Always Conall (Bitterroot #2) (7 page)

“Can I have ice cream now?” Mattie asked as she sucked the last bit of noodles in her mouth.

“You need to eat a little bit of salad first,” came the response from Sage.

“I did,” Mattie tried to argue.

“I didn’t give you very much, and you’ve barely touched it.”

I watched the battle of wills, realizing that both of them had the exact same expression. Eyes narrowed and determined.
An ornery twist to their lips. Finally, Sage started to count, stating that if Mattie hadn’t eaten her salad by the time she counted to five, there would be no Oreo ice cream. Mattie picked up her fork and stuffed a leaf of lettuce in her mouth with a grimace.

“Now?” she asked after a few bites.

“A little more.”

And another little stubborn lift of a four-year-old chin and another bite of salad.

“Now?”

Sage didn’t even say anything this time, just raising her eyebrow. Mattie let loose of a heavy sigh.

“Fiiiiiine,” she growled as she finished off the last few bites.

“Okay, monkey,” Sage smiled at her.
“Now.”

“Yippee!” Mattie cried as she jumped off her chair and raced towards the kitchen. “I’ll get the ice cream!”

“Dishes, Mattie,” Sage called, and Mattie stopped in her tracks and came back for her plate and silverware.

A clatter of dishes hitting the sink and a few thumps and bumps sounded from the kitchen, followed by the slam of a drawer. Mattie emerged with a carton of ice cream and a plastic
purple scooper. Sage gathered up the bowls she’d set on the table earlier and scooped some for Mattie before looking at me. At my nod, she scooped up another bowl and handed it to me, then sat back down at the table to pick at her dinner.

Mattie was quiet as a mouse. The first time I’d ever heard her quiet. Or
not
heard her, as it were. Without Mattie talking, the room was silent, just a little clink of silverware on the dishes and Mattie’s subdued slurp of her dessert. One moment, she’d look at me, watching me closely and smiling when she caught my eye. Then she’d look at Sage, who was doing everything, it appeared, not to interact with either one of us. Then Mattie’s eyes came back to me.

“So,” Mattie finally said with a creamy mouthful of Oreo goodness, “is this what it’s like to have dinner as a family?”

Sage leapt out of her chair, grabbing her plate. “Wow,” she uttered as she headed into the kitchen. “I’m really full.”

I wasn’t sure how that was possible since she’d hardly taken a bite. I watched her leave the room and looked back over at Mattie who took another bite of her ice cream and smiled at me.

“I’m going to help your mommy clear the table, Mattie,” I said. “You want to just sit here and finish your ice cream?”

Her little blonde head nodded and she took another bite. I picked up the salad bowl and the pan of sauce, and followed Sage into the kitchen.

She stood leaning against the stove with her hand over her heart and her brows knitted tightly. As I set down the bowl and pan and walked over to her, she looked up at me.

“She likes you.” Her voice was quiet and flat, but her eyes showed overflowing emotion. “Like, she
really
likes you.” I took a step closer in the small kitchen, coming to stand right before her, cupping her cheek with the palm of my hand. “This is good,” she murmured, “right?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, “this is good.”

She gave a jerky nod. “I’m just… the concept of family shouldn’t be a novelty for her. She deserves so much more.” Her voice cracked a little as she gave a slight shake of her head.

Her clear blue eyes were wrought with concern. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close to me and holding her tightly. With her face planted against my chest, I wanted to feed her some of my strength. I wanted to reassure her that everything would be okay.
But how did I know it would? How did I know what the future had in store for any of us?
I didn’t even know Mattie existed until just a few days ago. And now…
what the fuck did I know about being a dad?

I felt her hands slide around my waist and she leaned against me. For a moment, I just held her, loving the feel of her in my arms. Nothing else had ever felt quite as right. She pulled back to look up at me again, so close.
Her lips so tempting. So sweet.

Just one little
kiss
, I thought. That longing swirled around in my head until I was unable to deny the craving and lowered my head.
One little kiss.
That’s all I wanted.
Just one little taste.

“Conall, wait,” she whispered, pulling back at the last second, just as my lips came just a hair’s breadth from hers, and her words fluttered against my mouth. “I can’t do this. I have a boyfriend.”

I lifted my head and looked down at her heavy-lidded expression. Her lips slightly open, her breathing stilted.

“I asked you before if it was serious,” I said. “You didn’t answer. I’m asking again, Sage.”

“Maybe,” she quietly said as she dropped her focus to the buttons on my shirt.

Almost against my will, I pressed a little closer, brushing my lips against the softness of her bangs. “How long have you been seeing this guy? A couple months, right?”

Sage nodded, and, with the faint movement, the fresh, clean scent of her hair rose around me. I inhaled deeply and allowed the fragrance to tease my senses.

“Yet,” I murmured against her ear as I smoothly tightened my embrace, “Mattie doesn’t even know he exists.”

Warily, she looked back up at me, studying me closely before she spoke again. “So?” she whispered.

“So, honey…” I responded, “
that tells me it’s not serious.”

For an instant, her body froze… a split second where I could feel how badly she wanted me. Her sensitivity to my close
proximity was palpable.

“It doesn’t matter,” she finally breathed. “She doesn’t know him because I don’t want her to get attached. I don’t want her to think that we’re going to make some happy little family just to have it all fall apart. She needs stability. So I can’t get involved emotionally. Even with you.
Especially with you.” Her hands rose to lay flat against my chest. Almost like she wanted to push me away, but couldn’t. I felt a fractional movement of her fingertips and a hint of a shiver run through her as she stared at her hands. “Not that you ever wanted me anyway,” she added sadly.

I pulled back, one of my hands tipping her chin up to me, forcing her gaze to meet mine. “Wait a minute, what makes you think—”

“It doesn’t matter, Conall. Because being her mother,” she interrupted, “I need to think of her before myself. So truly dating someone, introducing them to her and adding all those variables, letting someone else take control when there’s so much in the air… I can’t risk it. And I don’t have the time or the energy to put into any kind of real relationship right now, anyway. So things with Jeff… ”

His name was Jeff.
Fucker
. I hated that name. I wasn’t sure why, but I really hated that name. I wanted to kick his ass.

“…they’re just kind of… informal.”

I narrowed my eyes at her as she continued.

“It’s more of
an… arrangement than a relationship.”

“He’s a fuck buddy,” I growled with the realization of what she was telling me.

Her blue eyes became stormy with animosity and she pulled her face away from my hand. “You don’t understand.”

“No, I think I
do
understand. He’s a lay. Someone to scratch your itch.”

“It’s not like that,” she argued quietly. “He made me feel beautiful. He made me feel wanted. And nobody has wanted anything to do with me in a long,
long
time.”

“Are you happy with him?
With your life?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “He won’t hurt me. He’s a good man.”

“A good man that you won’t even introduce to your daughter,” I skeptically grumbled.

Sage scowled up at me. “You know, this really isn’t any of your fucking business,” she muttered with a harsh whisper.

“You’re the mother of my child.”

Her eyes sparked with an incandescent anger, and her cheeks flushed exquisitely. “And the day you walked away from me, you lost any right to have a say in my life. So we can be friends,” her hand pushed slightly at my chest, urging me to step back, “but who I fuck is my business.”

“And me?” I asked, leaning against her hand. Closer yet. Invading her personal bubble so she couldn’t shut me out.

“What about you?” she glowered.

“How about who I fuck?” I whispered.

She looked away for a second, swallowing hard, and pushed again at my chest. I didn’t budge. “That’s your business,” she said before raising her eyes back to mine. Still angry, hurt… a little bit lost and alone.

“So it wouldn’t bother you to see me with someone. To know I was touching someone else.”

She dropped her gaze again before answering.
“Of course not.”

“Sage—”

“It’s better this way, Conall. If you stay, if you want to be a part of her life, this,” she looked up at me and motioned back and forth between the two of us, “needs to stay clear and open. We can’t have our own shit bleed into her world.”

“Sage—
” I began again, but she cut me off.

“I remember your parents fighting before you dad took off. I remember how much that tore you up. I remember you climbing through Matt’s window because you didn’t want to hear them.” Her voice dropped to a low murmur. “I don’t want that for her.”

I remembered all that, too. The yelling and drunken rages. The slap of a heavy palm hard on my mother’s cheek. The crash of broken glass.

And when my dad finally left, it was almost like my mom saw me as a replacement.
Someone to take out her aggression on, to fight with. Someone to blame for her own failures in life.

“Well, they weren’t exactly role models, Sage. They were both complete train wrecks. But just because they were fucked up doesn’t mean we would be.”

“Doesn’t mean we wouldn’t. Look at us now, Conall. We can barely talk to each other without fighting. We’re not really starting out on the best footing here. It’s a risk I’m just not willing to take with her, no matter what you meant to me in the past.” She took a deep breath.

“
Meant? Past tense, Sage?” I clenched my jaw and straightened above her, allowing her to push me back slightly.

“Listen
,” she said, shaking her head to dismiss my question, “Mattie already
really
likes you. You were all she talked about since we saw you at the store. I’m glad you came over. I’m glad you had this time with her. We need to focus on you and her. On what we’re going to do.”

“What do
you
want to do, Sage?” I asked quietly and watched as she swallowed hard.

“I’m not really sure,” she whispered back. “But it’s getting kinda late and I need to get her ready for bed, so maybe you should go. We can talk tomorrow or something. Or just play it by ear for a few days to see how things progress.”

I nodded curtly, unsure really why I was so disturbed by her desire to stay at arms’ length. I wanted to ease the wounded look in her eyes, yet she kept pushing me away ruefully.

She didn’t trust me.

But why should she?

I stepped into the living room and watched Mattie for a second as she lined up her ponies and rattled off a little dialogue between them, giving a sleepy little yawn in the midst of her play.

“Hey, kiddo,” I said in a quiet voice, interrupting her imaginary conversation, “thanks for hanging out with me tonight.”

“Do you want to play more ponies?” she asked me hopefully.

“I think it’s about your bedtime, and I have to go make sure the critters on the ranch are set for the night.”

She set down her ponies and sloughed over to me, curling her little arm around my leg to give me a little-kid one-arm hug. “Can you take me out there?” Her wide blue eyes earnestly begged for me to agree.

“Um, sometime, yeah,” I smiled down at her and ruffled her hair, “that would be awesome.”

“Tomorrow?” she smiled.

“Not sure when, but we will soon. I promise.”

I looked over at Sage who walked into the room with us. She lifted Mattie into her arms, and I watched my daughter’s sleepy little body relax against her mom.

Everything about me wanted to stay.

But I nodded a quick goodbye and headed out the door.

Sage

The next couple days crept by. Long and arduous shifts at the hospital, time dragging so slowly. I didn’t hear from Conall, which, considering that we’d left things a little off-kilter the other night, this was not surprising.

I didn’t hear from Jeff, but this wasn’t unusual either. Despite what I’d tried to convince Conall of, it was a total fuck buddy situation. He did make me feel beautiful, but that was simply because he wanted to sleep with me. He sure as hell didn’t like me for my mind. We barely even spoke. And I went with it because he was safe. Our
relationship, or lack thereof, made things easier for me because I didn’t have to worry about a future. I didn’t have to put anything too real into whatever we had. He wasn’t interested in more, which worked well for me.

So no word from Conall, no word from Jeff.
A few shifts, and then came my day off, and I was going stir crazy at home. Any form of housework was driving me bonkers, and, to be truthful, with just Mattie and I, there wasn’t a lot to clean. I couldn’t sit still to read. After staring blankly at kiddo TV programs for entirely too long, I had to get us out of there. Out of town.

Some of the nurses had been talking about a huckleberry patch down the canyon just outside the city limits. Apparently, the berries were at their peak, so I bundled up Mattie along with a little picnic lunch, bug spray, bear spray, sunscreen, and a couple pails, and we went off to pick huckleberries.

As the hot July sun crossed the smoky sky, we filled our bowls. Mattie chased butterflies and splashed in the stream looking for frogs. Then she lost her ever loving mind when she saw a crawdad in the water and refused to go anywhere near it after that. Eventually, she began to get sorta cranky, so we loaded our huckleberry haul into the car and started home.

In a matter of minutes, my girl had conked out in the backseat, softly snoring with her mouth gaping. As we got closer to home, I glanced back to see her foot on the verge of knocking over one of the pails of berries, so I pulled to the side of the road to save them. Unfortunately, as I climbed back into the driver seat and shifted the car back into drive, I heard a loud
thunk…
and my car didn’t move. I stepped on the gas and nothing. I returned it to park, then put it in gear again, and… nothing. I tried shifting to first and second gears. Nothing. Reverse… nothing.

For a few minutes, I just sat there wondering why the hell I had talked Kian out of taking a look at my car. Apparently, he’d sensed an issue when he drove it, but, oh no, I felt like I was too dependent on others as it was.

And now, I was miles from home with a sleeping four-year-old and a big ol’ Ford Taurus paperweight.

Fuck
.

Feeling like shit for doing it, I tried calling Brynn, but her phone went straight to voicemail, as it often did when she was working. Then I tried Kian, his rang a few times, but then went to voicemail, too, which was often the case when he was teaching a class.

Looking down my short list of contacts, I saw my mom, who would be utterly useless, even on a good day.

And I saw Conall.

My thumb hovered over the screen for a moment.

A really long moment.

While it hovered, I thought about a tow truck. Then I thought about the expense involved. Expense that I didn’t have the budget for.

So I finally lowered my thumb and called Conall.

Of course, unlike Brynn or Kian, he answered right away.

“Sage?
What’s up?”

“Um, hey,” I murmured. “It’s not an emergency, but I didn’t know who else to call.”

“What’s going on? Everything okay?”

“Not really. My car… died.”

“What, like it won’t start?”

“It runs
, it just doesn’t… go.” I was far from a mechanic, so I really had no clue how to describe the issue.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t go?”

“I put it in gear, I step on the gas, and it doesn’t go.”

“Do you need a ride?”

“Well, if you don’t mind… we’re stuck a few miles out of town.”

“We?
You have Mattie with you?”

“Yeah,” I responded. “She’s zonked out in the backseat.”

“I’ll be right there. Where are you?”

“Down towards the canyon… just before Garnet Road.”

“Give me ten minutes.”

“Thanks, Conall,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Not a big deal,” he replied and disconnected.

The sun was just starting to graze the mountaintops when he arrived, just
under
ten minutes later. As he pulled up behind my car, I got out to talk to him without disturbing Mattie too much, since she was still snoring like crazy in her car seat.

“Have you been having trouble with your transmission?” he asked as he climbed out of a big, dark blue, relatively new, Chevy pickup.

“Kian said something about wanting to take a look at it the other day, but I didn’t want to bug him.”

Conall lifted his eyebrow.
“Should have bugged him, honey.”

He dropped to the ground and looked underneath, then stood and slid in the driver seat (after moving it way back to allow room for his massive form). Starting the car up, he slipped it into gear, and…

Nothing.

He looked at the odometer which read just under a hundred-thirty thousand miles. “Has it been slipping or anything when the gears shift? Like when you’re driving on the highway.”

“I hardly drive on the highway, usually just to and from work.”

“How about if it’s cold?
Does it seem to hesitate a little when you step on the gas?”

“
Um, maybe?”

“
Any weird noises?”

“
Not really. It was fine when I was driving, but I had to stop for a minute. Then it made a loud clunky sound when I tried to put it back in gear.”

“I think your tranny is blown.”

“That’s expensive to fix, isn’t it?”

“It
’s probably more expensive to fix than your car is worth. It’s also pretty typical for a car of this make and model that’s over a hundred-thousand miles.”

I dropped my head into my hands. “Dammit…” I groaned. “I just needed it to last a little bit longer.”

“Mommy?” came Mattie’s sleepy little voice from the backseat. I poked my head inside the car to see her rubbing her eyes, before she looked closer at who was in the driver’s seat. “Conall?” she smiled drowsily.

“Hey, kiddo,” Conall smiled into the rearview mirror.
“Surprise.”

Mattie rubbed her eyes again, as though to make sure he was real and sitting there in the driver seat of my car.

“Mommy, it’s Conall.”

“I know, sweetie,” I replied and turned to look over at him, latently realizing that he was very, very close. Like kissably close. In a rush, I pulled back and stood all at once, managing to schmuck the back of my head nice and hard on the doorframe.

So graceful.

As I rubbed my bumped noggin, I glanced over at Conall to see a smile playing at the corner of his lips, clearly amused by my clumsiness. And his smile only grew as I scowled back.

He climbed out of the driver seat and looked down at me. “I’ll give you guys a ride home, and then I’ll come back with the flatbed from the ranch to get your car. Sound good?”

No
.

Well, yes.

It sounded kinda awesome really. But I didn’t want it to sound awesome. I wanted to have a solution all of my own. I hated feeling like a frickin’ damsel in distress.

But, I sorta was. I had a sleepy kid who was going to be a hungry kid before long. I had a dead car. I had no money for a tow truck and diddly squat for repairs.

So, when taking all that into consideration, yes, Conall’s suggestion sounded good… it sounded awesome. Times infinity. And it also sounded like I didn’t really have much choice. So I nodded, helped Mattie from the car, and grabbed her car seat.

Conall

Sage was clearly annoyed that she needed my help. Mattie, on the other hand, was ecstatic. Thrilled to be riding in the
monster truck
as she called it, her only complaint being that it was dark blue and not purple. But blue was close to purple, so she let it slide.

After buckling Mattie’s booster into the center of the quad-cab’s backseat, then buckling Mattie in tightly, Sage climbed into the passenger seat.

“Nice truck,” she murmured.

“A little fancier than what I
’d normally get. Jacob’s kid bought it for the ranch. He’d married some Southern California girl he met in college and brought her back to Montana. He built the cabin I’m living in, but then winter hit. She didn’t even make it to Christmas before she talked him into packing up and heading back to LA. So, when Jacob offered me the job, he said I could live in the cabin, and he gave me a good deal on the pickup. Said I’d need a good truck anyway to work the ranch.”

Mattie’s voice piped up from the backseat. “Can you put horsies in this
truck?”

I grinned into the rearview mirror. “Not really in the truck, Mattie, but I can pull a trailer for them.”

“Nice,” she commented as she gazed out the window.

“Do you suppose he’s got any crappy old cars he’d like to get rid of?” Sage smiled with a melancholy light in her eyes, as though she was really trying not to feel defeated about everything, but failing miserably. “I’m kind of in the market as of about an hour ago.”

I looked over at her. “Do you want help getting—”

“I’ll be okay, Conall. Don’t worry.” She turned to look out at the evening sky. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Sage—”

“So, how you liking it out on the ranch?” she asked, diverting my attention. I gave her a hard look, but she didn’t reciprocate, still gazing over the horizon as the world sped by.

Okay, fine. I could play along.

“It
’s good to be back doing this sort of thing again. Hard work, but good work. It’s nice after some of the other crap I’ve been doing for the last few years.”

“In the
Army?” She turned her head to focus on me, slight worry in her eyes. I nodded and she bit her lip thoughtfully before she spoke again. “How’d you end up doing that?”

“I didn’t really know what else to do,
” I shrugged. “Didn’t know what I’d be good for. The only job I’d ever had was working for Jacob with Matt, but everything here just felt so… wrong. I needed something totally different.”

Her eyes lowered, but not before I could see the flash of sorrow in them. “When you left,” she asked in a tremulous voice, “did you know that’s what you were going to do?” There was a fragile quality to her voice that tightened my lungs.

“No,” I answered with a shake of my head. “I had no clue. No direction. I just got in my pickup and drove down the highway. I ended up in Butte, and I saw an Army recruiting place. So I stopped. I thought maybe I could do some good… somewhere.”

“You were in the
Army?” Mattie asked from the backseat. “Did you fight a war?”

“I’m not really sure what we did
, kiddo,” I said, catching her baby blue eyes in the mirror. “Sometimes, I helped little kids like you and their families. Sometimes we took them food and supplies. Tried to keep them safe. We did a lot of things.”

“Awe, that’s nice,
” she grinned at me. “You’re a nice guy.”

I chuck
led at her declaration. “Thanks.”

“You’ve always been a nice guy. To other people anyway,” Sage grumbled.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, you were never nice to me when we were kids. You and Matt used to cause me all kinds of grief.”

“Wait a minute, we weren’t
always
jerks,” I argued, and at her skeptical look, I continued on. “Really, we were nice sometimes.”

Sage snorted with derision. “You guys were
never
nice to me.”