Always Conall (Bitterroot #2) (9 page)

“But I can—”

“How are you going to get to work? How are you going to get Mattie to preschool? You know the
buses in this town are shit.”

I frowned. “I’m working on that.”

“How?”

Pursing my lips, I thought for a minute before answering. “I don’t know yet. I’ll go get a car loan.
Or something.”

“Can you afford a car loan? You were just telling me you can’t afford the insurance.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be very fancy. Nothing like this, but I’m working full-time at the hospital now, and once I have documentation that I passed the NCLEX exam, I’ll get a raise.”

“How long is that going to take? My guess is it will likely be a month or so before you even get the paperwork, plus another month or so before a raise shows up in your paycheck.”

I glared at him for a moment before heaving a frustrated sigh and looking away. I hated that he had figured that out.

His voice gentled, soothing and full of promise.
“Don’t fight this. Let’s just go for a ride.”

“Yeah, Mommy,” Mattie called out from inside the car. “Let’s go for a ride.”

Finally, I looked back up at him, still a little pissy at what appeared to be my defeat. “You and I need to get some shit down in writing or something. This is too much. I don’t need all this.” Conall’s brows knit together and he frowned, so I continued on. “This needs to be fair to you, too, Conall.”

“If I agree to that,” he said, “if I agree to
formalizing some agreement, will you accept the car?”

“Conall,” I started again.

“That’s my deal. We’ll get stuff sorted out, Sage, I promise,” he said solemnly, “as long as you take the car.”

“Fine,” I finally caved, and Conall smiled widely. “But it will be part of the agreement, even if it is the
only
thing in the agreement.”

Taking my hand, he turned it up and pressed the keys into my palm. “Now,” he winked, “let’s go for a ride.”

Sage

As much as I hated to admit it, even to myself, the Subaru was really fucking awesome. It started right up with barely a touch, which my old Taurus hadn’t done in damn-near forever. It didn’t make weird noises when I turned corners or sputter precariously when I stepped on the brake.

Mattie loved it, especially the TV.
And the purple trim. Just as I was getting ready to buckle her into her new seat for the maiden voyage, she squealed.

“Aaaaahhhh!
Stop! I need a movie!”

“Mattie, we’re not—” I began.

But Conall reached into the front passenger seat and pulled out a bag. A bag containing a whole bunch of My Little Pony movies. My mouth dropped as I gave him a hard look.

“What?” he smiled as he held them out for her to pick one. “What’s the fun of having a TV in the car if you don’t have a movie to watch?”

“Oh!
Friendship is Magic
!” Mattie shouted. “I love that one! I want that one!”

“Mattie, you already have that one in the house,” I suggested.

“Well, now she has one for the car, too.”

“Conall,” I sighed. “This is crazy.”

“No, it’s practical.”

“Having two copies of the same movie is practical?” I looked at him incredulously. “That’s kind of the opposite of practical.”

“I didn’t want you to have to be moving movies back and forth from your apartment to the car all the time,” he smiled. “One less thing for you to worry about.”

“Buckle, Mommy!” Mattie called out. “Let
’s go! I wanna watch my movie!”

“We are not done discussing this,” I warned Conall as I reached in the backse
at to help Mattie with her seatbelt. Conall only smiled, rather infuriatingly, and folded his large frame into the passenger seat.

“Ok,” Conall said as I sat behind the wheel, “where to?”

I looked over at him, a little bit unsure. “I’m not really sure.”

“Where do you usually go when you want to take a drive?”

“I usually don’t. I was a little wary of taking the Taurus very far. For good reason, apparently,” I shrugged.

“Where have you
wanted
to go?”

I thought for a minute. I’d lived in Bitterroot my whole life, but had barely been out of town in years. Thinking back to some of the places my family went as kids, my mind shifted to a spot I’d always loved.

Dreamily, I murmured, “Placer Lake, up in the mountains.” As I looked over at Conall, he smiled. “I’ve always wanted to take Mattie there.”

Conall’s eyes softened. “Now’s your chance,” he said with a warm, rich voice.

When I was a kid, I’d been pretty sure that Placer Lake was enchanted. It was stunning, about an hour up a winding, dirt road through the pines and aspens to a wide glacial valley surrounded by snow-covered peaks, even in the middle of summer. My dad had taken us up there so many times as kids, and, as usual, Conall always managed to hop in the truck with us as we headed out of town. Those were some of the happiest days of my life. And I hadn’t been there since he died.

And Conall could see that. Conall knew how much that place meant to me.

And Conall made it possible to share it with Mattie.

The rest of the afternoon had an almost dreamlike quality to it.
The green grass and the wildflowers in the mountaintop meadow. The crystal-clear water that streamed down from the snow-capped peaks. Mattie was thrilled with the deer (they weren’t quite as thrilled with Mattie) and the frogs (they didn’t really seem to care one way or the other). She was pretty sure Conall was magic as he skipped rocks across the still water of Placer Lake.

She needed to know who he was. Conall and I really needed to get this shit sorted out, because there was a bond developing between the two of them. In the week or so since he’d been back to town, Mattie had become purely enthralled with everything about him.

Yet, what if he didn’t stay? There were so many things that I didn’t have control over, and that scared the shit out of me. The thought that Mattie was growing to love him terrified me. And if she knew who he really was…

This couldn’t go on indefinitely.

Something had to change.

Conall

Somewhere during the latter part of the day, Sage’s mood shifted. Her brows became tightly drawn. A tension emanated from her, and concern filled her eyes.

It was nice while it lasted.

Driving back down to town, as Mattie conked out from an afternoon of playing in the strong sunshine of the mountaintops, Sage grew quiet. Withdrawn.

She closed up and set her defenses.

And I couldn’t really blame her.

“So,” I asked, “think it’ll do?”

“Hmm?” she quietly murmured as she looked away from to road to glance over at me. “What’ll do?”

“The car…”

She gave me a graceful smile. “Yeah, it’s very nice, Conall. I still say it’s too much, but thank you.”

“So, what do you got going on this week?” I asked as we neared town. “You work tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I have night shifts through Wednesday, and I’m filling in for someone on Thursday afternoon for a couple hours.”

“So, would you want to go do something on Thursday evening?”

“Um, I can’t…” Her voice sort of trailed off and she gave me a sidelong look before she continued. “Jeff will be back.”

Jeff.

Fucker
.

“Right,” I muttered.
“Sex night.”

“It’s not really like that,” she argued. “He’s been out driving truck, and he’s due back on Thursday, so I’m supposed to meet him at Hyper. It was already planned before you even showed up.” She pulled into the Subaru lot. “Where’s your truck parked?” she asked.

“Around that side of the building,” I said, pointing in the general direction to guide her. “So, when you’re out getting laid, what do you do with Mattie?”

Sage pursed her lips. “I have a sitter, an older lady who lives in my building. She’ll keep her overnight.”

“But it’s not sex night.”

“Conall,” she started, but then she simply sighed deeply. “Just… don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t ruin this day. It was nice. It was fun to be with you and Mattie. We need to figure some shit out, but Jeff is my business.” She turned to look at me as she put the car into park. “We talked about this.”

“Right. Who we fuck is our own business. I forgot.” I got out of the car, closing the door quietly to avoid waking up Mattie in the back seat. As I strode to my pickup, I heard Sage’s car door open and close.

“You know,” she said angrily, “I waited.
For years. And you didn’t even fucking call me. And now you just want me to drop everything when I don’t even know how long you’re going to be here.”

I turned to look at her, my hands on my hips and feeling a deep frustration burn through my chest.

“What the fuck, Conall?” she quietly spat. “You don’t get to make me feel like shit for wanting a halfway normal life.”

“What you’re doing isn’t normal, Sage. This isn’t you.”

“Fuck off,” she said, and started to turn away. “You don’t even know who I am.”

I grabbed her arm and pulled her back up to me. “That’s bullshit. You always had your head in the clouds, always dreaming of some knight in shining armor that was going to whisk you away. You are a hopeless romantic. So this thing with this motherfucking Jeff guy… this is not you.”

“That girl you knew is gone, Conall,” she choked out as she pulled her arm away violently. “She never came home from that muddy bank when you left.” Her eyes turned up to me, haunted, the blue almost unnoticeable in the fading light. Unless you knew it was there. But that luminous color had haunted me for years. It had burned into my soul. “So don’t tell me what I’m like. Don’t tell me what I do and don’t do. We’re friends for Mattie, while we get things figured out for her. That’s it.”

“Fine,” I replied as I climbed in my truck.
“Friends for Mattie. Whatever. Let me know when your schedule is free.”

Sage

It was Thursday afternoon, and I was doing my damnedest to focus on work when, about thirty minutes before my shift ended, I got a text from Jeff. He’d just gotten back from his cattle run and wanted me to meet him at Hyper once I was done working. I quickly messaged Brynn, desperately wanting her and Kian close-by for moral support.

The last few days had sucked ass. Pure and simple. Horrid. It seemed every time something good happened between Conall and I, something else would come along and blow it all to shit. Something always ended up triggering one or both of us to get pissy and argumentative.

And I felt guilty. Here I stood in the bar. Jeff’s hand rested on low on my back, holding me against him. I
’d been sucking down vodka cranberries like there was no tomorrow. Liquid courage or stress relief or something to numb the pain.

Periodically, Jeff leaned down to nuzzle at the sensitive skin just behind my ear. A month ago, even a week ago, I would have responded. He didn’t make me desperate to drop my panties and go to town, but it did make me feel something. And he represented a large segment of trying to have a semi-normal life.

I’d meant to talk to him right away about Conall. I’d had every intention of pulling him outside the minute I got to the bar. To just lay it out – Mattie’s dad was back, and I really had no idea what that meant. It made things…
complicated
. It didn’t mean things really had to end between us. Ever since the first day Conall had been back, I had pondered trying to keep this little quasi-relationship with Jeff going. I didn’t want to admit, even to myself, that Conall was such a disruption in my life. And who knew? Maybe he wouldn’t even stay.

But then, as I walked into Hyper, I saw Conall standing across the bar, his arm around motherfucking Angela with her black hair and skanky outfit, and I wanted to throw up. She’d been a regular in Hyper ever since I started working there, always on the hunt for someone new to sink her teeth into.

Watching him kiss her nauseated me, to see him run his hands over her overly spray-tanned, scantily clad body. Handing my keys to Brynn, I pushed through the crowd to the bar and ordered a vodka cranberry. She studied me carefully as I sucked my first drink down and ordered a second, but she tucked my keys into her purse, knowing that I would not be driving later. The liquor warmed my stomach, and I closed my eyes to block the haunting image from my mind, but it burned into my brain instantaneously. The guilt shredded me when I realized I was almost angry that it was Jeff touching me. Because I wanted it to be Conall.

So then I had a shot.
And another.

I was a shitty girlfriend.
All the more reason to end this farce with Jeff.

Besides, the way all this made me feel, I was going to end up with an ulcer or a nervous breakdown.

Pushing slightly against Jeff’s chest, I looked up and murmured, “Can we head out pretty quick. I need to—”

Jeff flashed me a knowing smile as he interrupted. “Awe, you missed me, didn’t you, baby?” he grinned. Jeff really was good looking.
Straight white teeth, silvery gray eyes, and a tousle of auburn hair that fell lazily across his forehead. Too bad he just didn’t do it for me.

“Actually, I really need to talk to you about something,” I started. “Something’s happened.”

His eyes narrowed and his smile faded as he took in the seriousness of my expression.

“Let me finish my beer, and we’ll go.”

“Okay. I’m going to run to the bathroom while I’m waiting. Back in a few…”

As I started to pull away, he pulled me back against him and kissed me firmly on the mouth.
Long and hard. I allowed myself to melt into him, attempting to push all thoughts of Conall and that nasty slut out of my head. Trying to recreate that concurrent thrill and pain that shot through me with every thought of Conall, past and present.

I failed miserably and knew right then, without a shadow of a doubt, that I owed it to Jeff to cut him loose.

“Hurry back,” he murmured against my lips.

I nodded, unable to look him in the eye as I turned away to stumble towards the restroom. My heart lodged in my throat as I caught the glare of Conall
’s dark brown eyes burning into me through the haze of the bar. Unable to bear the tumultuous emotions he dredged up in me, I fled to the safety of the ladies room.

After using the restroom, I stood before the sink washing my hands. Part of me didn’t want to leave the room. I was angry with myself for wanting Conall instead of Jeff. I was angry with Conall for wanting that slut Angela instead of me. I was angry for being angry at any of that.

And, while I wasn’t ordinarily a violent person, I really wanted to beat the shit out of Angela.

There was just too much emotion wrapped up in all this, and the vodka wasn’t helping matters any. Instead of numbing the pain, it seemed to focus and expand it. And everything else had become a haze around me.

I glanced up into the mirror, barely recognizing myself from the girl I had been a few years ago. Maybe I’d changed too much for Conall. But then he’d never really wanted me at all in the first place. I’d only been a stupid kid, after all.

Taking a deep breath and blowing it out, I pulled open the door and stepped back into the hallway, only to be wrenched up against a hard, masculine chest. My eyes flew up to see Conall seething over me.

“Is that the guy?” he asked with a frighteningly calm voice, a slight intoxicated slur to his speech. It was all I could do to breathe.
In. Out. Slow. Steady.
My heart hammered against my ribs and my mouth fell open. “That dude you’re with, Sage. Is that Jeff? Is that the guy you’ve been fucking?”

I felt an angry flush rise up my cheeks once my inebriated mind began to realize what he was asking. Regardless of whether he was drunk or not, it wasn’t really any of his fucking business.

“What is it to you?” I asked with a forced flatness to my voice as I tried unsuccessfully to jerk away from him. “You don’t seem too lonely yourself, and you never wanted me anyway. You’ve been
very
clear about that.”

For a moment, Conall only stared at me, his dark eyes intensely watching me in the low light of the hallway. Then he shook his head slightly. When he spoke, I could barely hear him over the noise of the bar.

“I’ve never wanted you?”

I froze at the questioning tone of his words. “Yes, you’ve always said—” I breathed in sharply and tried again to step back, my hand up to his chest to keep him in place. I needed a little distance.

“I know what I’ve always said, Sage. Because it always felt wrong to want you, like you were off limits or something. You were Matt’s little sister, for fuck’s sake. Bro code or some shit. I couldn’t give in. But finding someone like Angela always helped me to forget.”

“That
’s… really shitty, Conall.” My voice sounded breathy and uneven at this admission.

“I can
’t help it,” he shook his head. “I see that fucker’s hands on you, and I want them to be mine. I want to be the one turning you on.”

“So you
’re just using her?” I sputtered, compelling the anger to stick with me. Because I couldn’t crumble, no matter how my head swam with the vodka and his indecipherable behavior. He was bombed. Probably didn’t even realize what he was saying. Maybe wouldn’t even remember this conversation in the morning. “She’s just a substitute.
Nice
.”

“She
’s using me too, honey. All she sees are the tats and a lay. She doesn’t see me… not the way you always did.” He moved closer to me, wolf-like and predatory.

“You really need to stop calling me honey,” I spat as I took another step back in the narrow hallway.

Conall simply ignored me as he closed in until I was against the wall and could feel the warmth of his hard body. His hot, whiskey-laced breath fanned my cheek as his presence began to overpower me.

“You see,
honey
, I want it to be you I’m kissing. I want those to be your tits, your nipples hardening against my chest.” His thumbs flicked against the underside of my breasts as his hands glided down my ribs, over my hips, and around my behind. With a quiet strength, he pressed me against him, and the raspy quality to his voice made me shiver. “Your luscious ass I’m grabbing. Because only your hot little body makes me
that fucking hard
.”

“Stop, Conall,” I whispered half-heartedly, knowing I didn’t want him to stop.
At all. The lie echoed in every beat of my heart. My soul fed on his stunning drunken admission, and my body was fully betraying every logical thought in my brain.

“I can
’t, Sage,” he growled. “I’ve tried to forget you for five fucking years, and I can’t. I gave up a long time ago, so, when I’m fucking her, it will be you I’m thinking of.” The raw pain of his words forced my eyes closed, the twist of agony ripping through my chest. “How about you, huh?” he whispered. “As much as you claimed to love me once, do you ever think of me when he’s inside you?”

An unwanted tear spilled down my cheek where his lips pressed. “I hate you,” I weakly sobbed, shoving hard at his chest in an attempt to push him away. He quickly captured my hands, his strength easily overwhelming me as he trapped them above my head and against the wall behind me. His hard length pressed painfully against my groin, causing my mouth to fly open with a gasp. I felt helpless and confined… but by him it was provocative. A rush of excitement rippled through me.

“No you don’t,” he growled. “You want to… you should, but you don’t.”

And then he was kissing me, fervently and desperately. And, just like that, one touch of his lips, and the last shred of fight left me. What little restraint I had with him vanished the instant his tongue swept against mine.

I was lost.

I’d hugged him that first day he was home. I’d felt the thick strength he’d built over the years. But I’d been overcome with the emotion of all that unrequited love bottled up inside me. Coursing through my veins and spilling over to flood my senses.

But this…
this was something new entirely.

This was all the passion and emotion of life. It ripped apart my consciousness as our lips melded together. Our breath caught and tumbled forth in a rush. His hands dropped to my waist with a
bruising grip, and my fingertips lowered to scrape along the shortly cropped hair at the back of his head.

The slide of his whiskey-laced tongue as he thrust it into my mouth.
The feel of his strong hands sliding down to my hips to lift me against him. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck and kissed him back with no reservation, just a desperate need to hold him and touch him and taste him. His hips pushed against mine, grinding into my pelvis as my legs wrapped tightly around his waist. I felt his fingertips brush along the short hem of my skirt, and the calloused skin teased the skin along the back of my thighs, moving higher towards my ass.

I was half drunk on vodka and totally smashed by his kiss, by the voracious need that swelled inside me and had me clutching him closer, clawing at his shoulders. My body melted against him, trying to memorize the feel of his hard muscles pressed against me, the scent of his skin and the wild abandon he wrought from me.

Conall turned and took a few steps towards the men’s room, through the door and perching me on the sink. One hand rested at the base of my spine, keeping me firmly locked against him, as the other slid up my body, grazing along the curve of my breast. I moaned hungrily against his lips as his fingertips threaded into my hair, his thumb coming to rest just before my ear. His strong hands held me steady as his kiss intensified. The lust exploded in me and my fingertips trailed down his chest to tug him closer using the belt loops of his jeans.

The hand at my back slid down my leg, then back up my bare thigh under the cover of my skirt.
Up to my hip and slipping under my silky little panties to my bottom… then moving around to the front.

I lost all sense of time.
All sense of propriety and right or wrong. As though the last five years hadn’t even happened, the entire world around me disappeared and every cell in my body lived and breathed for Conall.

“Fuck, yes,” I desperately breathed as his fingers brushed against my heated pussy, then quickly shoved the fabric away to bury themselves in my aching, wet flesh.
He swallowed my sharp gasp, and his tongue plunged into my mouth. His fingers curled inside me, roughly stroking my inner walls with a fluttery gesture that ramped up the torment. My hands slid from his hips to grasp and massage his hard, thick cock through the coarse denim of his jeans. Firmly tracing the shape of it. Undone by the desire to have him buried inside me. Clumsily, I fumbled for the buttons.

I knew with every fiber of my being it was wrong, but I wanted him to fuck me.
Right there. Right then. In the motherfucking bathroom at Hyper. To hell with the consequences.

Suddenly, Jeff’s voice roared through the small restroom.

“Motherfucker!”

I pulled back dazedly and looked over to see him standing just inside the open door, fury searing in his gaze, his thick fists clenched tightly. I drunkenly pushed Conall away and slipped off the sink, tugging my short skirt back down to at least a questionable modesty. As I stepped in between the two men, it occurred to me that I was honestly unsure who I was shielding. Jeff wasn’t a small guy, but Conall was huge.
Solid muscle. Fresh out of the military without an ounce of fat on him.