Always Conall (Bitterroot #2)

by Sibylla Matilde

  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 flas
h 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 chuckled 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.”

  “Now that’s not true,” I began. “We were just pretty secretive about being nice.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I hesitated for a few minutes before I answered, unsure if I really wanted to spill my guts. “Do you remember that little shit who tied your braids to your chair in school?”

  “Ugh, Bobby Richardson,” she groaned. “He was such a pain in the ass.”

  “Yeah, that kid… he also threw rocks at your feet on the playground, shouting at you to dance. He was always picking on you, always doing something crappy.”

  “My own personal bully. He never seemed to pick on anyone else like he did me.”

  I looked at her for a minute as she sat there toying with the zipper on her hoodie, her eyebrows drawn together with the not-so-ideal memories.

  “So,” I finally asked, “did you ever think that it was odd how he just stopped?”

  She lifted her confused gaze to me.

  “I never really thought about it, I guess. Until now. But now that you mention it, yeah, he just… backed off.”

  “Your brother and I may have had something to do with that.”

  “What are you talking about? Wait a minute, how did you even know about him? I never even told you guys. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “I know,” I said, looking straight ahead at the road. “You were never one to whine about shit. You never wanted to be a pain.” I looked back into her bewildered face. “We saw, though. We saw you crying when you were all alone. So, we started watching closer. Saw him picking on you. And we had a little… talk… with Bobby.”

  For a moment, Sage only stared at me with wide eyes, her teeth gently biting at her lower lip. “I didn’t know that,” she finally murmured.

  “And then, there was that girl in middle school who used to make fun of you. Her dad was a lawyer or some shit, and she always had the newest and the best of everything. I think she was jealous of you, actually, because you were just sweet and friendly and people liked you more than her.”

  “Hillary Smith?”

  “Yeah, that was her name, I think.”

  “And then one day she just quit…” Sage’s voice trailed off in a little bit of wonderment.

  I nodded.

  “You guys? Again?” she asked cautiously.

  I nodded again, and my heart crumbled a little at the slight tremble of her lower lip before she turned back to look out the window.

  “I never knew,” she whispered in wonder.

  I twisted my mouth wryly. “We didn’t want you to think we liked you. It would have spoiled our street cred.”

  For a short time, we were quiet, absorbing the moment. Almost as though we were still communicating through the silence.

  “Mommy, I’m hungry,” said Mattie in a pitiful voice.

  “I’m not surprised, monkey. I’ll make something quick when we get home.”

  “Want to run through a drive-thru?” I asked.

  “McDonalds!” Mattie squealed.

  “We’ll get something at home, Mattie,” Sage said more sternly, turning to look back at her.

  “Noooo… I want chicken nuggets,” Mattie pouted.

  “We’ve taken enough of Conall’s time tonight, and he’s still gotta go get the car.”

  “It isn’t a problem, Sage,” I said.

  “It isn’t a problem, Mommy,” Mattie chirped. “McDonalds!”

  “Conall, it’s fine,” Sage stated emphatically.

  “Sage, it isn’t a problem.”

  “Yay, McDonalds!”

  “Conall—” she barely got my name out of her mouth before I held up one finger and put it over her lips, followed by a quiet little shush sound. And, while she should have been indignant and irritated, she was clearly shocked by that touch of my fingertip on her tender, sweet lips.

  It worked. She immediately shushed. And she didn’t un-shush until we were parked in the drive-thru and I was asking her what she wanted. She mumbled something about a cheeseburger, totally plain. As I reached for my billfold to pay, she grabbed her purse.

  “Here,” she said quickly, “let me—” Again, her voice abruptly cut short because I set my hand on hers, forcing her to keep her wallet in her purse. My fingertips practically tingled where they rested on her smooth, soft skin.

  “I got it,” I said, catching her cornflower blue eyes with my own dark ones.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she suggested.

  “It’s only McDonalds. Plus I owe you two for the spaghetti dinner the other night. Besides, even if I didn’t,” I grinned, “I want to.”

  Chapter 7 ~ Child Support

  Sage

  No matter how many times I went over my bills, there just wasn’t more money.

  I had forty-three dollars in a savings account, mostly just to keep it open because, at some point, I would start saving money. I kept telling myself that anyway. I had a little over a hundred in my checking account. Payday was next week, but I also had my cell phone bill and utilities to pay and groceries to buy, and rent was just around the corner.

  So I went from checking out the local automotive deals online to checking out bus schedules. But, in a small city like Bitterroot where almost everyone drove, this wasn’t really conducive to my random shifts at the hospital. And the little bus system was the only public transportation.

  Feeling incredibly broke, I began to look around my apartment, at the meager belongings I’d acquired over the past couple years. My furniture was all second-hand, but clean and comfortable. About the only thing I owned worth anything at all was my quickly-becoming-outdated laptop, purchased with grant funding when I started nursing school. Of course, that was over two years ago, and it hadn’t exactly been top of the line, just meeting the specs required by the nursing program I’d enrolled in.

  There were a few things I’d brought from my mom’s when I’d moved in right after Mattie was born, but nothing of any real value. Sentimental things that meant something to me, but would be worthless to anyone else. Certainly nothing that I could sell to get money for a car. I’d been so frugal over the years, being a little proud of myself for living simply and not accumulating a bunch of unnecessary stuff. Waiting to be done with school… waiting for things to be easier.

  But things only seemed to be getting harder.

  What the fuck was I going to do?

  I still had a couple weeks or so before I’d hear the final results of my NCLEX. So, no raise for a while.

  And, just as Conall had suspected, my tranny had crapped out. My car was worth about three-hundred dollars less than it would cost to have a rebuilt tranny put in. I didn’t
even have that three-hundred dollars, much less the rest of it.

  Feeling utterly defeated, I got up from my computer and made Mattie a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. I cut off the crust that she’d never in a million years eat anyway, and spread a little peanut butter on them for myself.

  It was a good thing Mattie liked peanut butter. We’d likely be eating a lot of it until I could get something figured out.

  A knock sounded at my door as Mattie slurped down the last of her milk. For a second, she looked at me with an inquisitive expression, then she jumped up and ran to the door.

  “Mattie, wait…”

  That kid was too fast, though, and had the door swung wide open before I even made it into the hallway. We needed to have a little chat about that.

  “Conall!” she squealed.

  “Hey, kiddo,” he said, smiling down at her. “Where’s your mommy?”

  “Her mommy is right here,” I said rounding the corner. “Mattie, you’ve really got to stop opening the door before I can check who it is.”

  “But, Mommy,” Mattie grinned, “it’s Conall.”

  “Yes, but did you know that when you opened the door?”

  Guiltily, she shifted her feet and looked down at the floor. “No,” she muttered with a pout.

  “You’ll work on that, though,” Conall said as he squatted down beside her, “right, Mattie? Your mommy just wants you to be safe. It was me this time, but it could have been a stranger.”

  “Stranger danger…” Mattie recited as she looked back up at him with puppy dog eyes.

  “Just wait for your mommy next time, okay?” Conall asked, brushing her silky little blonde bangs back from her eyes.

  She nodded and looked back up at me. “Sorry, Mommy.”

  I felt strangely enthralled, and yet mildly uncomfortable, watching this exchange. Conall really seemed to be very good with her, which surprised me since he had next to no experience with little kids. None that I knew of, anyway, aside from me when I was little, and he was only a couple years older so that didn’t really count. But he seemed to be able to get to her level, to explain things to her in a way that made sense to her four-year-old mind.

  Quite simply, he was a natural.