Always Conall (Bitterroot #2) (21 page)

Not again.

His lips brushed against my temple and his arm tightened around my waist.

“Yeah, honey,” he murmured into my hair. “I’ll stay.”

His promise eased my mind into warm and secure slumber. His heartbeat was my lullaby, a comforting rhythm, so steady and strong. My last cognitive thought was that my life seemed to suddenly be everything I’d always dreamed.

Conall

As I listened to Sage’s breathing
slow and relax, my mind whirled with the perfection of the day. Everything, from Mattie’s face when she saw the little purple cowgirl boots to Sage’s smile as she watched us. A contentment that I’d never expected to feel settled over me, like a comforting blanket that tickled my senses. Almost like when we were kids.

But better.

And now, her soft little body pressed so intimately against mine. Her breathy sigh as she shifted in her sleep. Her faint whisper when I pressed a ghost of a kiss against her cheek.

Conall.

I had no idea what she really meant when she asked me to stay. An hour. All night.

I wanted to stay forever. Tucked inside this little apartment with everything I needed in this world.
My Sage and our Mattie.

Conall

I woke up with a pudgy little elbow jammed against my throat. Opening my eyes, I saw Mattie had climbed into bed with us, burrowing down between the blankets. She lay on her back, mouth wide open, sprawled out. Sage’s hand had come to rest over her little tummy.

Relaxed with sleep, their features and, more or less, even their expressions (aside from Mattie’s gaping mouth) were similar. The same soft round curve of their cheeks, the same little tilt of their noses. I studied them for a long while, more or less halting my breathing as Mattie shifted in her sleep, rolling away from Sage. Rolling towards me, one clumsy little arm flopped over onto my side, hitting me in the ribs. Her eyes popped open, and for a minute, her baby blue eyes met mine.

Then she smiled up at me.

“Mornin’, Daddy,” she whispered. And she snuggled her little face into my chest as she leaned forward to give me an exuberant little hug.

Right to my heart.
Thwack
. The most amazing feeling struck me, and for a second, I could barely breathe.

“Mornin’, kiddo,” I murmured into her fine, blonde hair.

There was an odd feeling in my chest. Tight. Uncomfortable, yet comforting. Mattie’s fuzzy purple blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, and I tucked it up a little higher. Her eyes opened up to smile up at me again.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered.

“So am I.” My voice came out gruff, overcompensating for the whirl of emotion in my mind. I smiled down at her, my daughter, and experienced another tight squeeze of my lungs. “You remind me so much of your mommy when she was a little girl, Mattie.”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “People say that
all the time
.” She seemed a bit exasperated at that which made me chuckle.

“Well, that’s quite a compliment,” I smiled, “because your mommy is the prettiest girl I’ve ever known.”

“I’m pretty, too? Like Princess Celestia?”

“
Well, I have no idea who that is, but I’d bet money that you are a lot prettier.”

“Do you love her?”

I played dumb because I just loved the sound of her giggle. “Princess Celestia?”

And she rewarded me with the sweetest little chortle.
“No, you silly daddy… Mommy. Do you love Mommy?”

I brushed Mattie
’s hair back out of her eyes and looked at her tenderly. “I’ve loved her as long as I can remember.”

“
Do you love her a lot?”

“
I’ve never loved anyone more. It didn’t seem possible. And then I found out about you.”

Mattie frowned.
“Do you love me
more
than Mommy?”

Shit
…how to answer this. Third-degree by a four-year-old. With no coffee.
Fuck me.

“
I love you both so very much. In different ways. You’re my little girl. You just amaze me, and I think about you all the time. And your mommy… she just captured my heart so long ago, and she’s had it ever since.”

Almost as though she knew we were talking about her, Sage shifted slightly in her sleep and settled her face against the pillow. Mattie glanced over at her with wide eyes before turning back to me and leaning really close.

“Mommy lets me be in here when she’s sleeping, but I hafta be super quiet,” she whispered. She held her little finger over her lips, as if to remind me we had to keep it down.

“Maybe we could go make some breakfast,” I whispered back.

“Banana pancakes?” she grinned hopefully.

“We can try,” I whispered, unsure if I had the culinary skills to pull it off. But, for Mattie, I’d try.

I’d do anything for Mattie.

We quietly crept from the bed, carefully avoiding jostling my sleeping beauty, and made our way out to the kitchen. Fortunately, I found pancake mix in the cupboard, which would make the process a bit easier. Mattie helped measure, showing me how good of a little assistant she was.

“I help Mommy all the time,” she assured me, “but you hafta do the stove parts. I’m not old enough for that.”

So, while I flipped pancakes, totally destroying the first few before I got the hang of it, Mattie stood on her little stool with a plate and a butter knife and sliced bananas to put on top. At one point I glanced over at her, watching as she stuck her tongue out with the intense concentration, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at her. She glanced up at me with a wide grin.

“Working pretty hard there, kiddo,” I smiled.

“I want them to be perfect,” she replied and went back to work.

There were wide slices and thin slices. There were slices that came out more like wedges and some that were just kinda squished.

But they were, indeed, perfect.

I heard a faint sound, like a whisper of fabric, and glanced over at the doorway to see Sage, wrapped in a fuzzy purple robe, watching us with a soft, unsure expression on her lovely face. She crossed to Mattie and gave her a little peck on the cheek before she glanced up at me.

“Morning,” she murmured before she turned to make coffee.

“Morning, honey,” I replied with a sudden rising sense of dread, wondering what was going through her mind.

We sat and ate our breakfast, Mattie chattering about this and that.
Talking about the puppies and the foal. Talking about all the things she was going to do ‘next time’ we went to the ranch.

Sage ate a few bites of pancake (they really didn’t turn out too bad, so I was pleased about that) and sipped her coffee. The longer she sat there, the more disquieted she appeared. She smiled on cue when Mattie spoke, but it never quite overcame the worry in her eyes when she looked at me. As Mattie finished and took her plate to the kitchen, Sage reminded her to go wash her face so as not to get her toys sticky from the syrup.

The silence without Mattie’s constant chitchat seemed rather suffocating as I watched Sage closely, wanting to know where her head was at. Finally, she looked up at me, clearly concerned and hesitant.

“You okay?” I asked uncertainly.

“Just trying to figure this out,” she whispered. “What this means… last night.” She shook her head gently. “I’m just worried. I don’t want Mattie to be hurt, and we don’t know if things will work.”

“We’ll go
slow,” I promised.

Her eyes rose to meet mine. “Last night wasn’t slow, Conall.”

“Instead of planning everything out,” I suggested, “why don’t we just sort of let things happen for a while? Let the chips fall where they may.”

“But if it falls apart? What then? It’s not just you and me. Mornings like this, she’ll remember this. She’ll want this more… always.”

I looked at her for a long time, studying her as she twisted her hands before her and toyed with her fingernails.

“Trust me,” I said. “If not for you, trust me for Mattie. Know that I will do everything in my power to make sure she’s not hurt by this.”

Sage turned her eyes up to me as she bit her lip, all at once appearing apprehensive and auspicious. Hopeful and anxious. The warring emotions leaving her feeling unsettled.

In the end, though, she nodded faintly. “I do,” she whispered. “I trust you… to stay for Mattie.”

I leaned forward and kissed her forehead as I stood, brushing my fingers along her cheek.

“I need to get out to the ranch and get some work done,” I quietly announced. “Talk to you later?”

She nodded and quietly gave me a tremulous smile.

Sage

For the next couple weeks, we just… were.

Mattie spent weekend days with Conall out on the ranch, and he’d bring her home to me in the evenings.

Wary of getting her hopes up, or getting my own up really even, both Conall and I were reluctant to totally let go. So we tried to keep things relatively casual. Conall spent the night from time to time, but also tried to leave in the morning before Mattie got up. Some days, he was more successful than others, since she often ended up in bed with us. Almost as though she could convince him to stay, her little eyes would spring open at the faintest movement. But she also didn’t ask many questions about us… her mommy and daddy and our weird quasi-relationship.

The elephant in the room for a great part of the time was mediation. We only really discussed the formality in the office with Robyn, going to our scheduled appointments and trying to outline a plan. We turned in our paperwork and things had been returned to us so we could see the whole picture.

Conall, quite simply, wanted to give us everything. He wanted to take care of us, even if it meant he could barely afford to take care of himself. It was clear in his documents that he exaggerated the benefits of living on the ranch, even figuring in a value for land Jacob was allowing him to use to run a few of his own cattle. His savings from his years in the military, which actually were quite substantial, was recorded to the penny.

His proposal stated he would cover our basic living expenses. Rent. Utilities. He’d already bought the car, but he’d cover the insurance. Mattie’s preschool and daycare expenses.

My proposal stated I didn’t need any assistance with this. By this time, I’d received my final NCLEX results and was being given a considerable raise. While I’d been barely scraping by before, I could cover the necessities with a little extra for luxuries even. So, I returned with an addendum to my initial statement, showing my new wage, a considerable improvement to my prior income.

Conall tried to reject this, though, saying I hadn’t yet received any of that income yet. That we should be going on the last few months. And, besides, what about the past five years when I was making shit wages? He dug in his heels and refused to accept that I didn’t need compensation for that.

And so, while things seemed to be working on the outside, there was still a certain amount of consternation.

When the three of us were together, things seemed easier. It was simple to relax and forget how up in the air everything was when Mattie was curled up in Conall’s lap watching a My Little Pony movie. (I had to give it to the guy, he never once complained about her choices of entertainment.) When we were all sitting at the table for dinner, which we did a couple times a week, it was easy to pretend that the looming disquiet of uncertainty did not exist.

Or like now, as I prepared a roasted chicken for dinner tonight. In addition to inviting Brynn and Kian, Conall was coming from the ranch, which had Mattie thrilled. Wanting to help me ‘cook dinner for Daddy’, she studied the spice rack, handing me spices as I spelled them out for her to find.

“Okay, monkey,” I said, “can you find me the sage?”

Mattie giggled. “You’re a spice?”

“There’s a spice with my name,” I shrugged with a smile, reaching for my cell phone as it began to ring.

Conall.

A little flutter whirled through my belly as I accepted the call.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he replied. “I just wanted to let you know I’m on my way. See if there was anything you wanted me to stop and pick up from the store.”

Such a normal thing for a daddy to do.
Seeing if there was anything the mommy needed on his way home from work. But for me it felt so strange. Good, but strange.

“Um, I don’t know that there’s anything we really need,” I said.

“You got anything for dessert? I could pick up some ice cream or something.”

“Sure, the usual,” I smiled into the phone.”

“Mommy,” Mattie interrupted my train of thought, still staring at the spice rack with her brow knitted tightly, “I can’t find the sage.”

“It might have another word with it, monkey,” I suggested, and stepped over to take a look. I pointed to the letters on the jar, still speaking into the phone as well. “Here it is, see? It says
rubbed
sage.”

“Mmmm,” Conall murmured through the phone, “sounds delicious.”

And the flutter I’d felt became a hoard of butterflies.

Just. Like. That.

Conall

“So…” Mattie said as she shoved a spoonful of mashed potatoes in her mouth.

“Mattie,” I admonished, “don’t talk with your mouth full, sweetie.”

She snapped her mouth closed and smiled widely at me before chewing obediently and looking around the table at Sage, Kian, and Brynn. I swear the kid actually liked it when I told her what to do. Had to drive Sage nuts, because she had a completely different reaction to Sage’s orders, but I adored it.

“Okay, what were you saying?” I asked her as she swallowed her food.

“Since I have a daddy now,” Mattie innocently rambled on, “maybe I could have a baby sister.”

Sage had the misfortune of taking a sip of wine as Mattie’s words hit our ears, and she practically choked when she realized what our daughter was requesting.

Brynn grinned widely with a chuckle. “I think that’s an excellent idea, Mattie,” she laughed as she patted Sage on the back to help clear her throat.

“Brynn,” Kian warned, but clearly with amusement.

Recovering from the discomfiture and flushed a lovely shade of pink, Sage took a deep breath and looked down at our daughter. “Um, maybe a kitty first, huh, monkey
.”

“Party pooper,” Brynn muttered playfully.

Sage shot her a shut-the-fuck-up-right-now look, then glanced at me desperately, her eyes begging me for a little help.

Trying not to laugh at her obvious discomfort (because she was really cute in her embarrassment)
, I toned down my smile and looked at Mattie. “Actually, kiddo,” I said, “there is a really sweet mama barn cat that had kittens yesterday. When they get a little older, you could probably pick one out to keep at my place on the ranch.”

“Yay, kitty!”
Mattie exclaimed as she bounced up and down in her chair.

Sage looked at me like I’d just ended world hunger or cured cancer. Her luminous eyes caught mine for a long moment, and she gave me a slight, wry smile. Then she glanced at Brynn who was grinning widely… knowingly. Sage pursed her lips and shot her a dirty scowl.

Brynn only laughed and leaned up against Kian’s shoulder, grabbing his upper arms tightly, causing Kian to flinch. Which was kind of a surprise to everyone, because Kian didn’t really do…
pain
.

“Damn, babe…” he half-growled. “Don’t forget about my arm.”

“What happened to your arm,” Sage asked him with concern.

Brynn grinned widely as she looked up at him. “It’s a new tat,” she explained, pulling the sleeve of his t-shirt up a little to reveal a lovely blonde woman
… a lovely blonde
naked
woman with a swirl of fabric barely covering her breasts and hips. “His goddess.”

“You got a chick on your arm?” I asked.

“And you were okay with it?” Sage asked Brynn.

“It’s a Celtic goddess queen named Achtland,” Brynn smiled mysteriously. “She was a mortal woman that couldn’t be satisfied by any mortal man. But then she met some dude from
some mythical race of giant Irish god-like men, deities and heroes. Achtland fell in love with one of them and crossed into the land of Fey to be his wife, thereby becoming immortal. She’s the goddess of sex and desire.”

“So, um… Kian
,” Sage asked as she reached over to cup her hands over Mattie’s ears, “why do you have a Celtic sex goddess on your arm?” Mattie simply continued eating her Oreo ice cream as though nothing seemed odd to her.

Kian simply grinned. “It kinda reminded me of Brynn… never satisfied.”

Brynn gently kissed his arm and murmured fondly, “So I took a giant Irish god as my mate.”

With her quiet words, Kian leaned down to kiss her on the tip of the nose. I glanced over at Sage, still covering Mattie’s ears. After taking a large slurp of her ice cream, Mattie narrowed her gaze at Kian and Brynn, who still seemed rather focused on each other. Then her little blue eyes looked back up at me, and she gave me a crooked little grin.

“Ewwww, they’re getting all smoochie. They do this all the time,” she said, turning her mouth with disgust.

Sage was doing everything she could not to look at me, focusing instead on smoothing down a tuft of Mattie’s hair. But with Mattie’s words, she hastened a glance up at me, swallowing hard when she saw me watching her. I could almost feel the yearning for something like that, in spite of the newness of this… whatever this was between us.

“It’s true,” she mumbled as she quickly looked away. “They’re awfully lovey dovey.”

Kian chuckled. “Took me a while to get her to this point,” he grinned over at me. “I doubt Sage would be near as much trouble.”

“Kian!” Sage gasped. “Things are…” I raised my eyebrow at her, and her mouth snapped shut before she breathed out with a puff of frustration. “It’s not like that. We’re not even really… dating.”

“This is not new for you, Sage,” Brynn chuckled. “You’ve never dated anyway.”

“True,” Sage twisted her mouth wryly. “I wouldn’t even know what to do on a traditional date.”

I looked over at her. “What kinds of dates have you been on?”

She only looked down at Mattie’s little blonde head. “I haven’t…”

“Ever?”

She shook her head.

I thought back, years ago to when I knew her before. Her dad wouldn
’t let her date until she was sixteen, then Matt and I had kept the boys away. But surely after…
hadn’t she?

This question kept circling my brain as Brynn and Kian left, then as I gave Mattie a kiss on the forehead before Sage took her and tucked her into bed.

“Want a beer?” Sage asked after putting Mattie to bed. She glanced over at me on her way to the kitchen.

I nodded,
then watched as she strolled back out into the open living area and nestled next to me on the couch.

“So,” I asked with some caution after taking a sip, “you’ve
never
been on a date.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” she smiled sadly.

“Never?”

She shook her head.
“Never.”

“Why, Sage?”

She took a sip of her beer, pausing a moment before answering. “Well, first it was really because of you. When I was young, I didn’t want anyone but you. Even if I was invisible,” she said with a melancholy smile. “And then, you were gone, but I was pregnant. Doesn’t really have the guys lining up to take me out, you know. Then, when Mattie was really little, that was the farthest thing from my mind.”

“What about Jeff
?” I frowned. “He never took you out?”

“That wasn’t dating. That was just…” she pursed her lips, “well, you know what that was. That was me being lonely, needing some kind of affection. But he was safe. I knew he’d never want more.” She took a long draw of beer and watched her fingertips peel at the label on the bottle. For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

“You were wrong,” I finally said.

She looked up at me, her brow knit in confusion.
“About what?”

“You were never invisible,” my hand reached up to cradle her cheek. “You were totally off-limits, but you were never invisible.”

She relaxed into my palm, then snuggled up against me, resting her head on my shoulder. “It’s water under the bridge.”

Breathing deeply at the fresh, delicate scent of her hair, I tightened my arm around her. “I want to take you out.
A date.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she murmured.

“I know,” I replied. “But I want to. Trust me.”