by Jillian Neal
“Are you’re sure you’ll be able to find steady work in that beach town you’re so determined to return to?” John had been skeptical from the beginning, but Ryan knew he could make this work.
“The whole town was badly damaged in the storms last fall. They’re set to re-do every structure. They want to save the town and make Gypsy Beach the new small-town tourist locale. Investors are coughing up money left and right. I may suck at most everything else, but I can sure as hell build anything anyone wants. I’ll make this work, and if you ever get off your ass and get anything done, when I get full-custody of Evie I’m gonna raise her there. I don’t want her growing up in Atlanta, and I sure as hell don’t want to be there anymore.”
“Ryan, I know that’s what you want, all right? It’s just not very likely that Alexa is going to give away her biggest bargaining chip. I feel certain that fourteen years of child support probably makes her salivate.”
“Let’s be real, John. Making me so miserable I no longer want to live and milking me for every penny I ever hope to make is how she gets off. My little girl will not be raised by that bitch.”
“She’s got the latest papers, Ry. You agreed to sign away the mansion, her Mercedes, and all of that jewelry she’s amassed, along with a ridiculous amount of alimony. Who knows? She might walk away. It’s still a few weeks before the hearing. I’ll keep talking to her. God knows she doesn’t want Evie; she just doesn’t want you to have her. But before I can get any judge to consider taking custody away from the mother, you’ve got to be making money and have your own residence. They’re going to need to see that you have some place, that’s not your parent’s pool house, to raise Evie. And do nothing Alexa can use to cast any shade on your character. No more boozing, no more smoking, nothing. Don’t even stay out past ten. You become a priest, and I’ll see if I can’t get you your little girl.”
“Well, fit me for my collar. I’ll do anything, John. You know that. She means the world to me. I haven’t had a drink in years, not since Evie Grace was born. Give me a little credit.”
“Yeah, well let’s both work on the credit giving. I’m working my ass off. I’m doing the best I can.”
“I know, and thank you.” Ryan ended the call and tossed his cell in the passenger side of the ancient Ford Ranger that he’d bought for a few thousand dollars at auction when Alexa had his custom Suburban seized.
He couldn’t imagine what he could feel slamming against his rib cage. He’d left his heart back in that stone-cold bitch’s house where he’d been forced to leave his little girl.
An hour past the North Carolina state line, he slowed the truck and tried to study the small town of Gypsy Beach. Swallowing down the past seemed futile, but he attempted to see the battered buildings as a contractor and not as the man that had let his parents take away everything that had ever been good in his life.
God, he could still see her, still feel her sweet breath on his skin that was starved for her touch. His chest was hollow. If Ryan were being perfectly honest, he would admit that he hadn’t left his heart back in Atlanta with Evie; no, he’d gone on completely heartless for the last ten years. Ever since that morning, he’d woken up with Sienna Cooper tucked up in his arms and had been stupid enough to help her sneak back into her grandmother’s Inn and then had turned and walked away.
Driving on instinct alone, since he couldn’t really see anything before him, in the present tense anyway, it startled Ryan when he shifted the truck into park and stared up at his parents’ old beach house. He rubbed his temples and reminded himself that his baby girl was counting on him before he slid out of the truck and headed inside what had once been quite a house. Just like everything else, it now only held the remains of what had once been life. A crypt of memories, promises, a future, and hope that no one could ever access again. Everything had all washed away with the tides.
He shook one of the long sturdy wooden poles that held up one of the upper decks. It gave far too much for his liking, and Ryan stared up at the footings of the deck, trying to determine how much longer it would remain attached to the house. Giving it at least another six weeks, he allowed himself to enter his new home.
The smell of the beach house at the beginning of each summer always took him back. His family had been happy there; well, happier there than they ever were anywhere else.
A tinge of mildew and musty sea air assaulted his senses. He moved to open a few more sliding doors and windows in an effort to rid his nasal passages of breathy memories.
He tried to shake the visual assault of her from every location in the house. They’d made out on that couch all summer long. She would hop up on the kitchen counter with that sassy smirk and the fire in those hazel eyes that he swore held the mysteries of the entire universe.
No one had stayed at the house for any length of time in the last ten years. He or his father would send men out to check on it occasionally. John had brought a few girls out there for long weekends, but the Gypsy Beach house had been left as a mausoleum of memories, a tribute to a life that might have been if everything hadn’t gone so horribly wrong.
Having no luck ordering the recollections of the last ten years away, Ryan gave in. He took the stairs in a slow death march and traipsed to the bedroom where he’d spent every summer from the age of ten to seventeen.
Squeezing his eyes closed to dam back the tears, he could still see her beautiful body splayed out under his. She’d been nervous. She’d been downright terrified, but she stared into his eyes with such belief in him the feeling had been utterly intoxicating.
God, he’d tried to be so gentle, but the absolute magnetic force between them had him pushing himself into her long before he’d properly readied her. He’d been a seventeen-year-old idiot. Bitter regret ate him alive as he turned and threw his bags into a different bedroom. He may have been a miserable asshole, but he was a little tired of his own self-abuse. Sleeping in the same bed where he’d held the one woman he could ever have seen himself with for an eternity was masochistic as hell, and that was not his thing.
He stomped back down the stairs, relieved that the interior of the house wasn’t quite as bad as he’d expected. It was dated and the decks and siding would all have to be replaced, but it was livable, and he could turn it into a great house for himself and Evie. That was what mattered anyway.
It was late afternoon, and he needed to get some groceries. Bright and early tomorrow morning, he’d head to Montgomery’s and find out who was looking to hire a contractor. He’d work day and night until he’d earned back some of what he’d willingly given away, until he had enough to take care of his baby girl.
*****
“Yay!” Sienna bounced on her toes when she finally got the oven to light. She was careful not to be too abusive to the hardwoods since her boot had gone through the front porch. Successes had been few and far between that day.
She needed more help with the Inn than she would’ve allowed herself to believe since she was saving every penny she could to get her Grandmother’s house out of probate.
This was where she belonged. This was what she wanted to do, and her mother and her stepfather and everyone else that thought she was insane could just take their thoughts and walk right off the pier. She was going to make this a success just like Nana had. Sienna helped her grandmother run the Inn every summer. She knew how to do this, and dammit, no one was going to stop her now.
She spun and unloaded the groceries she’d picked up in town after a restorative cup of coffee and slice of cherry pie from Montgomery’s.
With no conscious decision to do so, Sienna began to hum an old Gypsy hymn her Nana sang daily in that very kitchen. She chopped the onions and peppers on her grandmother’s old cutting board that she’d unpacked and washed. The rhythmic chopping eased her shoulders, and before she knew it her body began to sway to her own song as she threw the vegetables into the hot skillet and tossed them with oregano, garlic and basil, just like Nana had taught her. The delectable scent
infused the air. Replacing her own tune, Sienna turned on the radio and danced and swayed her way through the preparations. Stay where the music moves you, Sienna. She smiled as her grandmother’s voice echoed in the song.
A half hour later she fell onto the sofa, still covered in a furniture blanket, and brought the pasta and spices to her lips. The taste and heavenly aroma of the dish brought on another round of memories of all that Gypsy Beach had been and all that she’d lost when she’d watched her grandmother’s ashes be spread in the Atlantic, just before the storm had robbed her of proper time to say good-bye.
With a resolute nod of her head, she decided that after dinner she’d visit the sea that had been her life and her own death. She wasn’t certain she would ever recover from the loss of her beloved Nana. Or Ryan never coming back.
Whoa! Where did that come from? And why did she keep thinking of him? He was long gone. A memory. A good memory, she allowed herself to admit. She would always love Ryan. He hadn’t loved her, obviously, and as Nana would say, what was meant to be would be. She and Ryan clearly were never meant to be.
Three
Ryan threw himself down on his parents’ old sofa with the Coke he’d picked up from Bay Merchants. He’d debated dinner at Montgomery’s, but he hadn’t quite worked up the courage to make his presence known in town just yet. Rumors of what had happened to his family had certainly made their way to Gypsy Beach, and he just wasn’t certain he was ready to face them. It killed him to think that he might somehow have disappointed a group of people that had helped raise him, even if it had been his father’s doing.
With a slight headshake as his only defense, the disaster that had been the last ten years began to play in slow motion in his mind. That stupid Senior English class he had no hopes of passing in high school.
“You are not going back to Gypsy Beach by yourself this summer, young man. You’re going to summer school to make certain that you pass that English class so you can take your proper place at UGA just like your Daddy has arranged for you. And Sienna was fine for a summer fling, but you’re not giving up college and the life that is waiting for you because of someone like her. Her grandmother was a Gypsy of all things, Ryan McNamara! I have no idea what you were thinking getting involved with her in the first place!”
The icy vindictiveness of this mother’s lecture sliced through him like a frozen dagger once again. Not walking out of his parent’s mansion, figuring out some way to get back to Gypsy Beach, and telling his father and UGA that they could go fuck themselves had been the first of a litany of mistakes that he could never undo.
He’d been escorted by his parents to the University that fall. They were still wary of his decision making skills. Humph! That’s rich! The realization infuriated him all over again. He’d drown himself in copious amounts of cheap liquor, sorority girls, and football games, only to wake up more depressed with each passing day. Unfortunately, the days may’ve been passing, but he wasn’t. High school had been impossible; how the hell had his old man thought he’d survive college?
His mother, and her insistence that she knew best, landed him squarely at the door to Kappa house. His mother’s sorority should’ve had him running for higher ground at the first utterance of the words, “A good friend of your father’s just phoned us. His little girl, Alexa, just rushed Kappa, and we’ve arranged for you to show her around campus this Friday.”
Vomit and regret singed his throat. He swallowed half of the fizzy Coke he now held trying to quell the fire of anguish that consumed him. God, how could he have been so fucking stupid? They were all in on it: Alexa, her parents, his parents, everyone but him. They all thought they knew just what needed to happen in his life.
You’re the idiot that believed her when she said she was on the pill. He didn’t suppose he could blame that on his father.
Somewhere in the middle of his Senior year, when he was much more drunk than he was sober and he was using his Daddy’s money to pay his way through, she showed up at his apartment, declaring them engaged and herself pregnant.
In a gale-force storm of confusion his life had been taken from him. The only thing he consciously remembered was his father agreeing to front him the money to start his own construction business if he’d marry Alexa, be a daddy, and basically let his mother run his life.
Since all Ryan had ever wanted to do was help people construct homes and businesses, places where they could exist outside of the cold, cruel world, that glimmer of hope got him through the disaster of their marriage.
She’d been cheating on him since Evie’s birth. He didn’t give a damn. All he wanted was to be a good dad and to make a success of his business. He’d somehow managed both. As long as Alexa had more money than she could spend she kept the bitching to a minimum and let him and Evie do as they pleased.
The fatal mistake had been never separating his business from his father’s banking operations. Another swig of soda joined the endless sea of regret that swam in his gut.
Two years ago, police showed up at his office. His father had been arrested for embezzlement and all of his businesses were very effectively the property and ownership of the state of Georgia.
Ryan worked tirelessly to rescue his family. He used what money he had, once his business was cleared, to pay off the debts his father had accrued. He sold what he could, but with every bill he paid his life burned in the fire.
Alexa was furious. The league of rich Kappa brides no longer held her as their queen. She had no intention of falling from grace with Ryan and his family so she had filed for divorce and had taken what little he had left.
She viciously held Evie as some kind of sick bargaining chip. Her newest lover was paying for a nanny that Ryan hired. He’d forced through paperwork keeping Evie from ever being in the presence of any of Alexa’s love interests, which is why she’d had him arrested. Revenge was Alexa’s favorite playground game, and she was always queen of the hill.
The fire of regret burned brightly, but once again he used it to fuel his own determination. He was going to make this work. His father owed him now, and no one was going to tell him how to live one more moment of his life. He’d make it on his own. He’d do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it, and Evie was the only girl that would ever hold his heart. She was all that mattered, and he was going to raise her outside of the haughty glares and whispered disdain that constantly roiled around them like some kind of relentless storm. Atlanta’s rich elite could all drive their golf carts straight to hell as far as he was concerned.
He was going to get Evie away from that sorry excuse she had for a mother, and he would be there for her always. He’d tried it his dad’s way and that had been nothing short of hell.
He was calling the shots from now on, and he dared anyone to stand in his way. He had his hammer, his wits, his experience, and more than a hearty dose of stubborn determination. He was going to make this work. He wouldn’t fail at one more thing.
Sienna pulled her half-kimono robe around her as she stepped off of the back porch and headed towards the beckoning waters. She wondered if she should have slipped on a bikini top, but with a quick glance down the shoreline she relaxed. She was all alone. She’d pulled on a pair of cut-off shorts, but she’d always been comfortable without much on. She certainly didn’t have much in the way of curves, and she liked the way Mother Nature caressed her skin with a kiss from the ocean breeze. A slight smile formed on her lips when she recalled Nadya declaring them to be the founding members of Gypsy Beach’s itty-bitty-titty committee.
Sinking down just out of the water’s reach, she stared out at Gypsy beach and tried to remember the lilt of her grandmother’s intonation when she was teaching Sienna something. It was still a few months before tourists would descend on the oceanfront en masse. She had time to get this together and to make some money taking care of the people that visited the shoreline.
That was one of her favorite parts of each summer. She loved meeting the people that came to stay at
the Gypsy Inn. Some laughed at her grandmother’s ways, but they all loved to listen to her wisdom and to eat her food. She cared for each of them in just the way they needed to be tended, Sienna most of all.
“There’s magic in these sands, Sienna Rosa, old gypsy magic. You can hear it when the little children laugh and giggle, when the lovers kiss, when the ocean rises, and when the moonlight dances to its music on the water. Just listen, baby girl. It is there.”
Dragging her hand through the sands, Sienna no longer believed in Gypsy magic. She wasn’t certain she ever had. What she had believed in was love. She knew she didn’t have it back at her home with her mother and stepfather. She knew it lived inside the Inn with her grandmother. At one time, she’d believed love was magic and that was what might’ve been hidden in the Gypsy shoreline. Perhaps that‘s what her grandmother had been trying to get her to see and hear.
She stood and brushed the sand from her hands. She watched the moonlight dance on the water for several long minutes while she contemplated if she even believed in love anymore. Her grandmother was gone, and there was certainly no one available to love Sienna except herself.
Not certain what had driven him to the shoreline, Ryan let the waters wash over his feet as he walked. He headed north automatically. He thought he saw a light on at the old Gypsy Inn, but that was probably just another memory. Turning, he stared up at the moonlight and wondered if his little girl was in bed yet. He’d already called and told her a story as he did every night, but maybe Alexa would let him talk to her again.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He just needed to tell her how much he missed her, wish her sweet dreams, and remind her that he loved her so much. He needed her to know that he wanted to be there with her so badly his entire body ached. He needed her to understand that he never wanted to leave her.
