Gypsy Beach (16 page)

Ryan’s irritated eye roll brought her back to
the present reality. Her brow knitted as she studied the huge truck
in front of them on the interstate. The tires were taller than she
was, and hanging off of the back was what appeared to be a
replication of a steel set of testicles. She couldn’t believe that
someone would actually have that hanging on their truck, however.
Sienna had never qualified herself as naïve. She’d driven thousands
of miles in an attempt to find her way back to Ryan, but she’d
never seen anything like that.

“Are those…?” She tried not to point and
alert Evie to anything odd. She was watching Frozen with a great
deal of focus.

“Yes, and I’m sorry. Obviously, douchebag has
none or he wouldn’t feel the need to jack his truck to the moon and
hang that on the bumper. I’m trying to take care of my girls not
expose them to complete morons on the road.”

Feeling woozy from their day and her nerves,
Sienna was thrust backwards in time. That early June night when the
entire world seemed to exist only for she and Ryan. He’d driven her
out to Stryad point. She remembered how the stars and the moonlight
lit the fire in his eyes. He’d parked his father’s Jeep Cherokee
over the levee, and they’d been very disappointed to discover that
they weren’t the only couple that had sought Stryad as a cover for
passion. Groups of teenagers were crowded together, joking,
laughing, smoking cigarettes they’d stolen from their parents, and
downing beers like there was no tomorrow.

“Wanna go somewhere else?” The pleading edge
to his question made her heart fly. “I just want to be alone with
you, baby.”

Before she could nod her agreement, a bunch
of guys that knew Ryan from Atlanta approached the Jeep. He rolled
his eyes, locked the doors, and lowered the driver-side window.
Tension rolled off of him in waves. Fear had rooted Sienna to her
seat, but she wasn’t certain what had made him so angry.

“What do you want, Zach?”

“Saw you pull up, McNamara. Thought I’d see
if Brandon was right.” Zach’s derisive voice seemed to ignite
Ryan’s fury.

“Why don’t you and Brandon shut the fuck up
and get out of my way.” He shifted the Jeep into reverse. Sienna
recalled reaching and grasping his hand. He’d turned to her and
offered her a forced smile. “It’s okay, baby. We’re leaving.”

“Baby!” Zach chanted gleefully. “So, it is
true. You’re hooking that Gypsy skank. You know she’s nasty man.
You could do better.”

Before his words could filter through the
barricades Sienna had erected in her mind, Ryan was out of the
Jeep, and Zach was on the ground. She’d rushed to his side and
begged him to stop. The force of his fury left Zach with a busted
lip and badly blackened eye. In a blur of anger and fear, they’d
leapt back in the Jeep and he’d hightailed it back to Gypsy Beach.
He’d apologized the whole way. She’d cried, but not because of
Zach’s words; that stigma she’d grown used to. Her mother had tried
to pretend that they weren’t what they were, but Sienna was proud
of her roots. She loved her Nana. She’d cried that night because
Ryan’s hand was bleeding. He’d gotten hurt because of her.

He had always been so protective. He always
made her feel safe. As long as he was there, he would take care of
her. She’d trusted him implicitly. When he hadn’t shown up…. No,
she wasn’t going there again. His story was more than enough to
ease the heartache she’d endured, and being qualified as one of
his girls
filled her with a sense of peace and love that
she’d been certain she would never experience again.

With a sweet grin, she laced her fingers
through his while he steered with one hand. “I’m just still not
exactly sure how to do this.” She glanced back at the precious
little girl that was now yawning deeply and snuggling up with her
stuffed bunny.

“About the idiot in front of us or about me?”
There it was, that horrid pain that kept puncturing his words.

“I’m not really sure much can be done about
his situation. I’m pretty sure all of those male enhancement pills
don’t actually work.” She giggled and wrinkled her nose as the
truck turned and the distended genitalia swung to hit the bumper
with a loud thwack.

Ryan’s sexy, rumbled chuckle reverberated in
her soul, shaking loose just a little of the drowning fear.

“I just don’t know what I am.” As her
statement made no sense, she wasn’t surprised that Ryan’s brow
furrowed.

“What you are?”

“It’s just everything is going really fast,
but after ten years it doesn’t feel so fast. It feels kind of slow.
I don’t know. You’re still married.” She lowered her voice to a
whisper, but Evie was drifting off to sleep. “What does that make
me or us? She’s going to ask, don’t you think?”

“John’s trying to move the hearing up. Right
now, it’s set for three weeks from tomorrow. After that, I won’t be
married anymore. Maybe we could spend the next three weeks figuring
all of that out. I don’t want to scare you Sienna, but I’ve already
laid it all on the line for you anyway. I’ve never stopped being in
love with you. I’d marry you tomorrow if it weren’t illegal, and I
just can’t use the money you’re paying me to fix up the Inn to buy
you a ring. I have to figure something else out. I shouldn’t be
letting you pay me at all.”

“Ryan.” Sienna rolled her eyes. “Let’s not
make all of this even more difficult.” She still didn’t really know
what any of this meant. A million questions pounded out a tribal
dance in her skull.

Ryan glanced her way as they finally made
their way out of the city. “It’s a long way back to Gypsy Beach.
Just please say whatever you’re thinking. I’m going insane with you
sitting over there looking like you’re about to bolt and not
talking to me.” He glanced back at Evie, who was sound asleep. “My
nerves are shot to hell, sweetheart. Please just talk.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to worry you, and
I’m not going to bolt.” A twinge of irritation twisted along her
spine. Must he keep assuming that’s what she was going to do? “I
guess everything’s just up in the air, kind of.” Heat darkened her
cheeks and chapped her lips. She didn’t want to ask the one thing
she desperately wanted to know. Last night had been incredible. She
called herself selfish and horrible, but….

With another one of those sexy smirks, he
raised his left eyebrow. “What? What is it you’re not asking that
you want to know?”

She shook her head. What if Evie was only
pretending to sleep?
Okay, that would be a stretch for a
four-year-old, but still.

“Sienna Rose.” His low, husky voice shot pure
lust through her, obliterating her stubborn resolve. It had been a
very long time since he’d called her that, and the effect it had on
her seventeen-year-old body was nothing compared to the way it
affected her now. Her blood quaked and a slick heat immediately
formed between her legs. He was the only person she’d ever wanted
to obey. “Just tell me.”

Helpless to stop herself, she drew a shaky
breath. “Can we still…” She glanced back again, “…you know, if
Evie’s there?”

With his jeans becoming uncomfortably
restrictive, Ryan shifted in his seat. If that’s what she was
fretting over, he could take care of this particular concern with
ease. The fact that she wanted to be with him again almost as much
as he wanted to bury himself deep inside of that sexy little pussy
made him deliriously happy.

Sienna was seated beside him wanting him.
Evie was sound asleep safe in the backseat. If someone had told him
a week ago that he’d have the two women that meant the most to him
in the world right beside him again, he would have called them
outright liars.

“Make love?” he husked. “Oh, hell yeah, baby.
Evie’s been sleeping in a regular bed in her own room for a year
now. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, she calls me, and
I have no intention of ever getting into bed without you in my arms
again. I have a decade to make up for, remember?”

“So, you think that’s okay? It’s not bad for
her? It won’t corrupt her or anything?”

Ryan couldn’t help but laugh. “She’ll be
completely oblivious, other than about the fact that her Daddy is
happier than she’s ever seen him before.” He turned and met her
penetrating gaze. So many questions danced in the flames that lit
those sexy hazel eyes. He needed to answer each and every one of
them. He could leave no room for doubt, and must always remember
her propensity to fly away.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear earlier. I
know I was a disaster, but I want you with us Sienna. I want Evie
to know you. I know she’s going to fall in love with you, just like
I did all those years ago. No matter what happens at that hearing,
I’m never walking away from you again. Stay with us at the beach
house. I’m gonna be tearing out the floors at the Inn and painting
and wallpapering. It’s not easy to live in the middle of a
construction zone. Please?”

“I don’t know, Ryan. What if she talks to
Alexa and says something about me? I don’t want to do anything that
might make you look bad. I’m still not sure what to even say to
her.”

“Alexa is currently in Paris with her new
lover. She’s been cheating on me since Evie was born. In fact, I’m
pretty sure she slept with her OB. I am legally separated and well
within my rights to date. So, let’s do this officially. Will you
please be my girlfriend?”

“You’re really sure you want me to be your
girlfriend?”

“Sienna, baby, please listen to me. Yes, I
want you to be my girlfriend. I was just talking about buying you a
ring. So, girlfriend, fiancée, wife, I want it all. The wish I
dropped in that box at the Well all those years ago has always been
my only wish. I’m making it come true this time. We just have to
wait a little longer to see if I can manage to dig my way out of
this shithole that is my life right now.”

A mischievous smirk lit the fire in her eyes.
Ryan almost drove into the car in front of him, unable to peel his
eyes from her face.

“And will you say that The Stones are
infinitely cooler than The Beatles?” The smirk on her face was
intoxicating.

Ryan laughed, shook his head, and held up his
right hand. “If you, Sienna Rose Cooper, will be my girlfriend and
eventually my wife, I will forever vow that The Stones might be
slightly better than The Beatles… after John was killed.” He
mumbled the last part quickly. She dissolved into a fit of
giggles.

“I hate my stepfather.” As they passed the
South Carolina line, she finally choked on the very thing that
scared her the most. She didn’t want Evie to resent her for having
Ryan’s attention, and she certainly didn’t want to come between
them. Understanding eased the concern that had angled Ryan’s
features.

“Well, I haven’t heard you talk about him in
the last few days, but I know that you used to hate Richard because
he never wanted you around. The guy was, and I’m assuming still is,
a narcissistic asshole that convinced your mom that somehow she
wasn’t as good as he is because of your grandmother. She bought
that shit hook, line, and sinker, and tried to make you believe
that. Evie will not hate you, Sienna, because you care about her.
I’m hoping you want her with us, and you already want to take care
of her. You’re a phenomenal woman, Sienna. Kids can sense stuff
like that. She was already talking about wanting to show you all of
her toys. She already likes you.”

“Really?” A small sense of relief washed over
Sienna, loosening her shoulders and easing her tensed abdomen.

“Really, and please, let’s just take this a
day at a time. Let’s just decide to make it work. I need this to
work. I can’t go on without you. I barely survived the last ten
years.”

She wished he would stop saying things like
that. It made her feel guilty, even if it was entirely his parents’
doing, and then a series of very unfortunate events.

Reminding herself that she’d lived the
majority of her life without much of a plan, she decided that his
idea of just taking it a moment at a time might be a good one.

She shut down that same annoying voice that
loved to remind her that Ryan had broken her heart. When she
finally recognized the taunting tone as her mother’s, she fought
the urge to flip it off. Maybe they were going to play house for a
few weeks, but maybe that would be the best way to learn.

As they neared Florence, Ryan’s smile
widened. He’d been grinning for the last four hours. He couldn’t
seem to stop. It just felt too good to be sitting where he was,
sitting with his girls in his Suburban, happy and safe.

“Would my girls like some dinner?”

“I want macaroni and cheese, please, and the
kind with ketchup.”

Sienna laughed as Ryan shook his head. “She
wants that for every meal. The
kind with ketchup
is fish
sticks with ketchup. She just can’t seem to remember the fish stick
portion of the deal.”

“Well, I don’t know about fish sticks, but
there’s this great diner just off the drag in Florence. I know
everyone there. They’re really great, and they make amazing mac and
cheese. I worked there for a few weeks while when I chickened out
about going back to Norfolk when I was coming back from Cali.”

Furrowing his brow, Ryan bit another hole in
his tongue and ordered himself not to demand that she tell him what
had happened in California.

With a sigh, he followed her directions to
Zingarinas Diner. As soon as his boots landed on the gravel parking
lot he understood why Sienna would have had no trouble working
there for a few weeks before she moved on. The diner was relatively
small and had the cozy, ramshackle feel of a Gypsy bandwagon. “Food
for the wandering soul” was painted on the sign hung with rusty
chain on the porch.

Fabric was strung along the windows in an
eclectic attempt at blocking the occasionally blinding sunlight
that would pour through the large plate-glass windows, one of which
had been cracked and then secured with duct tape. Silhouetted
pictures of Gypsy dancers complete with long tiered skirts and
bandanas decorated the windows.