Gypsy Beach (10 page)

Her hands braided in his thick brown hair.
She turned her head, and he matched her cadence, taking her ever so
softly again with his mouth. The sensations bombarded her with a
sweet heaven she’d needed for so many nights. If she could just
make all of the heartbreak disappear for a moment, she would be his
again without question.

God, he never wanted to stop kissing her. He
just needed to keep consuming the drug she offered him that somehow
made everything feel like maybe it would work out. Maybe he could
have her again. Maybe he could somehow have Evie and Sienna. Maybe
Sienna could learn to love Evie almost as much as he did.

When drawing breath took precedence over
extending the kiss, Ryan begrudgingly backed away. He brushed one
more kiss over where her jawline met her neck and then forced
himself to draw up to his full height. He had no idea what was
coming next, but he knew that whatever he said in the next moment
it would have a significant impact.

Sienna stared up at him in dumbfounded
confusion. Those huge soulful eyes barely blinked. Questions, so
many questions, distressed the flecks of gold that framed the honey
brown of her eyes just a few shades lighter than her hair.

“Come on.” He took her hand. She willingly
allowed him to lace their fingers together and to be led back out
to his truck.

They drove in silence, neither seeming to
have any idea what to say, but desperation to know what that kiss
had meant to her was making him crazy.

“What are you thinking?” finally spilled from
his mouth in urgency.

“Are you divorced? I mean that guy said...
You’re divorced, right?” Audible pain perforated the question, and
it sliced through Ryan like daggers.

Swallowing burning regret over his raw
throat, he shook his head. Her eyes goggled in panic.

“I’m getting divorced. I’m legally separated,
but I swear, Sienna, that has nothing to do with why I kissed you.
I’ve... I’ve wanted to kiss you like that every single day for the
last ten years.”

Sienna was fairly certain she could actually
hear the high-pitched squeal of brakes as her entire body attempted
to stop the insanity of their afternoon. What did he mean he wasn’t
divorced? How could he have wanted to do that for ten years? If
that’s what he’d wanted, she’d sat at her grandmother’s home and
sobbed for weeks when he didn’t show up or even call. How could he
have married someone else and there still be that level of passion
for her, for them? Potent memories of that kiss worked up from her
soul and threatened to shatter through all of the delicate sutures
she’d applied to her heart when he’d broken it.

It took her breath away, but he was still
married, for all intents and purposes. She rubbed her hands over
her face and then settled for shaking the tiny Himalayan crystal
stone on her favorite necklace back and forth.

What was she supposed to do now? Tears
somehow seemed like a logical next step, but she squeezed her eyes
shut tightly. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. She didn’t
know what she wanted to do.

Her body and her mind longed to just kiss him
again. To sink into his body and let him take away every doubt
about what had happened all of those years ago. She wanted to feel
full of him, so full there was no room for any doubt, only room for
Ryan. Her brain mocked that desire. He’d broken her heart. She
could not sustain that level of pain ever again. She wanted to run
away from even the memories of the agony. The bludgeoning of her
heart until she was barely recognizable even to herself.

“Sienna,” he breathed her name as he took the
turn off to Gypsy Beach. His eyes were desperate and just as
confused as she was certain hers must appear. “Please say
something. I’m not sorry I kissed you, but if you’re regretting it,
then I am sorry I did something you didn’t want.”

She forced herself to consider her words for
once in her life. “I’m not sorry you kissed me.” The truth was the
only available answer. Her brain was far too busy chanting out
warning blares to have come up with a lie.

Ryan managed a nod, but elation seemed to
ease the tense lines that had chiseled his face.

The ability to consider her words before they
leapt from her mouth was short lived it seemed. “So, uh, if we ever
did more than kiss or... something... I would be the other woman?
Ryan, I just can’t...” She shook her head, unable to formulate the
words.

“Sienna, it’s not like that, okay? I am
legally separated. If I never see my ex again, it will be too soon,
and, uh… I haven’t been married to her in the biblical sense, so to
speak, in years, and I haven’t been with anyone else, either.
Please don’t think that I would ever actually cheat on anyone. I
wouldn’t. I couldn’t. And I would never even consider getting into
another relationship with anyone but you.”

Was he considering getting into a
relationship with Sienna again? Ryan knew that he was. If after
everything he’d been through, everything he was certain he must’ve
put her through, if life somehow offered them a second chance, then
he was taking it. He wasn’t an idiot; not anymore anyway.

A relationship? With me?
He just
said those words.
Emotions ripping through her like a maelstrom
that splintered and blasted a boat awash at sea, Sienna needed
something to hold onto. As if he’d somehow read her like an open
book, Ryan grasped her hand again.

“I know we need to talk. I know you have to
be terrified, baby, but please, please just let me try to explain
what happened.”

Absolute panic pushed another rock-like
enclosure over his throat in an effort to halt the story.

Before Ryan could formulate where to begin,
the truck was bouncing over the sandy grass that comprised the
front lawn of The Inn.

A paunch, older man with beady black eyes was
pacing in the area that had, just hours before, comprised the front
porch. He had a wad of paperwork shoved under his left arm and a
pistol in a waist holster on his right.

His pleas and his story would have to wait.
The man stalked towards the truck.

“You know this guy, Sienna?” The hair on the
back of Ryan’s neck stood straight. His muscles tensed as if they
were certain of an incoming assault. His eyes narrowed as the man
approached the passenger side door.

“No.” The terror in her voice had him moving.
He was out of the truck and blocking Sienna from the man in a few
quick steps.

“Can I help you?” he bellowed.

“Not you I come to see. Where’s Sienna Rose
Cooper?” The man had a nasty sneer, and Ryan longed to sink his
fists into the scowl on his face.

Sienna stepped out of the truck. She stayed
just behind Ryan’s left bicep. He offered her his hand.

“I’m Sienna,” she managed in a frightened
plea.

“You Ruth Cooper’s blood?”

Ryan did not care for the overly pleased
expression on the guy’s face.

“Yes. She was my grandmother.”

Dropping Sienna’s hand, Ryan wrapped his arm
around her instead. Whoever this idiot was, he wasn’t getting
anywhere near her.

The man chuckled ominously. “You’re pretty
like your granny. I’m sure we can work out a deal with all of
this.” He unfurled the paperwork he was carrying and shoved it in
Sienna’s face. Ryan jerked it out of his hands and scanned it
quickly.

His heart sank rapidly to his feet.
Her
grandmother is a Gypsy, of all things
. His mother’s disdain
swirled in the pit of his stomach as he saw the half-trumped,
hand-written documents that appeared to be the original sale papers
on the Inn.

“This is bullshit,” he defied, though he was
fairly certain that Ruth had made good on the agreement she’d
signed almost thirty years before.

“Said I wasn’t here to see you. She’s the one
that has to make good on that.” The way the man’s beady eyes
tracked over Sienna’s frame made Ryan want to remove them from his
skull.

“Ryan, let me see that, please.” Sienna’s
voice shook as she reached for the documents. It didn’t take her
any longer to get the gist of the deal than it had Ryan. “Oh, my
God!” she gasped when her eyes fell on the line – “Before the
Vernal Equinox of each year, the Inn owner will pay Mr. Ted Roby
$10,000 in residual payment on The Gypsy Inn, or pay the current
appraised value at the time of purchase. If full payment isn’t
made, payment is due every year until the time of Mr. Roby’s
death.”

“My grandmother took care of me and this
place. She couldn’t have paid you $10,000 every year.”

Ryan’s jaw clenched.

“Ruthie paid me money on occasion. We worked
things out a different way, too. ‘Spose you could make me the same
offer. I’d be willing to make you a bargain, so to speak, but I
still want the money for the property. I might settle for a little
less if you’re good.”

Convulsive disgust shook through Sienna’s
body. She fought the images her mind conjured against her will.

“He doesn’t have a prayer, Sienna. Let him
take it to court. They’ll bury him under the jail. I will not let
him take anything from you. Not your profits from the season, and
certainly not anything else.” Ryan’s steady arm held her upright
once again.

“He can talk about lawyers and courtrooms all
he wants, honey, but I got the original deed to the Inn. Ruth never
had it. There’s no documents in any kind of Town Hall that say this
Inn was hers to give to you. So, if you want to keep it, you got
two weeks ‘til it’s time to pay up.” With that, Ted Roby sauntered
to his truck after sending Sienna a lascivious wink.

Certain she was going to vomit, her body
shuddered in horror. Ryan turned her and wrapped her up tightly in
his arms, blocking her from that horrible man.

“Hey, shh.” He began swaying her as tears
shattered through all that had happened in their endless day. She
sobbed against him, and he held her safely in his steadfast arms.
“Listen to me. I’ll call John. We’ll get this taken care of and
that nasty sack of shit in jail. This is sick, Sienna. You owe him
nothing.”

Convulsive sobs jolted through her body and
she jerked away from him. “Ryan, don’t you see? This was why I had
such a hard time getting the paperwork on this place. They couldn’t
find the original deed. It had never been filed, and they couldn’t
find it because he must have it. And $10,000 dollars! If I make
four times that this summer, it will be a really good season, and I
have to pay back my loan and live the rest of the year.”

“Okay, okay, shh, just let me call John. I
don’t care if this idiot does have the original deed, we will get
this taken care of. I promise you.”

It would have been more productive to go out
and talk to the churning sea, because she wasn’t even hearing
him.

“And that probably is how Nana paid him!”
Another gagging convulsion shattered through her. He guided her
back into his arms and refused to let her go. Gypsy, indeed. This
was a disaster, and he had nothing to offer her, save the shelter
of his arms.

Desperate to help her, Ryan debated. “Hey, do
you want to go talk to Mac and Molly? Weren’t they friends with
your grandmother? Didn’t they all move here together? Maybe they
know something that could help.”

She lifted her head and stared at him like he
had nothing more than shit for brains, which at this point he was
beginning to think was true. “Do I want to go talk to the
Montgomerys about how Nana agreed to sleep with some gross guy so
she could give me a place to live? No, not really. I know my
grandmother was a Gypsy, okay, Ryan? I know she did things she
shouldn’t have. I know you were never okay with that, but I am.”
Her temper shot from her like a cannon.

Taken aback, he shook his head. “I never said
I wasn’t okay with that. I’m just trying to help you.” The tears
that marred her beautiful face wounded him. Her eyes squeezed shut
again, sending tears flowing rapidly out the sides. She fell back
against him.

“I know. Thank you. I’m sorry I yelled at
you.” The rollercoaster of emotion flowing from her was making him
woozy, but having her in his arms still felt so right. They stood
there together, clinging to each other against the assaulting
world. Once again, he had no idea what to do next.

Scrubbing her hands over her face, Sienna
seemed to draw resolve from the salty air that encapsulated her
pain. “I… I think I need to be alone. I need to think.”

The arguments bubbled in his gut and then
formed on his tongue. They didn’t need to be apart. They needed to
talk to figure out everything. He needed to tell her why he’d
abandoned her and about Evie. They needed to call John and discuss
Roby’s demands. They’d spent the last ten years apart and that had
brought on nothing more than horrific pain and utter ruin. Apart
did not work for them, but as he stared at her and watched her
entire body broadcast the need to parry him away, he bit back the
contentions. Managing two steps backwards he choked on the words,
“We do still need to talk, Sienna,” before he forced himself to
return to his truck and to drive away.

Tears of defeat
mixed in with her tears of complete frustration. How could Nana
have done that? Pacing in what she supposed was Ted Roby’s living
room, Sienna couldn’t seem to manage the knots binding her stomach.
She would whisk to the bathroom certain she was going to be sick,
but then leave when the gnawing horror refused to be projected from
her body. Helpless to do much of anything but watch the shoreline
grow darker and darker, she continued to pace.

She knew why Nana had done it, and that made
it all the worse. When Sienna’s mother had gotten pregnant, Nana
had made a deal to purchase the Inn so that they would all have
somewhere to live. Sienna’s mother, however, wanted nothing more to
do with Nana or her Gypsy lifestyle. She’d never named Sienna’s
father. That’s how Sienna had taken the name Cooper, just like her
maternal grandmother. Her mother had chosen bitterness instead.
She’d let her own transgressions turn her into a self-righteous
dotard, but Nana kept working the Inn so that Sienna would always
have somewhere to call home. Every time she considered how Nana had
acquired the Inn another wave of nausea washed over her.