by Jillian Neal
Gypsy Love
By Jillian Neal
Gypsy Love
Written by Jillian Neal
Cover Design by Hang Lee
Edited by Chasity Jenkins-Patrick
Copyright © 2015 Jillian Neal
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
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
Published by Realm Press
36 South Court Square
Suite 300
Newnan GA 30263
http://realmpress.net/
ISBN 978-1-940174-21-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015937393
First Edition
First Printing – June 2015
Other works by Jillian Neal
Gypsy Beach
Gypsy Beach
Gypsy Love
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
To Torie – When writing a lawyer,
it’s so helpful to have a person that doubles
as both a friend and legal guru.
“All men should strive to learn
before they die,
what they are running from,
and to, and why.”
~James Thurber
Table Of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
One
“What kind of stupid town doesn’t even have a stupid Starbucks?” Arley Copeland muttered to herself as her ancient Corolla protested the rate of her escape from Tilldale, Alabama. She smirked as she sped past the ancient Motel 6 near the one road in and out of the town that had raised her. The top portion of the six was no longer lit, making it appear that it was called the Motel O. Served the whole stupid town right. She was quite certain if the majority of the ultraconservative women’s church groups—that served to make food right along with hefty portions of gossip for any event—had ever had an O, they wouldn’t think she was such a slut.
She’d be in Birmingham in an hour. She tried to let that information soothe her, but it fell short of the mark. At least there would be coffee.
It was weak of her to have even tried to go home. She’d thought she could plead her case to her mother, but she knew better. She was doomed from the moment she’d crossed the county line. Her family would never understand her, and she had to admit that was partly her fault. She’d tried so hard to please her mother and the whole stupid town growing up, and now they were simply incapable of understanding her.
Sighing, she saw the gas light blink on her dash. Several choice words pulsed in her mind. She was going to have to stop short of her escape, long enough to fill the car up, anyway.
Praying that she had had some credit left on her gas card she begrudgingly pulled into Aamaco station attached to Chappy’s Chicken and the post office.
She drew a deep breath before she exited the car and attempted to get the nozzle into the fuel receptacle before she had to take another breath. Rolling her eyes, she let the air trapped in her lungs escape. Of course, the metal tag that should have set the pump to supply her car with gas without her assistance was broken. She was stuck.
Her body shuddered as the breeze picked up and assaulted her nasal cavities with the odor of ancient chicken grease from Chappy’s, mixed with the smell of burnt oil, and gasoline. Her stomach churned. A smoky cloud of red dirt from some idiot’s four-wheeler on the dirt track beside the post office barraged the air around her.
“Arley? Arley Copeland? Well, I hardly recognized you. We never see you anymore, except in the papers. I know your mother worries, dear. Why must you put her through all of this? None so blind as those who refuse to see.” Karen Barrage, queen bee of the Lady’s Auxiliary, stumbled slightly as she left the gas station shop and shot her best castigating glare Arley’s direction. She just couldn’t withhold the dig about the papers.
Thankful that she’d splurged on the expensive pair of Ray Ban’s before her life had fallen completely apart, Arley didn’t hesitate to roll her eyes dramatically. Karen couldn’t see her eyes. Arley could, however, see the cartons of Camel lights and six-packs of bitch beer in Karen’s bags.
Deciding that ten dollars’ worth of gas would get her home, she quickly offered Karen a half-wave. She might’ve let her middle finger do most of the waving if the truth were told, but she was fairly certain she’d been discreet.
“Sorry, Karen. I’m running late to a meeting with another publisher, a big one. Have to go. Give Mitch my hellos.” She quickly returned to the safety of her car.
Another mile into her getaway, her cell phone buzzed from the worn leather laptop bag in the seat beside her. Instinctively, she ran her right hand over the soft, pliant leather and traced her index finger over the fading imprint of an elephant and a palm tree. The bag had been her father’s. He always carried his journal, his current manuscript, his favorite pens, his thesaurus, and a deck of playing cards in his bag. Arley did the same. She just happened to carry all of her manuscripts inside her beloved laptop that was crammed in the bag along with a few of her favorite novels.
She had no intention of answering her sister’s call. There was no question as to who was calling. Charlotte could not fix this, and no amount of her sister’s pleas for her to come back to Tilldale and try again were going to work. As if she hadn’t been told by enough people from her hometown that she was a tremendous disappointment.
Charlotte, ever the peacemaker, had presented her plan for Arley to mend family fences the evening before. She wanted Arley to give up her writing career, the one thing that had ever made her feel truly alive. The phrase, “Well, you’ve already lost your books,” kept spewing from both of her sisters. Giving up wasn’t happening, no matter how big of a disaster it had become as of late. The words weren’t even in Arley’s expansive vocabulary. According to Charlotte, Arley’s writing was just a little hard to take. No one in the tiny town of Tilldale knew what to make of it, especially their mother and their vexing aunts. She’d been such a good girl growing up. It was just a little shocking, and then there were the things Chase mentioned.
Arley rolled her eyes as she sped across three lanes of traffic to get to the lane for the Galleria in Birmingham. Horns blared all around her. Her fingers twitched on her steering wheel, but she didn’t quite have enough spite left in her to flip anyone else off. Her family, the entire town of Tilldale, and Chase Masters could all go choke on their righteous indignation for all she cared.
Escape felt awfully good just then. Maybe she should just keep driving. Arley’s best decisions and her best writing always happened over her favorite brew. She needed to be able to think, and the heady smell of air infused with roasting c
offee beans always did the trick.
Lugging her beloved bag over her shoulder, she stomped into Starbucks and ordered a Venti bold black with extra room for cream.
Settling into a tiny table in the back corner, she inhaled deeply and finally smiled. Her shoulders slumped in relief and her eyes made methodical study of the other patrons. A mom with two toddlers pulling on her in the line. She looked like she needed more than a cup of joe to help with her day. Arley imagined her husband coming home from work, whisking her away from the kids and the stove, and spending an entire night spoiling his wife thoroughly. There was a large diamond band on her left hand. It could happen.
Her stomach gave a little flutter of joy when she spied a woman in one of the faux leather chairs reading a massive novel. Leaning to the side slightly, Arley tried to see the title but couldn’t quite make it out. Readers were her favorite. Kindred spirits that knew the power of printed words on a page that wove fantastic tales and adventures. The potency of fiction was awe-inspiring. Why couldn’t her family understand that? Her mind quickly decided that the woman was a quiet, thoughtful librarian that occasionally got a little naughty in the stacks when her lover stopped by after the library had closed.
She sighed and moved onto the well-dressed man, checking his expensive watch as he awaited his latte. Always a sucker for a hunk in a suit, Arley tried not to let her gaze linger too long. He was attractive, but she’d sworn off men after Chase’s little stunt with the press a few weeks before. Ordering herself not to make up a backstory for him as that would probably have involved her helping him remove his suit. She sighed and opened her laptop.
She needed to get away from Tilldale, away from her family, away from members of the First Baptist Church, away from Chase, away from the disaster with her publishing contract, somewhere much further than her apartment on the outskirts of Birmingham. Her mind danced around the idea of heading towards Gulf Shores, but that didn’t seem far enough away. She needed somewhere quiet to think, but sinking her toes into warm sand, letting the sun melt away just a little of her woes, and maybe even donning a bikini sounded downright heavenly. Getting in bed with some guy that knew what he was doing when it came to taking her all of the best places sounded heavenly as well, but that wasn’t going to be happening anytime soon.
She didn’t have the money to fly anywhere. This would have to be a road trip. Truthfully, she didn’t have the money for a trip at all, but she just couldn’t face her family, her failing career, and Chase’s idiotic stunt with the press any longer.
After a few Google searches, she stumbled upon a recently renovated Bed and Breakfast that looked perfect. She could afford several nights there, and breakfast and Sunday dinner was included in the price. Set in a tiny beach town in North Carolina that she’d never heard of, Gypsy Beach was eclectic in its charm, and every room in the Inn had a desk and a bookshelf. Definitely her kind of place.
She narrowed her eyes and tried to read the books on the shelf in the online photo. She made out an old collection of Austen’s works, and her smile continued to expand the width of her face. If she’d never heard of Gypsy Beach, she doubted her mother, her aunts, or her sisters had either. This place was perfect. She phoned the number on her screen and wondered how the beach had earned its name.
“Gypsy Inn, this is Sienna speaking.” The woman on the phone sounded so kind, Arley instantly liked her. “Ryan, stop that!” The command was half-whispered and half-giggled.
Whomever Ryan was, Sienna liked what he was doing and didn’t actually want him to stop. Arley’s heart flew. She was a love addict, and she needed to get it together. She told herself this, but continued listening intently like some kind of auditory voyeur.
Shaking herself, she felt her pale face flush. “You’re probably all booked up, but I was wondering if you might have a room for the next week or two.”
“We’re not booked. I have three rooms open, actually. We’d love to have you.” She sounded quite sincere but was still giggling. Arley heard the muffled echo of someone’s—she assumed Sienna’s—ass being lovingly smacked through clothes. Her mouth watered and her heart sped. Desperate envy threatened to pervade. Arley! You cannot be that hard up! She ordered her mind out of her panties.
“Oh, great! Thank you! Uh, are you sure?” Something akin to hope actually permeated her weary frame, but she didn’t want to interrupt anything. It sounded like Ryan and Sienna might like to be alone.
“I’m sure. We’d love to have you. Just let me get a little information.”
Maybe a vacation was a good idea. Maybe that plaguing sense of dread that haunted her would take a vacation as well. Writer’s block. The words made her shudder. They scraped against the recesses of her mind like fingernails on an internal chalkboard. Maybe she could actually get a few words worthy of another manuscript onto the screen after she got away from Alabama and all of the problems it seemed to hold.
Two
“Ryan, man, are you sure about this? Aren’t you supposed to be charging people to stay at the Inn? Isn’t that how you make money?” Since John Rowan was already heading east from Atlanta, he felt his should offer again to pay for the room Ryan and Sienna had so graciously offered him. Truthfully, he couldn’t get away from Atlanta and the law offices of Hatcher, Larriett, and Welch fast enough.
“You kidding me! We’re excited you’re coming. Evie’s been talking about seeing Uncle John all day, and Sienna’s still cooking. We have like three guests here. We’re sure as hell not booked. Season’s almost over.”
John let that information tumble through his brain. He supposed that was true, and he did want to see Ryan and Evie Grace. He missed them terribly since they’d moved up to Gypsy Beach to start a real life with Sienna. John wished his best friend and his goddaughter all the best, but it just wasn’t the same as having Ryan in Atlanta with him, available to hang out and talk when life turned into a shit storm as it had lately.
“All right, but just stick me somewhere out of the way. Tell my girl I’ll be there in a few hours.”
“I’ll tell her, but she’ll be asleep when you get here. You can see her in the morning. She’ll be thrilled. Some author made reservations an hour or so ago. We might move her to the suite, if you don’t mind. You can choose one of the other two rooms. They’re similar.”
“Yeah, wherever is fine. I just need to get out of Atlanta for a little while.”
“Yeah, I can tell. We’ll see you tonight.”
“He’s still coming, right?” Sienna’s concern over Ryan’s best friend made his heart swell. Every single time he thought he couldn’t possibly love her more she did something else astounding. Currently, she was sipping coffee and occasionally glancing down to her stomach, debating telling him something he already knew. A broad grin formed on his features, but he ordered himself to be patient. She’d tell him when she was ready and when she was sure. He suspected the lack of certainty was why she hadn’t mentioned anything as of yet.
“Yeah, he’s on his way, but something is definitely up with him.” Ryan took Sienna’s hands, pulled her away from the kitchen counter, and slid behind her. She laughed as he lovingly wrapped is hands around her waist. “I love you, Sienna Rose.”
“I love you, too, but maybe we should try to figure out what’s up with John before he gets here so we can try to help.”
He nuzzled his head between her cheek and brushed kisses along her bare shoulder. “He gets this way occasionally. His job gets to him, and he needs a break. He’ll be fine. I’ll talk him off of this ledge when he gets here.”
“Being a divorce attorney does seem like the kind of job that could sort of eat at your soul.”
It seemed his fiancée wasn’t going to be persuaded back to their bedroom while Evie took her nap. Ryan sighed out his disappointment. She gave him that mischievous smirk that lit him on fire.
“Agreed, and I’ll stop trying to get my hands up that skirt, I guess.”
She laughed at him outright as she spun
in his arms. “Hey, maybe we could have a quick ceremony while John is here. He said he was staying for a week or two, right?”
Elation cascaded through his body. “Oh yeah? Any reason you’re suddenly so willing to get on with the wedding portion of this deal?”
“I haven’t been putting it off.” Her face fell. Hurt dampened the fire that played in her beautiful, hazel, Gypsy eyes.
“Baby, I know. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“We’ve just been so busy this summer. If John’s here, he can be your best man. Maybe we could even get away for one night, and he could watch Evie. Do you think he’d mind?”
“We will do whatever makes my girl smile. You know that. I just want to be married to you. I want to make babies with you, Sienna Rose.” He’d never been very good with patience, and though he hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, she hadn’t answered his question.
“Be patient, Mr. McNamara. Your little girl will be up soon, and Ms. Copeland and John will be here in a few hours.”
“Our little girl.” Ryan corrected her. He wondered if Sienna would ever feel comfortable calling Evie hers. She didn’t want to offend Alexa, his ex-wife, though God only knew why. Sienna spent most of her days with Evie Grace. She let her help out at the Inn and play in the kitchen while she cooked. She colored with her and took her to play in the ocean while Ryan ran his construction company. Alexa hadn’t seen Evie in months.
*****
Okay, so maybe picking a beach somewhat closer would have been a better idea. Arley sighed as she watched the road extend endlessly in front of her with only the onslaught of Pine trees to tempt her mind.
Excited to execute her escape, she’d made quick work of packing a few pairs of yoga pants, her favorite t-shirts, several bikinis she’d purchased two years before, and a few nicer outfits, since she did plan to occasionally come out of the room she’d reserved. She’d even thrown in one nice dress she owned that might be nice for a night on the town. A girl had to have hope, didn’t she? She’d stubbornly refused to alert her mother or her sisters to her plans. They could just wonder where she’d gone. She was sick to death of all of them, anyway.