Free Gypsy Beach by Jillian Neal Page A

smile.
    “I’ve had more than my fair share of Ramen.
Trust me.” He hated that she used to always feel somehow less than
his family. He’d wanted to pretend that she’d forgotten all of
that, but apparently that hadn’t changed either. In any case, he’d
been living on Maruchan products for the last several months.
    That dizzying grin returned, much to his
delight. “Anyway, I worked at a bunch of different restaurants and
like a dozen coffee shops. Cooking just kind of clicked, I guess,
and I think it’ll help me run this place.”
    “I’ll say. This is great.” Ryan lifted the
half empty glass of frozen frothy coffee in exultation. “Hey, just
let me get these beams down, and we can head into town.”
    “Right.” Sienna nodded, but concern had
dampened the previous color in her cheeks.
    Maybe she was having second thoughts about
spending the afternoon in town with him. “Uh, if you don’t want to
go…” he forced himself to make the offer.
    “Oh, no, it isn’t that. I’m excited to go. I
just don’t really know anything about what I need, and I can’t
spend more than my loan. I have to be able to pay you. It’s kind of
overwhelming. I’m not that good with money,” she admitted
fretfully.
    Sienna watched his neck contract as he
swallowed. He gave her a kind smile and an encouraging nod. “I’d be
honored to help you figure everything out for this place. I’m
pretty good at all of this, and I think I have a good idea what you
want it to be when we’re finished. We don’t have to buy anything
today. You can just get some ideas. No pressure.”
    Her stomach performed several quick backflips
and then missed the landing as it spiraled downward somewhere
towards the vicinity of her feet. He always made her feel like she
could do anything, and that if she needed help he would be there.
He was never overbearing and never made her feel ashamed about what
she didn’t know. The sincerity in his eyes made her entire body
long to rush into his arms and just let him hold her and make
everything that had gone so wrong disappear.
    “Thank you,” she tore her eyes from his,
afraid of what she might do if she kept staring up at him.
     
    Ryan had washed up in one of the guest
bathrooms again, and a half hour later, Sienna found herself seated
in his Ford Ranger. “I’m sorry about the truck. It needs a little
work.” He pressed the gas pedal several times to coax the engine to
start and tried to hide his embarrassment.
    Sienna giggled. “I own a 1974 VW van, and it
runs about as well as you’d think a 1974 VW van would run, but I
love it. I could never sell it.”
    The grin of abject relief that he gave her
made her entire body come alive. That heat that he always ignited
inside of her turned liquid between her legs. She shifted in her
seat and realized that if she was going to be hanging out with Ryan
for the foreseeable future, she might have to resort to panties.
The crotch of her jeans was likely to show off what he did to her
body, and that was going to be super embarrassing.
    “I like your van. It’s very you.”
    “You think?” She did genuinely want to know
just what he thought of her, but he just gave her another
smile.
    She shrugged. “I guess it is. It was all I
could afford after working at a coffee shop in Norfolk for about
six months. My mom let me move back in after the whole college
thing, but Carol and I should really never live in the same state,
much less the same house. I bought it when I decided to travel
around the country, so we’ve been through it all together. The bed
area in the back is handy if you don’t have anywhere to stay for a
night.”
     

Ten
    Ryan tried not to show her his shock or his
panic. Where had she gone that she’d had nowhere to stay? Had she
seriously lived in her car? What if something had happened to her?
He willed his heart to remain inside his rib cage and gripped the
steering wheel to keep from wrapping his arms around her and