by Jillian Neal
Not certain how exactly it had happened since he hadn’t ordered anything for anyone, food appeared abundantly on their table. Evie devoured the numerous helpings of macaroni and cheese she was provided.
She wiggled in her seat after her second helping and tugged on Ryan’s arm. “Daddy, I have to go potty.” She announced somewhat discreetly.
He tried not to grimace, but he dreaded this moment every time he took Evie Grace out anywhere. Most places didn’t have family restrooms, and she was much too little to navigate the Women’s rooms alone. His standard protocol had been to ask the grown men in the Men’s room to leave so she wasn’t exposed to anything, but that never went over well, and here at Zingarina’s the cook and hostess may have been willing to overlook his glaring lack of Gypsy heritage and declare he and Evie family, but several of the patrons had given him the side-eye when he’d wrapped his arm around Sienna and kissed the side of her head. The piercing fire in their light gypsy-eyes had spoken volumes, ‘You aren’t one of us, and she isn’t yours.’ Ryan ordering men from the restroom wasn’t likely to go over well.
Sienna studied him for a long moment. “Oh my gosh! You can’t go with her to the Women’s room. I never even thought of that!”
“It’s fine.” He stood and prayed that maybe the Men’s room would be empty.
“No, I’ll take her. I can do it.” Being in the midst of the ultimate acceptance and love that she’d been shown seemed to have given Sienna confidence.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” her voice faltered, but she was determined. “Is there anything special I need to do, or is it fairly straight-forward?”
“You’ll have to set her on the toilet and help her clean up.” It wasn’t that he didn’t think her capable, he just felt bad that she was having to do this. She’d just met Evie, after all.
With a resolute nod, Sienna took Evie’s hand and led her to the restroom. When she’d disappeared, the wary eyes narrowed. Shifting uncomfortably, Ryan tried not to notice. How exactly could he prove himself to Gypsies? Marrying Sienna, never trying to tie her down, making children with her, and allowing her to be authentically her all the way down to her deep Gypsy roots was the only way, and that would take a lifetime to accomplish. More determined than ever, Ryan lifted his head and offered a kind, accepting smile. A few turned away, but a few returned the gesture.
“Daddy!” Evie announced loudly as she returned to the table. “Sienna forgot to wear her panties! She can use my Belle panties!”
Ryan doubled over laughing, but Sienna was the color of the bright red patchwork tablecloth.
“I had to go, too. I didn’t know if she would be okay out of the stall where I couldn’t see her, so I tried to just go really quickly. I didn’t think she would notice. I’m so sorry!”
“Baby, it’s fine. Please don’t worry about it. Thank you for doing that.”
“But….”
Ryan shook his head. “She notices most everything, but I don’t want you to change one single thing about yourself for me or for her. You’re perfect just the way you are.”
“I’m really sorry. What if I corrupted her or something? I told you I had no idea what to do with her.”
“Sienna Rose, stop. You’ve been perfect. You’re already worried about her. You want to take care of her. That’s all that matters. Panties do not make you a great caretaker,” he whispered in her ear, but she was still approaching panic.
After he paid the bill for their food, which had to have cost the restaurant more than the total, he led them back outside, determined to calm Sienna’s unnecessary worries.
As soon as he’d buckled Evie in her seat, he’d climbed up in the Suburban, guided Sienna’s lips to his own, and had quieted all of her ridiculous concerns about corrupting his daughter with the heat of his mouth and the gentle caresses of his tongue against hers.
After he’d gorged himself on those luscious lips and his tongue made several promises to hers, his kisses had travelled to her ear. “Knowing there is nothing under this dress, that I could reach over and touch you at any moment, dip my fingers deep inside of you, feel how wet you get for me, and have you again, that you’re willing to be so open with me, drives me wild. And I plan to show you just how crazy you’ve made me all damn day as soon as I get you back in my bed.” Ratcheting up the lust that flowed so readily between them, his tongue gave a quick stroke up the curve of her ear. Taking it a step farther, he nipped her earlobe. Her body trembled in his arms and her quiet moan said she’d been thinking about the very same things.
When Evie started giggling, Ryan reached back to tickle his baby girl until she was roaring with laughter. He’d cranked the car and headed home. Home. The word had never sounded so sweet.
Sienna was already perfect, and loving, and worried about his baby girl. He couldn’t help but chuckle every time he recalled Evie’s announcement in the diner, but panties did not a mother make. Besides, Sienna’s capricious, free-spirited, slightly untamed side is what he’d first fallen in love with. Her Gypsy side, he supposed. He loved all of her and wanted her just the way she was.
A few hours later, Ryan eased the Suburban down the two-lane past Mac and Molly’s. When the salty air reached his lungs and he heard the soft cries of the gulls seeking their mates and a meal, he relaxed completely.
Contentment flowed through his veins. It had been so long since he’d felt that sensation, it took him several minutes to fully recognize the peace it afforded him.
Carefully guiding the Suburban towards the Inn, Ryan glanced over at Sienna. She’d been sound asleep for the last hour, safe and content right beside him. He’d wrapped her up in one of the blankets he always kept in his Suburban for Evie.
He turned to check on his baby girl in the back. She was sound asleep, tucked in her favorite blanket but sucking her thumb again. She’d started that back when Alexa had filed for divorce. He didn’t have the heart to try to make her quit. Maybe later, when things settled down.
As he took the turn and slowed the truck to keep from bouncing the girls awake, an icy chill crawled across his body. The hair on the back of his neck stood. His heart gave several rapid beats in his throat. The front door to the Inn, the one he’d locked tight that morning, was standing wide open, as were the two side kitchen windows, the only windows accessible from the outside since he’d torn down the front porch. Panic churned in his stomach. Keeping his girls safe was all that mattered. Every cell in his body sought to protect them.
Eighteen
Sienna’s eyes blinked open hesitantly when he’d halted the Suburban. “Are we there?” She yawned deeply.
“Yeah, baby, we’re here.”
Before he could continue, she stretched and pulled the door handle.
“No!” Ryan grasped her arm before she could get out. Startled, she woke fully and saw the open door. Fear pained her tired eyes.
“It’s okay. I’m gonna take you and Evie to my house. If you can stay with her, I’ll come back up here and talk to the police.”
“Ryan, it’s my house. I have to be here.”
“All right, just sit tight. I’m gonna call the cops. We’ll do whatever they say.”
“Won’t that scare Evie?”
Her only concern was his baby girl. Emotion strangled his throat as he dialed 911. “She’ll be okay. We have to know what happened.”
Ten minutes later, a grumpy Pender county sheriff’s deputy walked through the house. “It’s a mess, but I’m gonna need whichever’s one of you own this place to tell me if anything’s missin’. I ain’t got no ways of knowing that, and to be frank, all this old Gypsy land, I’m not sure we got jurisdiction.”
Ryan scoffed. “Gypsy Beach was incorporated in the seventies. This is Pender county, is it not?”
His gruff snipe seemed to shake the deputy from his willingness to brush off the Inn due to Gypsy heritage.
“If you want me to fingerprint everything, I guess I can. Have to get a team out here from Raleigh.
If I was a betting man, I’d say some teenagers was looking for cash. Might’a used one of the rooms to mess around. Been reports of that in the rental properties that aren’t lived in until the Season.” He shrugged his indifference.
“May I please go inside and see if anything is missing?” Sienna was fit to be tied. She’d warned Ryan that the police didn’t like Nana and didn’t like having to deal with Gypsy Beach, but he hadn’t really believed her.
“Sure, there’s nobody inside. I checked the closets.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “How thoughtful.”
He lifted Evie from her seat and handed her to Sienna. She was slowly waking up. Sienna cradled her tenderly on her shoulder, and with a few whispered chords of an old Gypsy hymn, Evie was out once again.
Turning to the deputy, Ryan narrowed his eyes. “You stay right here with them. Do not move more than ten feet away from either of them. Do you understand me? I’m going to check the house. I’ll be right back.”
After a thorough search of the Inn that included every single place that someone might consider hiding, Ryan returned and guided Sienna and Evie back inside.
Sienna’s horrified gasp awoke Evie, who rubbed her eyes and reached for Ryan. The Inn was a disaster. Pillows overturned, drawers hanging out, cabinets standing open with their contents spilled, furniture open and rifled through.
Squeezing her eyes shut for just a moment, Sienna willed this to be some kind of horrible dream. That had been a bad idea. The only thing she could see in her mind’s eye was Ian’s wrath as he destroyed his own apartment because someone had sent a dish of food back that night at the restaurant.
She shook herself. Surely he couldn’t have followed her here. Surely he no longer cared where she’d gone, but who would have done this?
She tried to touch each piece of Nana’s furniture as if to reassure it that it would be okay. She moved to the jewelry box, but everything appeared to be there. “I don’t think there’s anything missing. All of my jewelry is here, but none of it is really worth any money, I guess.”
“Someone was looking for something, baby. Do you have any idea what they might be after?” Ryan’s voice soothed her. It always had.
With an exhausted sigh, she settled on her bed. Her clothes were scattered all over the room. Evie, now fully awake, studied the space from Ryan’s arms. With a few slow blinks of her dark brown eyes she pointed to the floor beside one of Sienna’s suitcases. “There are your panties, Sienna. They must’ve been lost. Do you want me to help you with clean-up time? I know the song.”
Sienna’s cheeks blazed a deep crimson, and Ryan tried hard not to laugh again. There were indeed a few pairs of cotton panties that he suspected didn’t get a lot of use wadded in a ball on the floor. Whoever went through the suitcase clearly didn’t care as they were tossed just as haphazardly as the rest of her clothes.
I have to keep it together. I can’t freak out or I’ll scare Evie! She tried so hard to order herself to think logically. All she wanted to do was cry. She was almost certain that horrible man, Roby, had something to do with this, but why? He wanted money, or… She shuddered to think about what else he seemed to be willing to accept. Why on earth would he want something in the Inn? She didn’t have anything she could sell that would bring any money. She hadn’t even purchased a television set. She couldn’t afford that. He clearly didn’t want the structure itself. He just wanted the money for it.
“Sienna, baby, let’s just get out of here. We can deal with this tomorrow.” Ryan guided her up into his arms. At that moment she didn’t care if she was running away again. Running to Ryan was the only thing she had any interest in. She wanted everything else to go away.
Sienna stood and began tossing a few outfits, some jewelry, a couple of books, a journal, and her toothbrush in a duffle bag. “It’s really weird. What were they looking for? I don’t have any money.”
As that very question had been plaguing Ryan since he’d pulled up to the Inn, he nodded his understanding. Roby was his only guess, and that seemed far-fetched. He was a greedy old bastard, for sure, but there was nothing in the Inn that was worth much of anything. Taking anything of value from Sienna seemed to work against his desire that she pay him yearly for the Inn.
“I don’t know, sweetheart, but I want you out of here. I need to know both of you are safe.”
A few minutes later, he unloaded Evie’s bags and supposed he should be thankful that Alexa did pack all of her stuff. He settled Evie in the smallest bedroom with the pink bedspread that his mother had purchased that last summer that his family had vacationed at Gypsy Beach.
It was nearing two o’clock in the morning, so his baby girl was fast asleep as soon as he turned out the light. He whispered a kiss on her cheek and located Sienna in the living room. She was staring out the sliding glass doors, studying the Inn across the rippling water.
Ryan ordered his libido to maintain control. She was scared and exhausted, and it had been a heck of a day. Hell, he was beyond exhausted, but his cock wanted to hear none of his logic or reason on why tonight wasn’t a good night.
The gleam of moonlight that danced over her shoulders and illuminated her beautiful face and the slight swells of her breasts made her almost impossible to resist.
“Let’s go to bed, baby.” He’d take her lead. If she wanted to be loved thoroughly, he would take excellent care of her every desire. If she wanted to be held and reassured that they would figure out who’d ransacked her Inn, he would provide her the sanctuary of his arms and the fortitude of his protection. He would somehow keep his cock and his overactive libido in check, but it wouldn’t be easy.
She nodded and forced her gaze away from the awe-inspiring view that his parents had paid heavily for. Tears glossed her eyes. His heart, that she’d just recently resuscitated, the evening before, ached for her.
“Come here to me.” He wrapped her up in his arms. “We will figure all of this out, okay? I promise you. We’ll get it cleaned up tomorrow, talk to the police again, and turn your Inn into everything you wanted it to be.”
She nodded against his chest and clung to him with a great deal of force. Her hands knotted his t-shirt as she gave into the tears. He swayed her back and forth and attempted to wipe them away. When that proved impossible, he lifted her up into his arms and carried her to bed.
“I’ve got you, baby. I’m right here. I promise.” His constant vows and his capable hands soothed her until she finally fell asleep against him.
Nineteen
Evie, a half-dozen stuffed animals, her blanket, and her pillow landed on Ryan and Sienna about eight the next morning. “Hi, Daddy. Can I have some juice?”
Rubbing his eyes, Ryan unearthed a groaning Sienna and then made room for Evie between them. “Hi, baby girl. I’ll get your juice in just a minute, okay? Let Daddy and Sienna wake up.”
“Did you have a spend-the-night party?”
Ryan debated an answer as Sienna sat up stared at him in bewilderment. “Evie, listen to Daddy for a minute. Daddy loves Sienna very much.”
“And I love your Daddy. I promise.” Sienna’s vow brought life’s blood back to his body. He leaned and brushed a kiss on her cheek.
“And you know that I love you very much. We’re going to go to Sienna’s house today and you can help us work, then we’ll go play on the beach, okay? She’s going to stay with us.”
Having no idea what his little girl would make of all of that, he braced for an incursion of questions. “Is Sienna friends with Mommy, too?”
Trying not to scowl, Ryan shook his head. “Sienna is my girlfriend. She doesn’t know Mommy.”
“Does Mommy love me very much?”
His heart seized. It refused him the next beat. His lungs burned with acrid air.
“Yes!” Sienna vowed loudly. “Yes, your mommy does love you, Evie. Your Daddy and Mommy both love you, even if they don’t live together anymore.”
Evie nodded, but the question still worried her. “Can I have my ju
ice now?”
Ryan scrambled from the bed, desperate for an escape. He didn’t know if Alexa had ever really loved Evie, or if she was truly capable of loving anyone other than herself.
An hour later, Evie was bringing Sienna a haphazard collection of things that had been dumped on the floor for Sienna to put away. Ryan tried to guide her as he restored all of the mattresses to their beds and boxed up things that would need to be put in storage while he worked on the house, but Sienna didn’t seem to mind putting away whatever Evie provided. When the kitchen was restored to order, Sienna seemed to calm even more.
Ryan continued working upstairs while Evie helped Sienna with lunch. “Daddy!” Her delighted exuberance made him smile.
“Evie!” He matched her intonation and listened to her giggle.
“Sienna says we can have a picnic outside by the water. I helped make your sandwich. Come on!” She grasped his hand and attempted to drag him to the stairs.
The house was relatively restored, and he’d cleared two guestrooms and prepped to repair the hardwoods the next day. A picnic with his girls sounded like the perfect way to spend the afternoon. He scooped Evie up and bounded down the stairs with her.
A hungry grunt escaped his throat when he entered the kitchen to find Sienna in a sexy little apron that had him hungry for something that was certainly not packed in the picnic basket on the table.
Sienna rewarded him with another one of her sexy smirks. “Don’t be sexist, Ryan McNamara.”
He set Evie down, grabbed the ties of the apron, and drew her back to his chest. “Not sexist, baby, horny.” He huffed in her ear. “And trying to stop picturing you wearing nothing but the apron while I do all of your bidding, never the other way around.” His erection nudged at her backside, though he attempted to will it away.
Her breaths sped, and she turned her head to meet his hungry eyes. She liked that idea. Unwilling and unable to keep his hands off of her any longer, he gripped her hips and very discreetly slid her backside against his steel-hard cock. “That’s what you do to me, baby. I still have so much to make up for.”
