Always Conall (Bitterroot #2) (5 page)

Conall was quiet for a moment. Then his voice became low and melancholy. “I’m trying to think of what might be best for her. And I’m not sure that’s me.”

Rejection squeezed my lungs tight. I knew what he was saying made sense, but it killed me that he might not want her. And in my agony, my voice became biting and cold.

“You might be right,” I said callously, feeling like a massive bitch as the words left my mouth. I had to get out of here before I completely lost it on him. I could feel the nagging abandonment swirling, the old bitterness coming to the surface
… the protectiveness for my little girl. I tried to sound strong. I tried to push the anger back to the surface. But my voice seemed frail and fragile to my ears. “She needs stability. Not a father who’s going to flit in and out of her life. So, until you’ve figured out whether you want her or not, you should probably just stay away and not fuck with her head.”

I glanced over at him with an icy glare and could almost see every syllable hit home. It was sickly almost gratifying that he even flinched once or twice.

“Sage, it’s not that I don’t want her,” Conall started.

I had to get away. My eyes burned with the need to cry, but I cleared my throat to project a strength I didn’t really feel.

“I’ve gotta go. It’s getting late. Just, um…” I murmured as I began to turn away, “just let me know what to expect, okay?”

“Sage,” he called as I started back down the path towards my car, “I’m really sorry
… for everything.”

A blast from the past.
The same thing he uttered five years before. I didn’t look back. The tears that had begun to gather in my eyes again began to overflow and trail down my cheeks. I was so tired of crying over this man.

“Some things never change, I guess,” I said lifelessly as I walked away.

Sage

The blazing sun beat down on my shoulders as I watched Mattie skipping through giant, metal spraying flowers and dumping buckets at the water park. I loved her squeals of delight when the sun made rainbows in the mist and reflected in the sparkly stars on her little purple swimsuit. The smoke was almost nonexistent in the air, revealing the wide blue skies with only a few scant clouds. I leaned back in my lounger, soaking up a few rays and doing my best to relax.

Unfortunately, I was not succeeding.

My life had been simply exhausting for what seemed like forever. Long hours and hard work to finish high school. Long hours and hard work to finish nursing school, and working the whole time. Two jobs towards the end. In addition to bartending at Hyper, I got an intern position with St. Thomas Hospital after my first round of clinicals. It was a great opportunity to get my foot in the door, but it meant making my chaotic schedule even worse.

Eventually, this grueling pattern and lack of sleep started to show up in my grades, which horrified me. Since scholarships and grants covered my tuition and fees, I had to have excellent academic standing, so I couldn’t let my grades slide. And, while that funding covered my tuition and fees, I still needed money for food, rent, and bills. I needed money to take care of Mattie. So, in my last semester, I finally caved and took out student loans for living expenses, quitting my job at Hyper. I scrimped and scavenged to avoid a huge loan debt, and things were far from easy, but it allowed me to focus more on school.

Now, a few months after finishing nursing school, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The hospital had brought me on full-time right after graduation, still an intern, but with better benefits. And a major bonus was the hospital daycare (or night care, as my shifts were all over the map) for employees, catering to all the weird hours we worked. Knowing she was close by took a huge load off my shoulders. That I could drop her off and go to work and she was right there, safe and sound.

So, really, things should be a lot easier right now. For the first time in two and a half years, I didn’t have to study. I’d taken my NCLEX and my preliminary results indicated I’d passed. I should have the official letter in a few weeks, and then I could officially call myself a registered nurse. With that credential, my job would change and I would start making a living wage.

After years of doing what I
had
to do to survive, I could start doing what I
wanted
to. I could finally start…
living
.

So, I lay in the sun telling myself over and over that I should be relaxing.

Yet, I just couldn’t.

I couldn’t escape the nervousness that pervaded my senses. My pulse was consistently accelerated, and a skittish sensation constantly swirled in my abdomen. Everywhere I went, I felt like I was under a microscope. This neurotic dread followed me around, invading my mind.

Because, after all this time, I knew he was finally home.

After I’d left the lake a few nights before, I’d been able to think of nothing but Conall.
The different expressions that had shown in his eyes – wonder, sorrow, guilt, remembrance. Their rich, chocolaty brown depths framed with thick, black lashes revealed the depth of his remorse in the way things had turned out.

There had been a huge shift from the
physical image I’d carried around for so long, that of a lanky teenager, a boy on the verge of becoming a man. He was hardly ever serious when we were growing up, always quite the joker. Both he and Matt had delighted in doing what they could to rile me up. Even as I pretended to be annoyed and frustrated, I had secretly loved it. I played the perfect victim to their bully roles, reveling in the mordant arch to Conall’s brow when he was teasing me. The flash of his cocky smile and the wink of his eye.

A squeal from Mattie as she ran through another misty rainbow brought me out of my revelry. I glanced at my phone to check the time. The sun had begun to cast long shadows across the valley, and my tummy was starting to grumble for sustenance. Which meant Mattie was probably about half-starved. Throwing on my mesh swimsuit cover-up, I collected my daughter to head home.

As we lazily strolled to my car, Mattie jabbered on about rainbows and ponies and that she wanted spaghetti for dinner.

“We’ll have to stop at the store then, monkey.”

“And get ice cream, too?” she asked hopefully, smiling up at me out of the corner of her eye.

I gave her a sidelong glance, trying to look serious and stern like I had every intention of saying no, but ultimately grinning back. “Yeah, I’d kinda like some ice cream too.”

“Yippee!” she squealed as she skipped towards the car ahead of me.

At the store, Mattie pushed the tyke-sized shopping cart through the aisles, loaded with Italian sausage, garlic and onion, tomato sauce, French bread, and spaghetti noodles as we made our way to the frozen food section. My spaghetti sauce was fairly simple. No Italian masterpiece, by all means, but it wasn
’t a nasty jar sauce either. It was also one sure-fire food that Mattie would eat, as long as I chopped up the garlic and onion super tiny so she didn’t notice it.

“What flavor of ice cream are we looking for? Banana for
my  little monkey?”

She spat out an adorable little cackle, and studiously looked up through the glass doors at the plethora of ice cream flavors before us.

“Ooooh, Oreo,” she exclaimed when she saw her favorite.

How I wished that everything excited me as much as Oreo ice cream thrilled my daughter.
Or Oreo pie. Or Oreo Blizzards. Oreo anything, really. I grabbed a carton, placing it in her little cart, and turned to head toward the check stand.

But at the end of the aisle stood Conall.

He seemed almost frozen, beautifully statuesque. His broad shoulders tense, his biceps clenched tightly under the snug fit of his t-shirt. Mattie remained oblivious to the sudden charge in the air as Conall’s eyes locked on mine for a moment. His lids lowered and he inhaled deeply before returning his focus to me, then to Mattie who had suddenly realized that I’d stopped walking.

“Conall,” I breathed as I stepped up beside Mattie, putting my hand on the top of her head. His eyes lifted from our daughter to me, and a pang of sorrow reflected in their depths.

As I spoke, Mattie glanced up at me, following my focus to Conall. Studying him closely, her little brow furrowed as she stared at him curiously.

“Hey,” he said gently in return before he glanced back down at Mattie.

“Mattie, this… this is Conall.” My voice sounded weak and fragile as I smoothed a lock of hair on her little head. Mattie, still seeming concerned by my nervousness, peeked back up at me for reassurance. “It’s okay, monkey,” I softly promised. “He’s a… very close friend. I’ve known him since I was just a little girl like you.”

Her eyes grew wide. This, after all, was an eternity to a four-year-old.

My introduction seemed to soothe her wary concern somewhat, and, with her typical welcoming exuberance, she presented Conall with a cheerful smile. “We’re getting ice cream.”

I could almost see some of the tension escape Conall’s shoulders with her nonchalant little declaration. “Cool,” he said with an almost wistful smile.

“What are you getting?” she asked as she started eyeing his cart. Frozen pizzas, hot dogs… man food.

“Um, nothing as good as your ice cream.
Just some groceries.” He glanced back up at me. “I’m heading out to the ranch in a bit. Checked out of the hotel and moved some stuff out there this afternoon.”

“Ranch?
With
ponies
?” Mattie was suddenly very interested in every word that came out of Conall’s mouth. “I
love
ponies.”

“Well,
there’s horses.” He seemed a bit unsure how to talk to her. Little did he know that he could easily reply in simple, monosyllabic answers, and she’d talk circles around him.

“
Purple ones?”

“
Purple horses?” Conall asked dumfoundedly, and I chuckled a bit at his confusion.

“Can I ride one?” she smiled hugely
,  bouncing on the balls of her feet as she squirmed with a barely contained glee at the prospect.

“Um, well, that’s kind of up to your mom,” he looked at me helplessly. I tried really hard not to, but I couldn’t help but find a little joy in just how uncomfortable he was. Mattie
’s incessant questioning could wear
me
down, and I was a seasoned pro. It felt entirely too good to see him, all tough and alpha male, rattled by my pint-sized clone.

Then I realized her little blue eyes were staring up at
me
expectantly.

“Maybe someday, monkey,” I murmured with that age-old motherly platitude, not saying no, but not saying yes either.

“We’re making
pasgetti
for dinner,” Mattie said as she started looking through Conall’s cart. “My mommy makes the best
pasgetti
. You should come over. She always makes a
lot
.”

“Um…” Conall looked over at me for some guidance on how to deal with our precocious little daughter. Suddenly, his nervousness wasn
’t nearly as amusing. It actually seemed contagious, which in turn seemed rather alarming. I became almost queasy with the thought of having him in our home.

Yet…
I suddenly really wanted him there. Like
really
really. It was something I’d fantasized about on many occasions. Something I had dreamed of for years.

“You’re welcome to,” I quietly offered. “It might… be nice, you know, to have an
old friend
over?” I emphasized his role at dinner and arched my brow, hoping I was conveying the desire to keep him from spilling the beans. I wasn’t ready to tell Mattie who he really was. I didn’t know if Conall was ready for that either.

“And look,” Mattie exclaimed as she dug through her little cart to hold up the tub of ice cream, “Oreo!”

“Well, in that case,” Conall grinned down at her, “I’d love to. Oreo is my favorite.”

“Mine too,” Mattie incredulously replied.

His dark eyes locked onto mine once again, slipping down my body, and it all suddenly smacked me up-side the head at just how little I was wearing. Dressed to catch some rays, I had a relatively small bikini covered only by a mesh tank dress and sparkly little flip-flops. The realization actually seemed to hit both of us at the same time as his perusal sent tingles through me.

“So, we’ll go and, uh… change and get dinner started,” I breathlessly rushed out.
“Should be ready about six-thirty or so if you want to come by about then. We’re in the Prickly Pear apartments, number twenty-seven. Sound okay?”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“Okay. Well, Mattie,” I dropped my gaze and gave her a little nudge to try and get her moving, “we better go. See you in a bit, Conall.”

“Bye, Conall,” Mattie waved with a little giggle as she zoomed her little cart off past him towards the check stand.

I began to follow her, forced to come closer to Conall in order to get around him. As I passed by him, he stopped me for a second with his hand on my arm and bent his head towards me.

“See you in a bit, honey,
” he quietly murmured, and the sound was so close to my ear that I felt the wisp of his breath in the delicate hairs that escaped my ponytail.

Honey
.

Damn. I liked that way too much. It hurt, but I loved that ache it gave me.

Although every nerve in my body fought it, I looked back up at him. Frozen. Lost for a second in the closeness. My mouth felt dry, and my tongue darted out to wet my lips before I wrenched my eyes away. That familiar face I’d seen so often when I closed my eyes. It had changed over time, more angled and strong. But, as always, it was almost painfully perfect.

My voice had disappeared. I could only exhale a shaky breath and nod as I moved quickly away.

Conall

I watched them walk away, mother and daughter. It took a few minutes before I could breathe normally again. Before that tight, seizing sensation released my lungs and relaxed in my gut.