Chapter 15
By the following day, she already felt back to normal. Doc really knew his stuff. He had returned after checking her blood and informed her that she was just quite anemic, giving her an iron tablet and bringing her lunch up personally. It was just a simple spinach salad topped with seared beef, something he told her she’d be eating more of in the coming days to keep her iron levels up without having to take additional supplements.
“How about that walk today then?” Colin asked over breakfast.
“Okay,” she replied, not wanting him to think she was really the jealous freak she had acted like the other day. She knew she had no right to be.
“Do you still want to meet the dragon sculptor?” he asked as they passed through the dragons on the far side of the garden.
“Nathair Sgiathich?” she replied. “I’d love to!”
Colin laughed a little, making her wonder why that was funny.
“Why are you laughing?”
“You say that as if it’s his name,” he laughed.
“What do you mean? It is his name. That’s all I’ve ever heard at the gallery. Everyone wants to get their hands on a Nathair Sgiathich sculpture. He’s the artist. I thought you knew him?”
“I know the artist, but that’s not his name.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nathair Sgiathich is the Scottish Gaelic name for a dragon. When someone says it’s a Nathair Sgiathich sculpture, they are saying it is a dragon sculpture.”
Ashley stopped in her tracks and stared at him for a moment, a bright pink spreading up her face as she realized how stupid she must look, but not just her. Everyone she knew believed that was the artist’s name and none of them had been able to find him. Now she understood why. No one was looking for the actual artist by name. How incredibly moronic of all of them.
“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s a common misunderstanding. It just amuses me that no one put two and two together. I mean, obviously not everyone knows Scottish Gaelic, but I would have thought someone would have caught it from a google search, at some point,” he said.
Ashley considered this. She was quite sure she had done just that, at some point, but couldn’t recall the reference having popped up. Had it just been a result she had ignored? To think that the answer was just right there in front of her was so very strange when you thought about it.
“So, who is the artist then?” she asked.
“Someone who doesn’t want the attention. He likes to just enjoy his work without people trying to interview him or try to pry into his life.”
“He just likes his privacy then?”
“Yep. It’s just that simple. So, he names all the sculptures the same thing and puts a number on them. People think it’s just some sort of minimalist style in naming his work with his name and their sequence in his list of creations. They are content with the work and he continues to live his life without interference.”
“Do you think he would really agree to meet me?”
“Yeah, I can guarantee it. Come on. Let’s get this walk started.”
They walked down the gravel to where the old castle grounds stood. There was no evidence of it anywhere, but they were closer to the tower than she had been with Carl, so it had to have been around here somewhere.
“You’re standing on it,” Colin said, as if reading her mind.
“I am?”
“Yep. You are standing where the large wooden doors would have been.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m not sure. I just do,” he said. “Come on and I’ll show you the tower.”
Ashley was all smiles as he led her toward it and pulled out a huge metal key like she had never seen before. He placed it in the heavy steel door in the center of the tower and turned it. She had expected a creak of the hinges and such when the door was opened, but there was none. She was guessing it wasn’t as abandoned as it appeared and the hinges were well-oiled. Her suspicion was confirmed when they stepped inside and closed the door. Of course, Carl had mentioned him working here and now she was beginning to understand.
You wouldn’t know that it was an old tower from the appearance inside, which was very clean and modern. More interesting was what stood in the center of the room. It was yet another dragon, but this one was different in the fact that it was unfinished. Tables ran around the edges of the round tower. They were strewn with various power tools and metal working utensils. The realization of it all hit her very quick.
“You are the sculptor,” she breathed aloud.
“There you go,” he replied.
“This is breathtaking,” he commented, walking around his work in progress.
“Thank you. It still has quite a bit of work left to be done before it’s ready, but I really like the way it is shaping up.”
“Who is it for?”
“A buyer that lives in France. He collects rare dragon sculptures.”
“How do you make contact with people to sell these if no one knows who you are?”
“I don’t. Someone does that for me.”
“How do people know to contact him?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What I do know is that you missed your calling,” he replied with a smile.
“What do you mean?”
“You should have been a detective or an investigative journalist,” he told her.
“God. I’m sorry. I do ask a lot of questions, I guess. I’m just so fascinated by all of this.”
“It’s okay. It’s kind of charming,” he replied.
Ashley could see that he was looking at her the same way he had during their first night together, but the moment was gone just as quickly as she had taken note of it. Perhaps she had even misinterpreted it.
“Anyway, now you know the artist. If you feel like climbing, I will show you the rest of the tower. There isn’t much to see beyond this area.”
“Okay.”
Colin took her to see the tiny bedroom his grandparents had once shared in the upper part of the tower. It had remained unchanged since they had lived here, he said. The only alteration had been that the once open window that had allowed cool air in was now filled with a frosted glass window to keep the elements out when closed.
“I’m speechless. Everything looks like it was just laundered and put in here,” she said.
“Yes. For an old tower, it is surprisingly dust free.”
“So, this is all there is to it? There is a bedroom and the downstairs?”
“Pretty much. There used to be a firepit downstairs for warmth, but I filled it in. Other than that, there is a small crawlspace underneath. You can’t see the door to it because it is covered with the sculpture base at the moment.”
“It is where the contents from the castle were hidden when the people came. Could they not see it? I mean, did they not think to look under the flooring?”
“No. The fire pit sat on top of it. They had put the items they had moved from the castle into a hole and then built the fire pit above that, so it looked like the fire pit was dug into the floor and there would have been a fire in it. There was no reason for them to think anything more was there. It was completely covered.”
“I am having a hard time picturing how that was set up, but I get the general idea of it. Fascinating.”
“You want to see in the crawl space, don’t you?”’
“Yes,” she admitted sheepishly.
“There’s nothing down there now. It’s just a hole now. As I said, I filled in the fire pit, but I’ll show it to you when the piece is finished and moved out.”
“That would be great.”
“Just prepare to be underwhelmed. I suspect you will be about as fascinated as I was when I finally got to visit The Alamo.”
Ashley laughed. She knew exactly what he meant. Most people felt that way after hearing all the tales of The Alamo and then actually going to San Antonio to visit it. They made their way down the stairs and back out of the tower, locking the door behind them. She suddenly had a whole new appreciation for the dragons, and for Colin.
Plus, it explained so much about him. Between being a dragon shifter, being filthy rich, and a secretive sculptor, he had a lot to lose by getting too close to the wrong people. No doubt, it was easier to just play the field and not get attached to people, but it was also a lonely existence and she had a sense about him that he was lonely beneath the facade he put on.