open guitar case strewn with coins.

  “When are you going to let me put together a show with all your canvases of Reed?”

  Sam smiled at the familiar question. “Mmm, let me think. Probably… never.”

  “Sammy?”

  “Yes, Lydia?”

  “You realize that straight women and gay men would gather from the four corners of the earth to attend that show, and pay ridiculously high prices for any of those canvases of your gorgeous boyfriend, right?”

  She smirked and glanced up at her friend and agent.

  “Yes, Lydia.”

  “Think about it, we would both be set for life.”

  “Still no.”

  “Selfish bitch…” She heard Lydia mutter, but Sam just smiled.

  “Sam?”

  “Lydia?” she answered drolly.

  The agent was silent for a long moment, and Sam continued sketching, her head cocked to the side as she examined the edge of the guitar case on the paper in front of her.

  “You know how much he loves you, right?”

  Sam’s fingers fumbled for a moment and the charcoal fell from her careful grasp. She stared at the unfinished detail on the frayed case.

  “Yes, Lydia.”

  Her friend’s voice was uncharacteristically hoarse when she spoke again. “He’s really worried about you, Sammy.”

  Tears fell on the paper in front of her, magnifying then washing away the rough threads of the stitching she had sketched so carefully the day before.

  “I know.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Claremont, California

  June 2010

  “So… yeah, be pissed at me if you want, but you’re—you’re one of a kind, so just find a guy that gets that, you know… or just ignore me because it’s none of my business anyway. Bye.”

  Kate listened to the message left by the surly sculptor for possibly the twentieth time. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he hadn’t called again, but—to be fair—she hadn’t responded to him, either. She was strangely touched by the brusque voice mail. She knew Javi meant well, but she was still confused about what, exactly, he was trying to say.

  Added to that, she found herself confused by her own mixed feelings for the man. She tried to brush off her curiosity about him as artistic interest, but her thoughts weren’t lingering on the larger than life steel sculptures he created and displayed, and she couldn’t stop wondering about Susan Rhodes saying she had “charmed” him. Much to her irritation, she found herself getting nervous at the thought of calling him back.

  She’d woken in the middle of the night with an idea for a series of self-portraits, excited about the project until she realized the person who would best be able to help her was the sculptor whose message she hadn’t returned for weeks.

  “Shit.”

  She picked up her phone. He probably wouldn’t even answer. Taking a deep breath and trying to imagine speaking in her most professional voice, Kate dialed the phone number she had programmed in weeks before when he had called her the first time.

  She heard his phone ring and ignored the strange flutter of nerves that grabbed her throat for a moment.

  It’s a professional call, Kate. It’s just Javi.

  Javi. The sculptor. Dee’s friend, who relaxed her and unnerved her at the same time. Javi, the talented artist whose intense scrutiny threw her off balance the few times they’d been in contact. Javi, who seemed to see everything, even things she hadn’t been able to admit to herself. She swallowed quickly as she heard the expected recording pick up, relaxing slightly as she began speaking.

  “Hi, Javi. It’s Kate. I, uh… I have this idea—I mean, I don’t know if you’d even be willing to help me or how busy you are right now. I imagine it’s kind of presumptuous, but—”

  She heard her phone beep and knew instinctively that it was him returning her
call.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  She had to answer. He’d know from her message that she was the one calling. Taking a deep breath, she clicked over.

  “Hello?”

  “Katie?” A deep voice, rough from sleep, answered her. She gaped, suddenly unsure of what she wanted to say.

  “Javi?”

  Of course it’s Javi, you idiot.

  Kate heard him take a breath and exhale. “Yeah?”

  “Did I—did I wake you up?”

  There was a pause. “Yeah, I guess so. I—” He cleared his throat. It worked a little bit, but his voice was still a rough growl that sent a shiver down her spine.

  “I’ve been working for a few days.” She heard him release another deep breath. “Hmmm, what time is it?” he murmured.

  Her heart rate picked up. She had woken him, and a picture of him lying bare-chested in bed leapt unbidden to her mind. She had only peeked at the intriguing tattoos that covered his thick muscles, but somehow in her mind’s eye, she saw his richly decorated chest and arms laying against a white background as he spoke to her.

  “It’s… uh, it’s around eleven in the morning.” She swallowed and willed the image away. “On Thursday. I was just going to leave a message for you. I figured you’d be working.” She squirmed, still trying to erase the mental picture from her mind as he replied.

  “Well, you’ve got me now. What did you want?”

  “I—um, you know, just call me back when you get a cha—”

  “I’m awake now, Kate,” he voice was clipped. “What do you need?”

  You. She almost said it before thinking. Wait, what?

  Kate finally blurted out, “I have a project I was thinking you might be able to help me with! It’s a series of self-portraits. I know it’s kind of presumptuous, but you have some things at the warehouse—”

  “Yeah sure,” he answered quietly before she could finish her thought.

  “—and they—what, really?” she said, shocked by his quick agreement.

  She heard him let out a yawn into his phone, and she pictured his square, stubbled jaw stretching with the sound. He didn’t reply to her question, so she continued. “Listen, Javi, I got your message and—”

  “Then you got my message,” he interrupted, suddenly sounding more awake. “I said what I wanted to say. What time?”

  “What? I mean, I just—I didn’t mean to ignore you when—”

  “Yeah, you did, or you would have called me back. Listen, Kate, my hair’s too short to braid. I said what I needed to say. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing else to talk about. I can probably help you with this project, if you want.”

  Kate nodded into the phone silently, even though she was alone in her small apartment. “Um, okay. Thanks.”

  “I’ll be at the warehouse tomorrow morning around eight. Come whenever,” he said. “I’m going back to sleep now.”

  “Okay. Thanks, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She could have sworn his breath caught a little when he answered, “Bye.” Then he abruptly hung up.

  Kate sat at her small table in the kitchen, staring at her phone for a few moments and wondering why her heart was still racing.

  Pomona, California

  June 2010

  Javi saw her small silver car pull into the warehouse the next morning a little after eight o’clock. He sipped his coffee and watched her through the small window near the kitchen. She got out, then reached into the car to grab her camera case. He bit back the groan when he saw the bare length of her legs. She walked toward the door of the warehouse, which was cracked open. He couldn’t help but notice how the morning light caught her red hair, and he brushed a hand over his face, trying to clear his mind.

  “Too young,” he said, pulling his eyes away from her. “Too pretty. Too damn breakable.”

  He hadn’t been able to sleep after she called, so he’d worked on some projects around the Craftsman house in Lincoln Heights he’d bought the year before and was restoring in his spare time. He worked on sanding the woodwork in the front dining room until he could hardly keep his eyes open, trying to fathom what had possessed him to offer the use of his warehouse to the distracting girl.

  He could hear her picking her way through the maze of materials and equipment that littered the large space. He’d turned his usual punk music off that morning, in favor of the moody sounds of slide guitar. He went to sit at the small table, still drinking a cup of coffee from the donut shop while he paged through the local paper.

  Javi glanced up as she drew nearer, examining her before returning his eyes to the story about halted residential developments. She was wearing a pair of cutoff denim shorts and a small blue tank top. His eyes lingered on her legs, wondering how they had remained unmarked as she stumbled through the cement blocks, rebar, and sheet metal that littered his space.

  “You need better shoes in here. Boots or tennis shoes or something. I’d rethink those shorts, too, but they’re your legs.”

  She ignored his barking orders and set her camera bag down as she sat across from him. “Good morning to you, too. No Sex Pistols today?”

  He grunted, “Not exactly the best thing for a hangover.”

  “I like Iron & Wine, too.”

  Of course you do. He brushed a hand across his face and exhaled. “Goody for you. So, what’s the project?”

  Javi was never a fan of small talk, so he appreciated when Kate immediately launched into a description of what she wanted to do, which involved posing herself in various parts of the warehouse. She wanted the ruined, industrial look as a background, and thought the light would be easier to control indoors. As she elaborated on what she wanted to accomplish with the series of self-portraits, Javi allowed his mind to wander, knowing that he would agree to pretty much anything she wanted.

  Just keep talking so I can watch your lips.

  He’d thought about Kate Mitchell far more than he should have in the past month. In fact, ever since the phone call at his sister’s house, Javi had been forced to admit that his interest in her was decidedly nonprofessional.

  “—I’m going to New York in a couple of weeks with Susan, but if I could get started before I go—”

  As he listened to her explain her goals for the project, Javi found himself fascinated by the distinctive curve of her lips and the contrast of the rose hue against her pale skin. She had a sprinkling of freckles against her nose and cheeks as if tiny sparks had sprayed against her skin, marking her.

  Where else do you have freckles, Katie?

  He scowled. Javi was frustrated by how attractive he found her. Kate’s hair reminded him of a flame, not the sharp, hot flame of the welding torch, but the cooler diffused flame of the annealing torch he used for silversmithing, which heated a piece of silver to red-hot, only to let it cool to its softest, most malleable form. His imagination suddenly provided him with a vivid picture of how her hair would look spilling down her pale back.

  How far would that hair fall? Would it brush across…

  He forced himself to concentrate so he could listen to what she had planned.

  “—making myself a part of the framing instead of the focus, though, at times that would shift. Of course—”

  He realized it would be sheer madness to imagine she could be as attracted to him as he was to her. Kate Mitchell was beautiful in a way artists dreamt of. She was also young and, he was fairly certain, inexperienced. He, on the other hand, was in her own words “brutish-looking,” twelve years older, and carried more tattered baggage than the thrift store down the street. While Javi wasn’t a self-conscious person, he had no illusions about his own desirability.

  “—and because you have such a variety of materials in the warehouse, I wouldn’t need to worry about using things and then having them lay around or go to waste, because—”

  Javi watched her with a measured gaze, more careful than ever not to give away his own interest. What had he been thinking, offering his warehouse
to her? Not only did he like to be left alone while he was working, it would be a strange sort of torture to have to see this distracting creature in every corner of the space he spent the majority of his waking hours.

  All those surfaces…

  Javi refocused on what she was saying and was reminded why he found her so enthralling and why, in the end, he knew he would have offered her anything she asked.

  Kate was brilliant.

  But even more… she had guts. Her vision reminded him of Reed’s in its clarity, but with an entirely different focus; and she had an openness and vulnerability his friend had never allowed himself in his own art.

  “—so I really think with the variety of materials you have here, it would be ideal. I know this is your workspace, and I would totally understand if you didn’t want me here, so please believe me when I say I wouldn’t be offended at all if you say no or change your mind. I would totally understand… Or if you wanted to work out some sort of schedule with me so I don’t bug you while you’re working!” She leaned forward with a hopeful smile that almost knocked him over. “That would be fine, too. The layering idea I have means that I would need to do a number of shots over a time, so—”

  “Yeah, it sounds fine, Kate,” he broke in abruptly, suddenly desperate to escape her presence.

  “Really? Do you want to work out a schedule or anything?”

  “Uh… no.” He cleared his throat. “Actually, I think it would be better if you only worked here while I was in the building. I know you’re a friend of Dee’s, so it’s not like I don’t trust you around my stuff. It’s just, on the off chance that something shifted or… yeah. I just don’t like the idea of you here by yourself if you might need help or got hurt. It’s, you know, like an insurance thing.”

  Javi, you’re an idiot.

  “Oh.” She looked shocked. “I hadn’t even thought about that. I guess you’re right. I mean, I don’t have an assistant or anything, so—”

  “I can keep an eye on you.”

  I’ll watch you so much it’ll probably drive me crazy.