Gypsy Beach (23 page)

“Maybe.” Her fingertips softly whispered
through the patch of hair on his chest and then travelled lower,
making his entire body tense in hopeful expectation.

Staying just north of where he so wanted her
hands, she made a return trip to his chest before beginning the
journey all over again. “But I think John is trying to take care of
you and of Evie. I understand why he’s worried. I mean, this is a
little crazy, I guess. I doubt anyone on the outside really
understands what I feel when I lay here in your arms, what I feel
when we’re together, or when I see you taking care of Evie and of
me.

“If the last ten years got me back here,
maybe it was worth it. I don’t know. But I do know that no matter
what happens I love you. So, maybe John doesn’t recognize love
because he’s never experienced it. I don’t want you to be mad at
him because of me.”

It simply wasn’t in Sienna to hold a grudge.
She was pure and occasionally reckless, but that always came out of
a passion for authenticity. She had missed him, and wanted him, and
recognized that he had hurt her possibly irreparably, but she
wasn’t going to let the past ruin a chance for the future she
wanted. That simply wasn’t her. She believed in chance and hope and
possibility. She believed in him despite everything that had
happened.

“I’m going to get this figured out, Sienna.
I’m going to get you your Inn, and get my daughter, and we’re going
to have a real life. I swear to you. Just give me a little
time.”

She hugged him tighter and brushed a kiss
along his collarbone, and then her lips followed the patch of hair
down his sternum. She spun her tongue over each of his nipples
before returning to her course.

When her body and her kisses blazed a trail
over his lower-abs and her hand gently caressed from his sac up the
veins swelling in his cock, a garbled moan escaped his lungs. His
body gave a mimicked thrust as her tongue explored the ridge of his
cock in several sinful glides that drove him wild.

With a mischievous smirk, she set to burn
away every trouble plaguing his brain with the heat of her mouth.
He watched her cheeks hollow. She moaned in ecstasy as the pearl of
longing that leaked from him was washed away by her tongue. The
reverberation of her voice shot through him as he gave into the
perfection that only existed when they were together.

John made a half-assed apology the next
morning when he picked up Evie, and Ryan half accepted the apology.
He needed John to fight for Sienna and the Inn, and God knows he
needed him at the custody hearing the next week, so he decided to
let time prove he and Sienna’s love. She wasn’t going anywhere.
John would see that eventually.

After they’d hugged Evie good-bye a dozen
times each and promised to pick her up in a few days, they headed
to the Inn. Refusing to tell her about the evening before, Ryan let
his acrimony drive him. He finished the back decks by noon.

Sienna spent the morning scrubbing down the
walls and prepping them for the vintage wallpaper they’d found at
the market in Wilmington. She’d done an outstanding job.

When she headed to Mac and Molly’s to get
them some lunch, he phoned Owen Sanders to accept the offer on the
McNamara Beach House. It was the largest home on Gypsy Beach, and
with the agreement that Ryan would make the repairs needed to the
decks and replace the bathroom and kitchen tiles, Sanders had
offered him top dollar. The potential rental income made it an
outstanding investment, one Sanders had immediately recognized.

The benefit of selling to investors was that
they generally worked in cash. Assuming that the judge didn’t take
Sienna’s side, that somehow the fact that her grandmother had lived
in and cared for the Gypsy Inn for the last thirty years didn’t
matter to the courts, Ryan would purchase the Inn outright from
Roby.

He would immediately make a full offer if it
appeared that the hearing wasn’t going to go her way. He would sign
a contract there at the trial and provide the cash at the closing.
If the stars somehow managed to align, he was hoping that somehow
he could sign the contract at Sienna’s trial, attend his own
custody hearing and acquire full guardianship of his daughter the
next week while he was still in possession of the beach house, and
then close on the Inn. If everything fell in that perfect order,
this just might work.

He refused to allow any contingency to shake
him, though they certainly splintered his mind as he pried up
rotten pieces of hardwood from the upstairs floor and set to
replace it. The floor-sander was due to arrive at three. With any
luck, if he worked until late tonight he could have the upstairs
floors complete.

Sienna and Ryan had debated but had
eventually decided to go with tile for the bottom floors. Sienna
wanted to use large rugs to soften the area but tile would be far
easier to care for when guests, wet from the ocean, were traipsing
through without end.

He would begin work on the tile and wallpaper
the next day in order to start work on Sander’s rentals at the end
of next week. He needed the Inn in working order before he moved
Evie and himself in. He could help Sienna with all of the final
decorating at night after he’d worked on Sander’s homes all
day.

He still hadn’t explained his plan to Sienna.
He knew she would refuse to allow him to sell his house for her. He
planned on presenting her with a ring and the keys to her Inn right
after he’d acquired both. Following the methodic plan was all that
mattered. Making certain every intricate piece fit in exact order
was the only way all of this would work. One thing could not come
before the other. The Inn, Evie, his finalized divorce papers, her
ring, the closing on the beach house, all in that exact alignment.
Nothing other than that was acceptable.

If Alexa found out about the sale of the
beach house or about an engagement ring, she would likely nuke
every single dream he held and walk away carrying his baby girl,
laughing all the way. The fallout of her vengeance was never
anything short of a hydrogen bomb. He would not allow that to
happen. Somehow this all had to work.

“Hey, good lookin.’ I brought you some
lunch.” The lyrical melody of one of the sweetest voices in the
world had Ryan standing and giving her a sexy grin.

“Hey, baby.” He guided her into his embrace
and planted a kiss of hope on her pretty rosebud lips. Following
her down to the kitchen, he gently pushed the bottom drawer of the
ancient chifforobe at the end of the hall with his boot. He’d
closed it a half-dozen times. It was likely twice the age of the
house and had travelled in a gypsy wagon most of its life. No
surprise that the drawer was warped and in need of repair.

The drawer obeyed this time, and they settled
in for sandwiches, homemade potato salad, and coffee, courtesy of
Mac and Molly.

Dead on his feet, Ryan ran the polisher over
the hardwoods one last time. It was nearing one in the morning.
Sienna had fallen asleep seated in the hallway. She’d refused to go
on to bed, vowing that she was going to stay up with him.

With a grin, Ryan lifted her into his arms
and carried her to the room she’d chosen to make theirs.
Half-awake, she managed to pull off her clothes. Deciding not to
offer her a t-shirt, Ryan tucked her in. He made quick work of a
shower and joined her in the bed. She sought him in her sleep.
Their bodies joined and their legs tangled with magnetizing force.
He held her in his arms knowing that as long as she was there,
somehow this would all work.

The next morning he awoke alone. Battling the
absence and the harrowing fear, he scrambled from the bed. Where
was she? He threw on a pair of boxers and checked the bathroom and
then out the windows overlooking the shoreline. He headed down the
stairs. His heart rattled frantically against his ribcage.

“Sienna?” he called, but she wasn’t in the
kitchen. He clutched his chest when his eyes fell on the back deck
he’d constructed two days before. She was seated on one of the
built-in benches staring out at the mighty Atlantic. The sun seemed
lost in a grey abyss of the bleak skies. The waters were churning
out their discord.

Sienna had her knees pulled to her chest
hugging herself as she watched the troubled waters that seemed to
match her mood. Wondering what had gotten to her so early, Ryan
poured a mug of coffee from the full pot that she must’ve fixed
recently. He could see her favorite mug seated beside her as her
only company.

Joining her on the deck, he momentarily
debated how to proceed, but decided to go with instinct. She never
wanted any pretense. She just wanted him. “What’s wrong with my
girl?”

A timid smile played on her lips as she
turned. “Hey,” she sighed. “I love it when you call me that.” The
admittance delighted Ryan, but slightly embarrassed her. Her cheeks
flushed, only adding to her natural beauty,

He leaned and planted a kiss on the top of
her head. “I love to call you that. I love that you’re finally mine
again. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, Sienna, but you didn’t answer my
question.”

Her shoulders rose in a slight shrug. Then
after another resolute gaze back out to the waters she met his
eyes. “Ryan….” She shook her head. “I just wish you wouldn’t… I
don’t know. I was just telling Nana good-bye.”

Navigating through that maze of cryptic
clues, he scooted closer to her. “You wish I wouldn’t what?”

“Work so hard here.” Her answer seemed to
weight her head. It drooped with each word. “I can’t afford a
mortgage here. I can’t afford to pay Roby. He’s going to get the
Inn. I don’t want him to get all of your hard work, too. You put
your soul into this place and….” She shook her head and attempted
to dam back the incoming tears.

He wrapped his arms around her, set to vow to
her that he wouldn’t let her lose the Inn when suddenly the rest of
her broken explanation made sense. “You’re telling Nana good-bye
because you think you have to move from here.”

She managed a nod as her tears beaded and
made fevered tracks down his chest.

“Sienna, baby, listen to me. I am not going
to let you lose this place.”

“Stop, please!” Her fervent order seemed to
have avulsed from her soul. “Don’t you see? I can’t have the Inn,
and I don’t really need it. I love it so much here, Ryan, but I
only need you. I know that if you share custody with Alexa you have
to stay in Atlanta. For ten years, all I’ve really needed, all I
was ever really looking for was you. So, I should just give Roby
the Inn, and we should go back. I don’t care where we live. I just…
I just have to be with you. That’s all that matters.” She broke
down in convulsive sobs.

He lifted her into his lap and wrapped his
muscled body around hers. “I am not going to let you lose this Inn.
I am not going to lose Evie. We are not going to move to Atlanta.
We’re going to raise Evie right here. Please, baby, please don’t
cry. This is all going to work out.”

Sienna shook her head against him, but he
would never allow her to lose the place where she was so certain
her grandmother would always be. Stubbornly refusing to elaborate
on his plan, he held her tightly until she finally lifted her head
and allowed him to wipe away a few of her tears.

“Nana believed…” Her chin trembled and she
scrubbed her hands over her face to start again. “Gypsies believe…
I believe that if you bring beauty to a place then you leave a part
of your soul there. I don’t want you to leave any piece of your
soul here, Ryan. Roby can’t have that. He doesn’t deserve
that.”

“Hey.” Ryan cradled her chin in his hand and
gazed into her tear-stained eyes. “When I was fifteen-years-old, I
met this incredible girl that turned my whole world upside down. I
stared into these mystical hazel eyes, and I fell so in love I
could never ever let her go. Sweet, kind, sexy as hell, with a
smart mouth and an even smarter head, and a body that drives me
crazy. The most beautiful creature on this earth both inside and
out. And flowing deep within this girl is Gypsy fire, and she lit
my entire world. Made my whole life worth living. That girl with
the wild eyes and Gypsy blood, she’s had all of my heart and my
entire soul since the moment she first kissed me. No one else could
ever have a part of it because it’s always belonged to her. Do you
know what she used to tell me?”

Her smile was a half-haunted memory. She
shook her head.

“She used to say that there was Gypsy magic
on this shore, and that you could hear the old Gypsy songs when the
tides came in, and when the children laughed, and played. I believe
that, Sienna. I don’t know how, but we ended up back here, and then
somehow I managed to make you mine again. If that’s not magic, I
don’t know what is. I’m not going to let you lose this Inn, or this
beach, or me. And I’m not going to lose my little girl. This is all
going to work. We’re gonna make a little magic of our own, baby.
Let’s not doubt Nana and every single Gypsy soul that conspired to
bring us back here. They haven’t let us down yet.”

By Tuesday night, Ryan had finished the tile
work on the backsplash over the new kitchen cabinets. He was
planning on picking up Sienna’s Viking range the next day after the
trial. The vent work was already prepped. She could cook on it the
next evening, if all went well.

Sienna, however, had been a disaster most of
the day. John had arrived at lunchtime to prepare for the hearing
the next morning. He’d gone over everything Sienna was to say and
do, gathered all of Ryan’s receipts on the work he’d completed, and
had every form of document he’d been able to locate on Nana’s care
for the Inn. The tax documents and Nana’s will had been submitted
to the Circuit court. He’d done everything he could to prove that
Sienna should take rightful ownership of the Inn without further
payment. It all depended on the judge and what Roby managed to pull
out of his ass.