by Jillian Neal
Gypsy Beach
By Jillian Neal
Published By Realm Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2015 Jillian Neal
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincident
Other works by Jillian Neal
Gypsy Beach
Gypsy Beach
Gypsy Love (July 2015)
Gypsy Heat (August 2015)
Gypsy Hope (September 2015)
The Gifted Realm Series
Within The Realm
Lessons Learned
Every Action
Rock Bottom
An Angel All His Own
All But Lost
The Quelling Tide
This work is dedicated to all of my grandmothers for all that they taught me, for always believing in me, and for showing me how to work for my dreams.
Blessed are the gypsies,
the makers of music,
the artists,
writers,
dreamers of dreams,
wanderers and vagabonds,
children and misfits,
for they teach us to see the world through beautiful eyes
Table Of Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Prologue
She had her head thrown back laughing as she raced across the wet sand. The setting sun lit the wildfire in her eyes, and Ryan would’ve followed her anywhere. The warm, foamy saltwater lapped at her toes as anxious to touch some part of her beautiful body as he was. Launching himself forward, every muscle in his body propelled him towards her. He caught her hand and then leaned to scoop up her lithe form into his arms.
Every patch of her silky skin that connected with his sent a spark of electricity straight to his groin. His heart raced, but he kept running with her. Running away, maybe.
With a delighted squeal, she leaned in and clung tightly to his neck. Her long, thick hair, the color of black coffee with caramel and blonde ribbons spun through it from their summer in the sun, cascaded out over his left bicep, flying behind them as he raced her down the shores of Gypsy Beach. Her hazel eyes danced just for him.
Everything about her was a juxtaposition, as if she was in constant contention with herself. Wild, free, and living on the edge of an impulse that made his entire world spin. Every single thing about Sienna Cooper was perfect by his seventeen-year-old estimations.
“Stop running and put me down so I can kiss you, Ryan McNamara!” Her laughter and her order whipped around him in the salt-soaked wind, stirring and igniting every cell in his body.
“Yes, ma’am.” He set her on her feet and wasted no time mating their mouths. She was so sweet it was sinful, like spun sugar that melted in his arms. He’d fallen in love with her two summers before and spent every school year longing to get back to Gypsy Beach and back to Sienna.
His lips kept hers occupied while his hands tracked down her slender sides and then dipped into that bikini bottom that had been driving him to distraction all damn day. He cupped her backside, and when that simply wasn’t enough he kneaded her with greed.
A timid moan reverberated against his tongue as he slipped it between her lips, memorizing the heat, the way they swelled, the way they tasted, and the all-encompassing feeling of her body needy for him. That moment would have to last him until next summer.
Unable to stop himself, his right hand traversed the short distance from her sweet little backside to the perfect patch of skin between her thighs. She trembled, and her body rolled against his. He almost lost it all there on the deserted beach.
Her mound quaked as his thumb hesitantly explored. Her breath tangled in her throat, and her eyes closed in expectant ecstasy. He could feel the tender heat and the liquid desire gathering in preparation for him, and that night he was going to make a claim. They would be each other’s firsts, each other’s only if he had anything to say about it. He’d unite them in time and space, and it would be enough to get him through the next nine months of school five states away. It had to be enough.
“I love you Sienna Rose, and, God, baby, I need you. Before we have to leave tomorrow, I just need you. Stay with me tonight.”
With that sexy smirk and the fire that lived inside of her that always seemed to consume both of their souls, she followed him inside his parents’ beach house.
One
Just go in and give them the paperwork and try not to sound like an idiot, Sienna ordered herself as the door on her VW van squeaked her arrival at the Pender County Courthouse.
“Well, Sienna Rose, as I live and breathe, baby girl, how are ya?”
Warmth rose from her soul and eased the tense set of her shoulders.
“Mac!” She threw her arms around Mac Montgomery’s six-foot-five frame. His kind eyes and the beaming grin he gave her made him appear ten years younger.
“How’s Molly?” Mac and Molly had been dear friends of her Nana’s and they’d helped make Sienna’s summers on Gypsy Beach the only part of her childhood that she really cared to remember.
“Molly is still just as much a spitfire as she always was. Keeps my flame a-burning. She’ll be thrilled you’re back in town to stay.” Mac winked at Sienna as she giggled her approval.
“And Nadya, how is she?” Sienna’s grin expanded when she recalled Mac and Molly’s niece. She lived in town with her mother, but was always on the beach during the summers.
“Miss Nadya is doing okay, I suppose. She married a few years back. Living out in L.A. Can’t say I like her husband much, but nobody asked me.”
A twinge of wistful regret dampened her earlier glee.
“Whatcha got there?” Mac pointed to the stack of papers she’d methodically carried in the front seat with her all the way from Norfolk.
“Oh, I have to give all of this to them.” She gestured to the door now looming in front of her. “I just paid off the taxes on the Inn, and they said to come here to make sure everything was filed correctly and to get a business license.”
Mac nodded his understanding. “Care if I escort you?” He gave her a quick bow and offered her his arm. It felt so good to laugh. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d done it. Taking his proffered arm, she let Mac lead her into the Pender County Clerk’s office.
After promising him that she would stop by the coffee shop that afternoon for a slice of Molly’s pie, she left the courthouse and headed into the tiny town of Gypsy Beach.
&nb
sp; The whispers of a few clerks at the courthouse bothered her more than she should ever allow. She ordered the breathy gasps of whispered disdain from her psyche. She didn’t care that her Nana was a full-fledged Gypsy. She loved her Gypsy blood. It’s how she’d survived the last ten years, after all.
Her beloved little beach town was battered, but still standing. The storm had left its mark, but healing had begun.
She passed the pier. Her eyes sought the water. Grady Havens tipped his baseball cap to her as she passed. He and his brothers, Nate and Beau, were spraying off, Gemini, one of the charter boats their family owned. Haven’s Sailing and Fishing Charters appeared to be getting ready for business.
Fishnets and crab traps still littered the lawn in front of the Lobster Shack. Sienna’s mouth watered as she recalled the hush puppies they served at The Shack. She made a mental note to dine there very soon. The Montgomerys’ coffee, surf and turf shop gleamed with a fresh coat of bright yellow and apple red paint. Mystic Mermaids souvenir shop was still locked up, but the sign had been redone and hung from the front porch railings. Bay Merchants Market had bins of peanuts and apples parked beside the new grocery carts.
With another bump and turn, she smiled and waved to Pinky working in the open window of the ice cream shop. The Coke machines in front of Wright’s Drug Store were being replaced, and the Gypsy Wishing Well’s windows were being washed. The tiny hot pink shed where tourists and locals alike stopped in for funnel cakes, candies, and to drop a wish into the massive wooden box on the front porch of the shop that was supposed to hold Gypsy magic that would make them come true.
Sienna’s heart twisted uncomfortably in her chest. The memory slammed against the recesses of her mind. Ryan holding that wish in his hand while he kissed her and dropped it in the box. A wish that she would be his forever. Clearly wishes didn’t come true, no matter how much Gypsy magic existed.
She tried to determine what she was supposed to feel as her ancient VW van made hesitant progress up the dirt path that led to what had once been the only place she’d ever felt loved and acceptance.
Her heart gave several rapid beats as she forced her eyes to focus on the derelict beach house. She tried so hard to shut them away, but the memories continued their assault on her consciousness by leaking from her eyes.
Nana standing and grinning at her as she sprinted from her mother’s Cadillac up the concrete steps that they’d pressed broken seashells into the summer before. Sienna’s mother never even got out of the car to tell her own mother hello or her own daughter good-bye. She didn’t care for either of them.
The shiver of rejection that Sienna had come to accept made her hands tremble as she shifted the van into park.
Memories of Nana’s warm embrace consoled her, and the tears stung her eyes as she longed for the thousandth time to be able to experience just one more of her beloved grandmother’s hugs.
Every single summer of Sienna’s life, from birth until she’d left for that ridiculous college her mother forced her to attend, painted her psyche in shades of ocean blues, streaks of sunset pinks, beach fire oranges blazing against the opulence of the full moon, and the browns and greens of beach grass covered dunes.
The faded pink of her grandmother’s home burned in the tears now flowing steadily from her eyes. Having no desire to run into any of the eclectic persons that ran the tiny town of Gypsy Beach while crying, Sienna straightened her headscarf and tried to summon courage from the salt-soaked air.
Her booted feet settled in the sandy grass and she grasped her beloved cloth slingbag from the passenger seat and slung it over her shoulder. With a slight wince, she lifted the bag to rescue her long hair from its clutches before she traversed the short path to the front porch.
Suddenly remembering her ancient cell phone that had landed on the floorboard when she’d hit the brakes a little too hard, she went to the passenger side and located it before she headed inside. There was no need to see if it still worked. It was so old she rarely used it anyway. She couldn’t afford the newer, fancier models, and there was never anyone she wanted to call.
Running her hands over the railings, badly in need of sanding and a coat of paint, she tried to survey her newly acquired home with fresh eyes. Guests, to what she was determined to make one of the nicest beachfront B&B’s around, probably wouldn’t find the warped floors, peeling kitchen laminate, and rotting handrails as charming as she did. They would have no memories of the beach house before the storm, and it wouldn’t likely matter that this house was the only place in the world that Sienna ever felt at home.
Tempted to turn and see the McNamara’s beachfront mansion, she ordered herself not to, but she was never one for following anyone’s directives, even her own. Her boots crested the top step, and she spun. There it was, though the grandeur of what had once been the jewel of Gypsy Beach now looked rather worse for wear. The McNamara’s was in one piece but was in need of repairs. The expansive decks appeared to be sagging even from her vantage point on the opposite curve of the beachfront. Recollections of sitting on the front porch swing and waiting on Ryan to sprint over every summer morning rubbed vinegar in the wounds that still battered her heart.
She shook her head and refused to feel the pain. The storm may have left her beloved beach town beaten and battered, but it was still standing. Anticipation and possibility blew in on the sea breeze. The fortitude brought her hope.
Sienna turned back and tried not to see the love that she’d been so certain burned there in Ryan’s hunter green eyes. She tried not to feel the heat that always shot through her body when she recalled his muscular arms encapsulating her in his safety.
“That was a decade ago, and you have a job to do. You don’t need him or anyone else. This is what Nana would’ve wanted, and everyone else can just go to hell.” Her resolve stiffened her spine as she marched the last few steps towards the screen-covered front door.
She realized that perhaps her temper and her determination were overblown when her right boot went straight through a rotten board on the porch and met the dirt below.
Refusing to just sit down and have a good cry, she wrangled her foot free and drew a deep breath. The creak of the screen door reverberated in her heart as she slid the key into the lock and used all of her body weight to force the swollen door open, certain the memories were going to engulf her like a riptide she couldn’t outswim.
Trying to focus on the good and not the crippling doubts, she travelled through the large living room and into the smaller kitchen. A smile automatically formed on her face as she inhaled deeply. The walls of the home held the perfume of so many memories. Nana’s cooking, the patchouli oil she would apply to Sienna’s skin when she stayed in the sun too long, and the wildflowers that were always on the kitchen table whispered in the air.
Out of habit, she skipped the third step on her way up to the bedrooms. It squeaked and bothered the guests. Sienna couldn’t stand it when people complained to Nana about the Inn.
Her right hand slid along the walls of the hallway. She peeked in each room and breathed in the musty scents of summers past. When she reached the end of the passage, she touched the fabric on the doors of the old chifforobe. Leaning down, she tried to push a bottom drawer back into place. It wouldn’t budge. The humid air had probably made it swell. Sienna decided that she liked it that way anyway. It was Nana’s, and it was perfect.
Trekking to the other end of the hall, she opened the door to Nana’s old bedroom. Her eyes fell on her grandmother’s large jewelry box. Her heart swelled as she rushed to it. She loved jewelry just as much as Nana, and Nana would always let her play. She could wear as much as she wanted. None of it was worth anything. Nana never had much money, but Sienna loved it all. Adding a few more bracelets to the ones already adorning her wrists, another necklace, and an additional ring helped a sense of peace and belonging working through her weary veins. She’d been running for far too long. Running from the memories, running from the decline of Nana’s h
ealth, running from her mother’s constant derision, just running endlessly. All she wanted was somewhere that she belonged, and this Inn had always been that for her.
Two
His body and his mind couldn’t withstand any more bad news. It was an impossibility, but Ryan forcefully unclenched his jaw to answer John’s call. The fact that his best friend, since his ill-fated days at UGA, turned out to be a divorce attorney seemed like maybe the universe was trying to make a few apologies about the sham of a marriage he’d been forced into.
“If you’re about to tell me that she’s trying to have me arrested again, so help me, I’m driving this truck off of the pier when I get there.”
A half-chuckled sigh was John’s response. “No, for now, Alexa seems pleased that you’re heading out of the state.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll be back in two weeks. She’s not getting one minute longer with my baby girl than that ball-slaying vampire of a lawyer of hers got her.”
“I happened to think that your recording her asking you to come get Evie when she called was rather ingenious. I had you out of jail in less than four hours.”
A dramatic eye-roll and annoyed grunt was Ryan’s response to John’s self-pride. Four hours in a holding cell at the Atlanta PD was not his idea of a good time. Alexa had stooped to an all new low when she’d called to demand that Ryan return to the home she’d kicked him out of to get Evie.
He’d known she was up to something, but he was more than willing to race back to Buckhead just to see his Evie Grace. Three hours later, police had knocked on the doors to his parents’ pool house, his new abode, to arrest him for child abduction.
Alexa was a real piece of work. She always had been. It still made Ryan sick whenever he recalled the circumstances of the marriage that he’d tried desperately to make work. It had all been for Evie. Everything he did was for Evie, and all he wanted in this fucked up world was custody of his precious baby girl.
