by Jillian Neal
“Hey, you keep making him smile like that, and I will try to lawyer you out of this. That’s how this works, okay?” He tossed the paperwork on his massive dining room table. Sienna wondered if anyone had actually eaten a meal there. It appeared to be a showpiece only.
Evie carried a much-worn stuffed bunny and small plastic cup with a lid back towards Ryan. She lifted her hands up, and he scooped her up into his arms. “You ready to go to the beach, baby girl?”
“Yes, Boppy and I are ready to go to the beach.” She rubbed the bunny against her cheek and nuzzled her face against her daddy’s neck. All three of the adults in the room swooned over her.
“Oh!” John’s eyes lit in delight. “I got you something else, too. Seriously, I do not charge you people enough.” With that, he opened a small drawer on a hutch and tossed Ryan a set of keys, which he caught instinctively.
“How the…” He paused and cleared his throat. Evie raised her head and giggled. “Uh, how did you get my Suburban back?”
John looked very pleased with whatever he’d done. “That was part of the bargaining with Alexa. I explained that you had to have a safe car to drive Evie in and that you hadn’t had a chance to get one after she had your Suburban impounded. She was in such a rush she signed it back to you free and clear. Tow truck just put it in the parking garage.”
Sienna watched as Ryan took Evie to the potty, made her another cup of water, and set up movies for her to watch on their long drive back to the beach. It was all so intimidating, and he did it with ease. The realities of how different her world had just become settled like a granite boulder in her stomach.
Trying to distract herself, she glanced around Ryan’s custom Suburban. It had video screens for each of the back passengers, a DVD player, and several large tool boxes in the back.
“So, I guess your other truck didn’t really compare.” Her voice shook though she’d ordered it not to.
On the brink of a complete panic attack, she watched as Ryan buckled Evie into her carseat. “You okay?”
How did he know she was freaking out? She’d worked very hard to appear calm.
“Kind of.”
With a steadying breath, Ryan cranked the Suburban and backed out of John’s driveway. “Wanna talk about it?”
Sienna shook her head. She didn’t know what to say. Working through the overwhelming desire to fling open the car door and sprint away took most of her concentration. I’m not doing that anymore. I can do this. She reminded herself of all that Ryan had been through, and John’s reminder that he might not survive if she should suddenly decide that she couldn’t help him deal with impending disasters that seemed to be lurking around every corner. Ryan was the only thing that had ever made sense to her, and, he came with Evie. She could do this. She just didn’t know how.
Ryan’s irritated eye roll brought her back to the present reality. Her brow knitted as she studied the huge truck in front of them on the interstate. The tires were taller than she was, and hanging off of the back was what appeared to be a replication of a steel set of testicles. She couldn’t believe that someone would actually have that hanging on their truck, however. Sienna had never qualified herself as naïve. She’d driven thousands of miles in an attempt to find her way back to Ryan, but she’d never seen anything like that.
“Are those…?” She tried not to point and alert Evie to anything odd. She was watching Frozen with a great deal of focus.
“Yes, and I’m sorry. Obviously, douchebag has none or he wouldn’t feel the need to jack his truck to the moon and hang that on the bumper. I’m trying to take care of my girls not expose them to complete morons on the road.”
Feeling woozy from their day and her nerves, Sienna was thrust backwards in time. That early June night when the entire world seemed to exist only for she and Ryan. He’d driven her out to Stryad point. She remembered how the stars and the moonlight lit the fire in his eyes. He’d parked his father’s Jeep Cherokee over the levee, and they’d been very disappointed to discover that they weren’t the only couple that had sought Stryad as a cover for passion. Groups of teenagers were crowded together, joking, laughing, smoking cigarettes they’d stolen from their parents, and downing beers like there was no tomorrow.
“Wanna go somewhere else?” The pleading edge to his question made her heart fly. “I just want to be alone with you, baby.”
Before she could nod her agreement, a bunch of guys that knew Ryan from Atlanta approached the Jeep. He rolled his eyes, locked the doors, and lowered the driver-side window. Tension rolled off of him in waves. Fear had rooted Sienna to her seat, but she wasn’t certain what had made him so angry.
“What do you want, Zach?”
“Saw you pull up, McNamara. Thought I’d see if Brandon was right.” Zach’s derisive voice seemed to ignite Ryan’s fury.
“Why don’t you and Brandon shut the fuck up and get out of my way.” He shifted the Jeep into reverse. Sienna recalled reaching and grasping his hand. He’d turned to her and offered her a forced smile. “It’s okay, baby. We’re leaving.”
“Baby!” Zach chanted gleefully. “So, it is true. You’re hooking that Gypsy skank. You know she’s nasty man. You could do better.”
Before his words could filter through the barricades Sienna had erected in her mind, Ryan was out of the Jeep, and Zach was on the ground. She’d rushed to his side and begged him to stop. The force of his fury left Zach with a busted lip and badly blackened eye. In a blur of anger and fear, they’d leapt back in the Jeep and he’d hightailed it back to Gypsy Beach. He’d apologized the whole way. She’d cried, but not because of Zach’s words; that stigma she’d grown used to. Her mother had tried to pretend that they weren’t what they were, but Sienna was proud of her roots. She loved her Nana. She’d cried that night because Ryan’s hand was bleeding. He’d gotten hurt because of her.
He had always been so protective. He always made her feel safe. As long as he was there, he would take care of her. She’d trusted him implicitly. When he hadn’t shown up…. No, she wasn’t going there again. His story was more than enough to ease the heartache she’d endured, and being qualified as one of his girls filled her with a sense of peace and love that she’d been certain she would never experience again.
With a sweet grin, she laced her fingers through his while he steered with one hand. “I’m just still not exactly sure how to do this.” She glanced back at the precious little girl that was now yawning deeply and snuggling up with her stuffed bunny.
“About the idiot in front of us or about me?” There it was, that horrid pain that kept puncturing his words.
“I’m not really sure much can be done about his situation. I’m pretty sure all of those male enhancement pills don’t actually work.” She giggled and wrinkled her nose as the truck turned and the distended genitalia swung to hit the bumper with a loud thwack.
Ryan’s sexy, rumbled chuckle reverberated in her soul, shaking loose just a little of the drowning fear.
“I just don’t know what I am.” As her statement made no sense, she wasn’t surprised that Ryan’s brow furrowed.
“What you are?”
“It’s just everything is going really fast, but after ten years it doesn’t feel so fast. It feels kind of slow. I don’t know. You’re still married.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, but Evie was drifting off to sleep. “What does that make me or us? She’s going to ask, don’t you think?”
“John’s trying to move the hearing up. Right now, it’s set for three weeks from tomorrow. After that, I won’t be married anymore. Maybe we could spend the next three weeks figuring all of that out. I don’t want to scare you Sienna, but I’ve already laid it all on the line for you anyway. I’ve never stopped being in love with you. I’d marry you tomorrow if it weren’t illegal, and I just can’t use the money you’re paying me to fix up the Inn to buy you a ring. I have to figure something else out. I shouldn’t be letting you pay me at all.”
“Ryan.” Sienna rolled her
eyes. “Let’s not make all of this even more difficult.” She still didn’t really know what any of this meant. A million questions pounded out a tribal dance in her skull.
Ryan glanced her way as they finally made their way out of the city. “It’s a long way back to Gypsy Beach. Just please say whatever you’re thinking. I’m going insane with you sitting over there looking like you’re about to bolt and not talking to me.” He glanced back at Evie, who was sound asleep. “My nerves are shot to hell, sweetheart. Please just talk.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to worry you, and I’m not going to bolt.” A twinge of irritation twisted along her spine. Must he keep assuming that’s what she was going to do? “I guess everything’s just up in the air, kind of.” Heat darkened her cheeks and chapped her lips. She didn’t want to ask the one thing she desperately wanted to know. Last night had been incredible. She called herself selfish and horrible, but….
With another one of those sexy smirks, he raised his left eyebrow. “What? What is it you’re not asking that you want to know?”
She shook her head. What if Evie was only pretending to sleep? Okay, that would be a stretch for a four-year-old, but still.
“Sienna Rose.” His low, husky voice shot pure lust through her, obliterating her stubborn resolve. It had been a very long time since he’d called her that, and the effect it had on her seventeen-year-old body was nothing compared to the way it affected her now. Her blood quaked and a slick heat immediately formed between her legs. He was the only person she’d ever wanted to obey. “Just tell me.”
Helpless to stop herself, she drew a shaky breath. “Can we still…” She glanced back again, “…you know, if Evie’s there?”
With his jeans becoming uncomfortably restrictive, Ryan shifted in his seat. If that’s what she was fretting over, he could take care of this particular concern with ease. The fact that she wanted to be with him again almost as much as he wanted to bury himself deep inside of that sexy little pussy made him deliriously happy.
Sienna was seated beside him wanting him. Evie was sound asleep safe in the backseat. If someone had told him a week ago that he’d have the two women that meant the most to him in the world right beside him again, he would have called them outright liars.
“Make love?” he husked. “Oh, hell yeah, baby. Evie’s been sleeping in a regular bed in her own room for a year now. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, she calls me, and I have no intention of ever getting into bed without you in my arms again. I have a decade to make up for, remember?”
“So, you think that’s okay? It’s not bad for her? It won’t corrupt her or anything?”
Ryan couldn’t help but laugh. “She’ll be completely oblivious, other than about the fact that her Daddy is happier than she’s ever seen him before.” He turned and met her penetrating gaze. So many questions danced in the flames that lit those sexy hazel eyes. He needed to answer each and every one of them. He could leave no room for doubt, and must always remember her propensity to fly away.
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear earlier. I know I was a disaster, but I want you with us Sienna. I want Evie to know you. I know she’s going to fall in love with you, just like I did all those years ago. No matter what happens at that hearing, I’m never walking away from you again. Stay with us at the beach house. I’m gonna be tearing out the floors at the Inn and painting and wallpapering. It’s not easy to live in the middle of a construction zone. Please?”
“I don’t know, Ryan. What if she talks to Alexa and says something about me? I don’t want to do anything that might make you look bad. I’m still not sure what to even say to her.”
“Alexa is currently in Paris with her new lover. She’s been cheating on me since Evie was born. In fact, I’m pretty sure she slept with her OB. I am legally separated and well within my rights to date. So, let’s do this officially. Will you please be my girlfriend?”
“You’re really sure you want me to be your girlfriend?”
“Sienna, baby, please listen to me. Yes, I want you to be my girlfriend. I was just talking about buying you a ring. So, girlfriend, fiancée, wife, I want it all. The wish I dropped in that box at the Well all those years ago has always been my only wish. I’m making it come true this time. We just have to wait a little longer to see if I can manage to dig my way out of this shithole that is my life right now.”
A mischievous smirk lit the fire in her eyes. Ryan almost drove into the car in front of him, unable to peel his eyes from her face.
“And will you say that The Stones are infinitely cooler than The Beatles?” The smirk on her face was intoxicating.
Ryan laughed, shook his head, and held up his right hand. “If you, Sienna Rose Cooper, will be my girlfriend and eventually my wife, I will forever vow that The Stones might be slightly better than The Beatles… after John was killed.” He mumbled the last part quickly. She dissolved into a fit of giggles.
Seventeen
“I hate my stepfather.” As they passed the South Carolina line, she finally choked on the very thing that scared her the most. She didn’t want Evie to resent her for having Ryan’s attention, and she certainly didn’t want to come between them. Understanding eased the concern that had angled Ryan’s features.
“Well, I haven’t heard you talk about him in the last few days, but I know that you used to hate Richard because he never wanted you around. The guy was, and I’m assuming still is, a narcissistic asshole that convinced your mom that somehow she wasn’t as good as he is because of your grandmother. She bought that shit hook, line, and sinker, and tried to make you believe that. Evie will not hate you, Sienna, because you care about her. I’m hoping you want her with us, and you already want to take care of her. You’re a phenomenal woman, Sienna. Kids can sense stuff like that. She was already talking about wanting to show you all of her toys. She already likes you.”
“Really?” A small sense of relief washed over Sienna, loosening her shoulders and easing her tensed abdomen.
“Really, and please, let’s just take this a day at a time. Let’s just decide to make it work. I need this to work. I can’t go on without you. I barely survived the last ten years.”
She wished he would stop saying things like that. It made her feel guilty, even if it was entirely his parents’ doing, and then a series of very unfortunate events.
Reminding herself that she’d lived the majority of her life without much of a plan, she decided that his idea of just taking it a moment at a time might be a good one.
She shut down that same annoying voice that loved to remind her that Ryan had broken her heart. When she finally recognized the taunting tone as her mother’s, she fought the urge to flip it off. Maybe they were going to play house for a few weeks, but maybe that would be the best way to learn.
As they neared Florence, Ryan’s smile widened. He’d been grinning for the last four hours. He couldn’t seem to stop. It just felt too good to be sitting where he was, sitting with his girls in his Suburban, happy and safe.
“Would my girls like some dinner?”
“I want macaroni and cheese, please, and the kind with ketchup.”
Sienna laughed as Ryan shook his head. “She wants that for every meal. The kind with ketchup is fish sticks with ketchup. She just can’t seem to remember the fish stick portion of the deal.”
“Well, I don’t know about fish sticks, but there’s this great diner just off the drag in Florence. I know everyone there. They’re really great, and they make amazing mac and cheese. I worked there for a few weeks while when I chickened out about going back to Norfolk when I was coming back from Cali.”
Furrowing his brow, Ryan bit another hole in his tongue and ordered himself not to demand that she tell him what had happened in California.
With a sigh, he followed her directions to Zingarinas Diner. As soon as his boots landed on the gravel parking lot he understood why Sienna would have had no trouble working there for a few weeks before she moved on. The diner
was relatively small and had the cozy, ramshackle feel of a Gypsy bandwagon. “Food for the wandering soul” was painted on the sign hung with rusty chain on the porch.
Fabric was strung along the windows in an eclectic attempt at blocking the occasionally blinding sunlight that would pour through the large plate-glass windows, one of which had been cracked and then secured with duct tape. Silhouetted pictures of Gypsy dancers complete with long tiered skirts and bandanas decorated the windows.
Chuckling to himself, Ryan lifted Evie from her carseat and wrapped his arm around Sienna. She seemed thrilled to be here, and he was thankful that she’d relaxed a little.
“Sienna Rosa!” rang from the cook, the hostess, and several of the waiters and waitresses in a deep chorus of Romani accents.
Sienna blushed violently but accepted hugs from them all. They greeted Ryan and Evie with equal exuberance. “If Sienna Rosa brings you, you family!” the cook, who’d come out of the open kitchen to greet Sienna, declared loudly.
They were seated immediately, despite the restaurant having numerous patrons, and Evie quickly became the center of the attention and the affection from the staff.
“Look, Daddy!” Evie pointed to the large, ancient kettle in the center of the table. The spout was missing as was the handle, so it had been turned into a makeshift flower pot. Inside the overflowing dirt that Ryan doubted would please anyone from the Health Department sat several dozen dandelions. They were fluffy white and ready to be blown. As making wishes was one of Evie’s favorite things to do, she was ecstatic.
Ryan had never seen dandelions planted as they were effectively a weed, and he was certain that she shouldn’t blow the pedals all over the restaurant.
But as soon as Evie pointed to the flowers, Rosamaria, the hostess, lifted a handful of the flowers from the kettle. “You know baby girl, families of fairies live inside zee wishpuffs! You can set zem free! Come with me!” She led Evie back out front and let her blow to her heart’s content. Ryan and Sienna grinned over her exuberance.