“Awesome,” Conall replied coldly, then turned on his heel and abruptly headed out the door.
“Sage…” Brynn’s voice was low, but Kian cut her off.
“Stay out of it, Brynn,” he said quietly.
“She should know,” she shot back before looking towards me. “He was fighting over you,” she quickly said before Kian could stop her.
I looked over at Kian in question. His scowl was all for Brynn, but he glanced at me and nodded slightly in affirmation. I could only stare dumfounded as they turned and left the ER.
Chapter 13 ~ Forget
Sage
I turned down the dusty dirt road towards old Jacob Anderson’s ranch. I’d been out here quite a few times with Matt and Conall, but that was years ago, so it surprised me how easy it was to find. Also, how familiar it all seemed.
Jacob’s ranch lay just a few miles out of town, just shy of where the timberline met the valley floor. The foothills rolled back into the pine trees, and the main ranch house sat back in a small clearing surrounded by a stand of quaking aspens. Black angus cattle lazed in the hot afternoon sun near the creek bed along the lengthy driveway, and a barrage of chickens scattered as I pulled up in front of the house.
Part of me wished I’d brought Mattie. She’d love this place.
The other part of me wanted to turn and run with my tail between my legs. I was here to find Conall… to apologize.
After he’d left the hospital, my shift had gone slowly. A long night of nothing, really, and the hours had crawled by at a snail’s pace. I had a great deal of time to reflect on my behavior. The chivalry of his actions. And the guilt ate at me because I had been a real bitch. I’d completely assumed the worst.
Finally, it was time to get my kid and head home. I dozed on the couch for a bit while Mattie played. I showered and changed into a halter maxi dress to get a little relief from the horrid city heat. Mattie and I watered our little patio garden.
And, still… the guilt gnawed at my gut.
Finally, it was time for Mattie’s karate class with Kian. Brynn was waiting at the bottom of the stairs to their apartment above the gym. By the look on her face, I had an idea of why.
“Yes,” I began, trying to ward off the spiel I knew was coming. “I feel like shit for how I treated him last night, okay? You don’t have to lecture me.”
“So, you should talk to him, then.”
“I know.”
“You don’t work tonight, right?” she asked.
“No, but Mattie—”
“I’ll watch her after class. Take as long as you need. Go talk to him.”
“I could just try calling.” Okay, so I was being a complete chicken. “Or I’ll just see him at our next mediation meeting.”
Brynn totally knew I was wimping out. “Sage, you guys need to get this shit straight.”
“I’m the one with the issues, Brynn. It’s like I just can’t get over it. I can’t be that shell of a person again, that empty, lonely person he left behind.”
“Sage, you should have seen him last night. The minute fucking Doug started in—”
“God, it was Doug? He’s such a dick. No wonder Conall wanted to kick his ass.”
“Yeah, Doug is a dick. But it was what he said about you that got Conall fired up.” She lifted a brow as she looked at me sternly. “There’s something there. But you two just can’t seem to get on the same page. You’re mad, now he’s mad. You just keep trading places. Yet you are both trying to give each other everything you have. So, go. Talk to him. Take all night if you have to. Mattie can stay here. I think we’ve even got some of her clothes here from the last time.”
So as I drove out to the ranch, I thought back to every interaction we had since he had returned. The more I dwelled on each one of them, the worse I felt.
I was coming to realize just how angry I was at Conall for leaving. I’d used that as a shield to hide behind. I didn’t want to be a pitiful victim, so, to deal with the grief of suddenly being so alone, I’d braced myself with animosity. With poisonous resentment. That anger gave me power. And even though he was back and doing and saying all the right things, he was causing my tenuous foundation to crumble. And that terrified me. That had been my only strength in the years he’d been gone.
In an effort to protect myself from feeling that way again, I’d told myself he didn’t care, that he never really had. I’d been a total bitch to him. Over and over.
I still didn’t understand what he was thinking, but I wanted to. I needed some clear sense of how he felt about me. Not diluted with the shock of finding out he had a kid like that first day. Or the guilt of Matt’s death all those years ago. Or the influence of booze in Hyper that night shit went down with Jeff. Or with Robyn’s guarded confusion over our weird relationship. I needed to just know what he was thinking.
I pulled up to the main ranch house and climbed out of the Subaru. A nearby sound caught my attention, and I saw Jacob down near the barn, pitching hay over the corral fence for a little sorrel mare and her spindly legged young foal. I headed over towards him and watched for a minute as he scratched the mare behind the ears and crooned to her with a relaxed, gentle resonance.
“Mr. Anderson?” I finally called out.
“Well, hello there, young lady,” he said looking over towards me with a welcoming smile. “Is there something I can do for ya’?” His expression revealed a trace of familiarity in his eyes, although there was also curiosity, too, as though he recognized my face but couldn’t quite place me.
“Um, I’m Sage Nichols. My brother Matt used to work for you. I’m not sure if you remember me, but I was out here a couple times with him.”
A wide smile crossed his face as the connection clicked to him. “Well sure I do, darlin’. You’ve gone and grown up, haven’t ya’.”
“I guess,” I murmured. Suddenly I felt a little awkward in the maxi dress. It was a bit different from the t-shirt and jeans he’d always seen me in before. “I’m looking for Matt’s friend, Conall. He’s living in a cabin out here on your ranch, right?”
“Sure is. I was surprised to see him after all this time. Nice to have him around again. I’m not quite as spry as I once was, ya’ know.” He pushed his weathered straw hat back on his forehead and pointed back down the driveway. “Head back down the drive about a quarter mile or so, and you’ll see another road that dips off to the west. It heads back into the gulch, and Conall’s cabin is back there. You can’t miss it,” he said with a friendly wink.
“Thank you,” I smiled, then climbed back into my car and pulled out of the driveway.
Shit… now I knew where Conall lived. Now I had no excuse not to go see him. I was already here. As I neared the road Jacob had told me about, I felt the sudden urge to keep going straight. To just pretend I’d never been out here. My heart was beating a mile a minute, pounding in my chest at a furious pace. I could barely breathe as I slowed. And I stopped.
I just couldn’t bring myself to turn.
As luck would have it, I didn’t have to. Because coming down the road towards me was Conall’s pickup. As he pulled closer, his eyebrows knit with recognition. Across from me, through the windshield, I could see him clench his jaw. Then he turned down his own driveway, and I followed behind.
As he pulled to a stop before the cabin and climbed out, I could tell he was pissed that I was here. I began to doubt my wisdom for coming, thinking I should have maybe just called. But it was too late now.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Sage,” he grumbled as he climbed out of his pickup and walked up the steps to the front door.
“I’m not here to fight,” I said.
“I thought you didn’t want to talk until we were done with this mediation.” He stared at me for a long moment, and I sort of squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze. I had said that, more or less. Finally, probably just out of sheer annoyance, he opened the door and held it ajar. Taking a deep breath, he blew it out before he gave me a hard look an
d spoke again. “Well then, by all means, come in.”
My throat went dry at his bitter, sarcastic tone, but I managed to squeak out a response. “Um, okay.”
He nodded towards the open door, and the motion jerked me into action. I quickly mounted the steps and walked inside, taken aback at just how nice and modern the cabin was. Way more than I would have figured for an old rancher to have just sitting empty.
“Wow,” I breathed. “This is a pretty sweet little place.”
“Jacob’s son put a lot of time and money into it,” Conall shrugged. “Then his wife said it was her or the ranch. He picked her.” He took off the ball cap he wore and tossed it on the dining table, then leaned up against the butcher block island in the kitchen and folded his arms over his chest. “The things men will do for pussy, right?”
Oh yeah, he was still pissed. And I suddenly had something in common with Jacob’s city slicker daughter-in-law. I wanted to get the fuck out of here, too.
“What are you doing here, Sage?” Conall finally sighed following an extraordinarily uncomfortable silence.
For a second, my voice caught in my throat as I bit my lip and forced the words out. “I’m here to apologize.”
His eyes narrowed, and he looked at me suspiciously. But, despite the quavering in my voice, I continued on.
“I was a real bitch to you last night at the hospital.”
“Oh, I’m sure I deserved it,” he mocked as he shook his head and looked away from me.
“You didn’t. I jumped to conclusions, made assumptions about what happened.” I swallowed hard. “I think I’m so use to wallowing in my self-pity that I forget sometimes… you are going through some pretty heavy shit yourself. You were way back when, too. It’s just easy to blame you sometimes for leaving, for everything that seems difficult in my life. And I never was really fair to you when you left.”
“You were a kid.”
Ouch. Yeah… that hurt. Just like it did the last time he said it.
“So were you.”
“So,” he caustically said, “now that we’re grown up, it’s all better then?” He took a step closer to me. I had a hard time reading his mood. His words seemed… cold. “Am I forgiven? Just like that?”
“I’m not sure what there even is to forgive. You didn’t really do anything wrong. Everything has just been so off-kilter since you came back.”
He took another step closer to me. Too close. My throat went dry as I tried to move back slightly, only to find I had the back of the couch pressing against my ass, impeding my escape. His scent of fresh air and light sandalwood surrounded me. His dark eyes caught mine and held them, hypnotizing me.
“So,” he murmured, staring at my lips, “kiss and make up, then?”
“Why are you acting like this?” I asked breathlessly.
“Like what?” he shot back. “You got pissed that night in Hyper because I was with whatever-her-fucking-name-was.”
I pursed my lips. “Angela.”
“Ahh, that’s right. Angela.” He smiled coolly, his eyes still lit with a dangerous glint. “And then, last night, you abused me in the hospital because you thought I was fighting over some other chick. I’m getting the feeling you don’t like it when I hit on other girls. Maybe you just want me hitting on you.”
“You know, I’m genuinely trying to apologize… about how I’ve been acting. That isn’t like me. And this isn’t like you.”
“How do you know, Sage? How do you know what I’m like anymore, huh? Half the time, you treat me like a stranger. The other half, I’m the love of your life. Frankly, it’s kind of hard to keep up.”
His lips had dipped dangerously close to mine, and my mind flipped back to that night in the bar. That night he kissed me and how heated it all got in the restroom. My breathing turned shallow and fast. Conall’s hands came to rest on the couch near my hips and he leaned down just a hair more. I felt my eyes drift almost closed and I subconsciously yearned for him to kiss me again. Or not to. My head spun with the warring emotions that thrummed through my body.
“I’m trying to figure out what the fuck you want from me,” he whispered, his words tickling my lips and shredding my heart. “One minute, you don’t want a thing from me. Not even money. And now… do you want me to stay? Be Mattie’s dad and live happily ever after in a little house with a white picket fence? ‘Cause life isn’t a fucking fairy tale, Sage.”
“I never said it was.”
“Your brother dying was just the beginning of some of the shit I’ve lived through. I just wanted to escape the ghosts of this fucking town. To erase the guilt I felt every waking minute. But no matter where I went or what I did, I couldn’t… I couldn’t get away from the mistakes I made.”
“And I was one of those mistakes.” A small sob crept from my chest.
I felt his body tense. His eyes opened, so close to mine that I could see myself in the deep brown depths, swimming in his agonizing regret.
“I never should have touched you.” The rasp of his obvious self-condemnation sliced through me, leaving a gaping, ugly wound. I tried to pull back, trapped between him and the heavy overstuffed couch behind me. “I never wanted this,” Conall harshly ground out at me as he lifted a hand to cup my jaw. “I don’t know what I do want. But I know what I don’t want. I don’t want to feel this way about you.” A single tear spilled over and ran down my cheek. His thumb brushed it against my cheekbone, and his fingers tangled in my hair.
Holding me steady, he tenderly kissed the wet trail down my face to the corner of my mouth, slowly and cautiously. His entire body pulsed with resistance, and my hands rose to his chest as my mind went dizzy with his feathery touch. And then his lips were on mine, and he crushed me against him. My arms slipped up his chest, across his broad shoulders, and I pulled myself closer. It was physically impossible for me to not respond to this man. I’d loved him my entire life. As long as I could remember.
The taste of his kiss intoxicated me. Disoriented me. A trail of goosebumps followed Conall’s hands as they ran down the length of my back, along the curve of my hip. He lifted me slightly and eased me up to sit on the back of the couch. Feeling a bit precarious, I steadied myself with my hands at his waist. My fingers brushed over the bandage beneath his shirt.
“Conall, you shouldn’t be lifting—” I whispered against his lips.
“Shut up, Sage,” he growled back as he silenced me with another devastating kiss.
Every rational thought I’d ever had vanished. I could only feel. His unyielding muscular frame wrapped around me, sheltering and imprisoning me all at once. The swirl of his tongue against mine and the labored breaths that fanned my face with every slight pause in the kiss. His hand returned to my hair, tangling in the strands and pulling tightly to hold me still for his marauding erotic assault. The sharp edge of his teeth nipped at my lips, and the hint of pain wrenched a gasp from deep inside me.
“Fuck, Sage…” he murmured as he pulled me from the couch, up against him once more, then turned and guided me through a doorway into another room. My brain couldn’t form words, barely even the thoughts, to wonder where he was taking me. What he wanted to do to me. I didn’t fucking care, as long as he never stopped making me feel this way. Moments later, he turned me again, pushing me down on a soft mattress and covering me with his weight. As my arms tightened around his waist, he winced with a sharp intake of breath.
“Your stitches,” I gasped.
“Fuck my stitches,” he growled as he pulled my hand up over my head and held it captive, lacing his fingers through mine.
His lips teased and trailed down my neck, tracing the edge of my halter dress. My back arched wantonly, my skin aching for more contact. I felt his hot breath hit the hypersensitive valley between my breasts, followed by a slight tug at the back of my neck as he freed the tie holding my halter dress in place. Releasing my hand, he reverently slid the cotton fabric to the side, brushing it lightly over my hardened, sensitive nipples. My breathing be
came rushed and frantic as he gazed down at my bared skin.
“Fucking perfect,” he breathed hoarsely, voraciously attacked one sensitive bud.
A sharp cry left my throat at the bliss of his touch, at the heat of his mouth. My body curled out at him, legs spreading wide and begging to feel his hard length against my core. My knees bent so I could buck against his strength. His large callused hand traversed down the length of my body to my ankle, slipping under the hem of my long skirt before deliciously scraping back up, baring my legs in its ascent. I felt his fingertips push under the fabric of my panties as he gripped my bottom.
“Why you?” he murmured as his lips trailed across to my other aching, hardened nipple. “Why does it have to be you that makes me feel this way?”
His hand trailed around to the front, feathering towards the heat pooling at my center. As he pushed two thick fingers deep into my throbbing core, I cried out at the sudden, delicious invasion.
“Fuck, so wet and hot, baby,” he murmured against my skin, trailing light, nipping kisses up my neck to breath heavily into my ear. “I want to bury myself inside you. Feel your tight little pussy squeezing my cock.”
His words caused my body to contract against is fingers, to squeeze and hold him.
“Oh, yeah,” he groaned, “just like that.”
His head lifted ever so slightly as he rose to capture my lips, devouring me with his kiss. With the full weight of his hips pressed against my pelvis, my thighs spread to cradle him against me, his thick, hard length almost bruised my aching core. I moaned way back in my throat, my legs wrapping around his to urge him closer yet.
Suddenly, I craved the feel of his bare skin. I needed it, as though it was vital to my next few seconds on earth. My hands slipped from his shoulders to the front of his shirt, and I yanked with every ounce of strength I possessed to pull the hem free from his jeans. Unable and unwilling to fumble with the buttons, I tugged and pulled. A faint tear of fabric sounded as he practically ripped the fucker off. A glint of late afternoon sunlight reflected on his dog tags, and my hand was drawn to the flash. I tugged at them slightly to urge him closer to me, and he wrapped me tightly against his hard, bare chest. The heat of his skin burned with mine as we melted together with simultaneous fevered groans.
Always Conall (Bitterroot #2) Page 12
