Gypsy Beach Read Free

beach town you’re so determined to return to?”
John had been skeptical from the beginning, but Ryan knew he could
make this work.
    “The whole town was badly damaged in the
storms last fall. They’re set to re-do every structure. They want
to save the town and make Gypsy Beach the new small-town tourist
locale. Investors are coughing up money left and right. I may suck
at most everything else, but I can sure as hell build anything
anyone wants. I’ll make this work, and if you ever get off your ass
and get anything done, when I get full-custody of Evie I’m gonna
raise her there. I don’t want her growing up in Atlanta, and I sure
as hell don’t want to be there anymore.”
    “Ryan, I know that’s what you want, all
right? It’s just not very likely that Alexa is going to give away
her biggest bargaining chip. I feel certain that fourteen years of
child support probably makes her salivate.”
    “Let’s be real, John. Making me so miserable
I no longer want to live and milking me for every penny I ever hope
to make is how she gets off. My little girl will not be raised by
that bitch.”
    “She’s got the latest papers, Ry. You agreed
to sign away the mansion, her Mercedes, and all of that jewelry
she’s amassed, along with a ridiculous amount of alimony. Who
knows? She might walk away. It’s still a few weeks before the
hearing. I’ll keep talking to her. God knows she doesn’t want Evie;
she just doesn’t want you to have her. But before I can get any
judge to consider taking custody away from the mother, you’ve got
to be making money and have your own residence. They’re going to
need to see that you have some place, that’s not your parent’s pool
house, to raise Evie. And do nothing Alexa can use to cast any
shade on your character. No more boozing, no more smoking, nothing.
Don’t even stay out past ten. You become a priest, and I’ll see if
I can’t get you your little girl.”
    “Well, fit me for my collar. I’ll do
anything, John. You know that. She means the world to me. I haven’t
had a drink in years, not since Evie Grace was born. Give me a
little credit.”
    “Yeah, well let’s both work on the credit
giving. I’m working my ass off. I’m doing the best I can.”
    “I know, and thank you.” Ryan ended the call
and tossed his cell in the passenger side of the ancient Ford
Ranger that he’d bought for a few thousand dollars at auction when
Alexa had his custom Suburban seized.
    He couldn’t imagine what he could feel
slamming against his rib cage. He’d left his heart back in that
stone-cold bitch’s house where he’d been forced to leave his little
girl.
    An hour past the North Carolina state line,
he slowed the truck and tried to study the small town of Gypsy
Beach. Swallowing down the past seemed futile, but he attempted to
see the battered buildings as a contractor and not as the man that
had let his parents take away everything that had ever been good in
his life.
    God, he could still see her, still feel her
sweet breath on his skin that was starved for her touch. His chest
was hollow. If Ryan were being perfectly honest, he would admit
that he hadn’t left his heart back in Atlanta with Evie; no, he’d
gone on completely heartless for the last ten years. Ever since
that morning, he’d woken up with Sienna Cooper tucked up in his
arms and had been stupid enough to help her sneak back into her
grandmother’s Inn and then had turned and walked away.
    Driving on instinct alone, since he couldn’t
really see anything before him, in the present tense anyway, it
startled Ryan when he shifted the truck into park and stared up at
his parents’ old beach house. He rubbed his temples and reminded
himself that his baby girl was counting on him before he slid out
of the truck and headed inside what had once been quite a house.
Just like everything else, it now only held the remains of what had
once been life. A crypt of memories, promises, a future, and hope
that no one