Gypsy Beach (7 page)

“California was definitely not as perfect as
I always thought it would be.” Her admittance brought Ian’s scowl
to the forefront of her mind. Yeah, spending four long months
living with an abusive asshole and then another six months getting
away from him had been about as far from her idea of perfect as she
could get.

But truthfully, even Cali without Ian just
wasn’t what she was looking for. She’d floated from a myriad of
waitressing jobs all over the country that inevitably landed her in
the kitchen. She was a great cook, but she had no credentials, and
therefore no one wanted to pay her a chef’s salary, and no one tips
a great cook. She’d been a barista for a few months back in Denver
and then again in Dallas. Now she could prepare just about any meal
and a freaking awesome latte, but nothing settled her soul. Nothing
until she’d finally forced herself to drive the long roads back to
Gypsy Beach.

“I’m really sorry, Sienna.” The sexy rumble
of his voice shook her from her distraction. The weight of his tone
and his words seemed to say he was sorry for California and
everything else.

“Yeah, but I’m here now, so I guess it all
worked out.”

She was astounding. Always so optimistic.
Ryan wanted so badly to believe that this would all work out, that
his life would somehow pan out to be something he actually wanted
to live, but he just wasn’t certain that he could.

“Well, what about you? I kind of always
imagined that you finished college.”

Her question chaffed at his resolve. He
didn’t want to tell her what a complete and utter failure he’d
become, but the thought that she’d at least thought about him,
imagined him, settled the chaos that continued a contentious
argument between his heart and his mind.

He sighed. Clearly, she’d hated college too.
Maybe she wouldn’t think him too big a loser. “Yeah, well, I went.
My parents didn’t give me any other option. I hated it.” His eyes
begged her to believe that she was the reason he’d collapsed. When
he’d given her up, his entire world had disintegrated into the
hellish abyss he was currently living. And something about staring
into those beautiful hazel eyes made him feel hope, as stupid as
that was.

“I dropped out my senior year.” He ended his
explanation there. No sense in rehashing every single failure of
his life in one meal’s time.

Her bottom lip slipped through her teeth, and
he almost groaned aloud. That beautiful heart shaped mouth of hers
always did him in. Able to beckon him with one quick, mischievous
smirk, and the taste, like the sweetest candy-coated sin he could
ever hope to have. He swallowed down another bite of the pasta and
sauce. It was delicious, but it wasn’t at all what he was
craving.

“Well, you seemed like you really liked
working on the porches today. It made you happy, so it’s good
you’re getting to do what you love. I think it’s a blessing to be
able to do something that makes you smile every day. Don’t
you?”

“I’ve been here like six hours, and you
already figured all of that out?” Astonished yet again, it appeared
that their years apart had done nothing to keep her from being able
to all but read his mind. How did she do that? And why did he long
for her abilities to cut through all of his animosity and anger to
access the very core of who he was almost as much as he longed to
hold her in his arms? Her ability to figure him out with ease
should have irked him. It should have driven him crazy, but the
acceptance in the information she read from his unspoken words
always stirred his soul.

A broad, beaming grin seemed to light the
entire table. The moonlight night was nothing compared to her
smiling at him like that. “Your vibes were happy when you were
working.” Her head tilted downward as if she shouldn’t have said
that. “Kind of like they are now.” The next statement was barely
audible.

Ryan couldn’t stand the way her entire body
seemed to brace for rejection. She’d talked about vibes ten years
ago. It was a relief to hear her let more of her true self out in
his presence. They’d even joked about their own sexual vibes and
how they had amazing chemistry. Why did she look so sad?

“I love my work, and I kind of always thought
the vibes here at Gypsy Beach were made for me, and sitting here
with you is more than I could ever have hoped for, so I’m sure my
vibes are damn near ecstatic.” His confession lifted her head and
shock colored her cheeks.

“Yeah, I think so, too. That’s why I came
back, actually. I drove all over this whole stupid country, and I
never fit in anywhere. Nowhere but here. And I like having dinner
with you, too.”

“Yeah, I get that whole never fitting in
anywhere but here thing.”

“Thank you for saying that. I was worried I
was going insane.”

Having no idea what he’d said that had
reassured her, he went with what he hoped was a sexy smile.

“I guess it’s just kind of hard without Nana.
You know my mom and I don’t get along. I hate my stepdad.”

“I’m really sorry about your grandmother.”
With a great deal of force, he bit back the word
‘
sweetheart
’ that he longed to add to the end of his
declaration. “Did you get to see her before she passed?”

Another sweet smile softened her face. “Yeah,
I was here for the last few weeks, but then I had to go back to
Norfolk and get another job. I had to make sure I did everything
right so I could have this place. Nana willed it to me, but Mom
kept wanting to sell it. It was kind of a disaster. I finally got
up enough money and a lawyer helped me get the documents in order.
I just keep hoping everything says what it’s supposed to say. You
know Nana was… kind of unconventional. Her will was hand written.”
She sighed.

Concern dampened some of the lust and desire
that had been swimming copiously through his veins all evening.
Sienna’s grandmother was most certainly unconventional. Most of the
time, Ryan thought she was a little crazy, but she adored Sienna so
that was all that mattered to him.

“Hey, you know, one of the only good things
that came out of me going to Georgia was John. He’s my best friend
and a hell of a lawyer. He did actually finish, obviously. We were
frat brothers, roommates, everything. I could have him look over
your paperwork if you want. No charge.”

That offer was greeted with another one of
those smiles. “Thanks, but I think it’s all taken care of. I don’t
really want to think about it anymore. I just want to get it redone
and make a life here again. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, I
think.”

Disappointed that he couldn’t do something
else for her, he forced a nod and downed the last of the single
glass of wine he’d allowed her to pour him. He’d been very wary of
alcohol since his wild college days. He did incredibly stupid
things when he was drunk, and that was not an option when it came
to Sienna any more than it was an option when it came to Evie. His
days of drowning his sorrows in liquor were long gone, and good
riddance. He certainly didn’t miss them.

“Did you want another glass?” Sienna stood,
and with a quick spin that made that dress flutter and every cell
in his body stand up and take notice, she carried the bottle back
to the table.

“No, thanks, though. I really should get on
home. I’ll be back early tomorrow. I’m gonna work on the front
decks until the sun gets nice and high, and then, if you want we
can go into Wilmington, and you can pick out the finishes we’ll
need, and the appliances.”

“That sounds like fun.” Once again, Sienna
spoke without thinking. He wanted her to go on kind of a roadtrip
with him, and spend the entire afternoon tucked up in a small truck
where there would be no reprieve from his voice, or those sexy
eyes, or that smell of Southern pine trees and fresh cut grass
mixed with smoky incense and the musk that was all Ryan. She’d
driven all over the country and had never found another guy that
smelled like perfected masculinity.

All evening long, her thoughts had strayed to
everything she so wanted him to do with those lips and those hands
and… A shuddered breath caught in her lungs. Keeping her head in
the game and her hands off of his body was going to be a monumental
task, one she would have to keep up all afternoon.

Another round of regret and the favorite
echoed lecture of her mother declaring her to be a complete
screw-up incapable of making good decisions set an icy chill
through her body.

The sound of water running in the sink jolted
her back to the present. Ryan McNamara was standing at her sink
washing dishes that he’d cleared from the table.

“You don’t have to do those.”

Another one of those devastatingly sexy grins
accompanied his scoff. “You kidding me? You made me dinner; the
least I can do is the dishes, but I’ll be quick and get out of your
hair.”

So, he not only can rebuild most anything
inside of her house, but he also does dishes. If he hadn’t
completely shattered her heart into irreparable pieces a few years
before, she would be pretty sure she’d died and gone to heaven.

When he finished, she walked him to the door.
The awkward tension grew unbearably comfortable as he stared at her
lips with a hunger that she recalled so vividly. It had haunted her
dreams for ten long years.

“Thanks for dinner, Sienna. Thanks for
everything. Really.” Those gorgeous green eyes never left her
mouth.

“No problem.” Not certain what to do, but
wanting so desperately for him to kiss her, for him to show her
that he wanted her, she stepped closer. He backed away and all but
sprinted down the front porch steps.

Damn, but that was too close. In every single
way, the entire night had seated him on the precipice of disaster.
He had to get out of there. He called Evie every night at eight to
tell her good-night and to tell her a quick story he usually made
up on the fly. He would never miss that, but telling Sienna about
his baby girl just felt wrong.

Beyond all of that, he was incapable of
standing in that house one more moment and not touching some tiny
patch of her sexy skin, or running his fingers through that long
silken fall of hair, or tasting that wine from her lips.

What her sweet pussy would taste like had
driven him to absolute distraction for a decade, and he was far too
close to carrying her up those stairs and finding out as he feasted
on her.

His determination and resolve were on ragged
edge. He had to get it together. This was for Evie. As he touched
Alexa’s number on his favorite contacts list, he ordered himself to
focus on nothing but his little girl.

Early the next morning, with the moon as his
only accompaniment, Ryan’s shoes sank rhythmically into the sand.
He’d been running his whole life. Soccer, football, and the two
weeks on the track team it took him to realize that he didn’t want
to run to a finish line. He wanted to run away. Caught somewhere
between the indigo hush of late night and the hazy shimmering blues
of early morning, the cathartic sensation of running on the moonlit
beach eased his restless mind. He watched the charter ships leave
from the pier.

Dreams of Sienna had bled in and out of the
nightmares of his reality all night long. The ecstasy of having her
again, of calling her his own taunted him, even in his sleep. He
didn’t deserve her, no matter how badly he wanted to believe that
he could explain away everything he’d done.

When he came to the sandy shores in front of
the Inn, he paused and let his eyes set a longing gaze through the
window of the bedroom where she was sleeping. The lacy curtains her
grandmother had hung over all of the windows were just beginning to
show their creamy color as the sunrise slowly warmed the shoreline.
He envisioned the lacy detail playing on her naked skin.

In his mind’s eye, he could see her there,
tucked up in the bed sheets wrapped haphazardly around her
beautiful body. The summers they’d spent together as teens she
would always wear one of his old jerseys or t-shirts to sleep in.
That memory had his pulse racing far more than his early morning
run.

Wondering what she was sleeping in now and
worry that she might not be warm enough had him swallowing down
another vicious round of regret. It just continued to pull him
under. Desperation to race up to her bedroom, to strip down and
join her in the bed clawed viciously at his resolve.

His precious little girl locked away from
him, back in Atlanta, was the only thing that anchored him to the
present day. Every other piece of his world wanted desperately to
be able to thrust him backwards in time. There were a thousand
mistakes he needed to rectify. Another life he was supposed to have
lived existed just beyond his reach.

The fear that had plagued her pretty face the
evening before when he’d asked her about California haunted him
again. What had happened to her when he hadn’t been there to look
after her? She always leapt before she looked. He’d always loved
that about her, but he was supposed to be the guy that caught her
no matter how far she jumped. Whatever had happened was his fault.
A volatile cocktail of desperation and rectification swam in his
gut.

His feet moved another few steps towards the
Inn, towards Sienna. With the slight shake of his head, he ordered
them away. Anguish turned his body and his feet back to the other
end of the beach.

Not entirely certain how he’d arrived back in
his parent’s old beach house, Ryan listened to the squeaks and
groans of the plumbing as he turned on the shower. Adding that to
his never-ending to-do list, he dropped his running shorts to the
floor and stepped into the rapidly falling water. He let it beat
against him like heated fists that stripped away a modicum of the
tension that knotted his muscles.

Not thinking about Sienna was no longer an
option; it never had been. And getting off before the heavenly
torture of spending another day with her was a foregone conclusion.
If he caught another glimpse of her sexy ass or she gave him
another one of those heart-stopping smiles, his cock would sever
the zipper of his jeans of its own accord. He needed relief from
the persistent, searing ache. The pain he knew only she could ever
fully cure.