Her eyes fluttered open, showing a fragment of confusion as she looked around the room. Then, she looked at me. The confusion was replaced by wariness tinged with desire as her eyes roamed my bare form. The concern gained control, though, as her gaze locked with mine.
“I want her to know who I am,” I said softly. “I want to… I want to be her dad.”
There was a slight hitch to her breath. A pause. Then she quietly replied.
“I can’t keep her away from you. You have as much right to see her as I do.” She took a deep breath and swallowed hard as she rose up to rest on her elbow. “But I want you to understand something. Mattie really wants a daddy. Like almost obsessively. And your track record doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that you’ll stick around.”
I looked back out the window momentarily, tasting her words. Understanding her fears. Those same thoughts whirled around in my head constantly. They had since I saw Mattie that first day back in town.
Walking over to the bed, I sat on the edge and looked down at the only girl I’d ever loved until I’d met her daughter. My daughter. Our daughter.
“She looks so much like you. Like you did when you were little. When you used to follow Matt and I around, annoying the piss out of us.” I smiled tenderly as I touched her cheek. “I still see you with blonde hair, you know. The whole time I was gone, you were always right there on my mind. Everywhere I went. Every situation, from the good to the horrific. Sometimes, thinking of you was all that kept me going.”
Her fingertips trailed down my arm, tracing the lines of my tats. “Well, she was always what kept me going,” Sage said. She lifted her gaze to look me in the eye. “She was all I had left in the world. She’s all I have now.”
A crushing weight began to fill my chest, that dread of thinking nothing would ever be as I’d come to hope. Sage’s tremulous voice in the quiet morning echoed through my head as she continued.
“But this isn’t really about me. It’s so much more than that. It would crush that little girl if you become her daddy and then leave, Conall. You really have no idea how much she wants that. And as much as I know I have no right to keep you away from her… I want to so badly.”
“I’m here, Sage,” I argued. “I know I wasn’t before, but I didn’t know. I’m here now, though.”
“For how long?” she asked sadly. “How long until you run again? Until things get too raw and you leave behind those of us who care about you? Because if you’re not one hundred percent behind her, if you have the slightest doubt in your mind that you can stay, it would be better that she doesn’t even know.”
“You’re not telling me anything that I haven’t told myself,” I growled as I turned and grabbed my jeans. Pulling them on, I could feel the frustration begin to build inside me again. “Fuck, Sage, why do you think I didn’t want to come back. Why do you think I left in the first place?”
I looked back at her as I buttoned the fly of my jeans. Sage had risen to sit upright, her feet tucked underneath her, holding the blue plaid flannel to cover her nakedness. Her eyes sparked with a latent hostility that seemed to simmer below the surface. Fucking hell, she was sexy. As hard as I tried to keep it down, knowing this was some serious shit we were discussing and that I had to keep my head in check, but, my God, the sight rippled through me and set me on fire, making it hard to fasten the last few buttons.
“You left because shit got too hot to handle,” she seethed. “So how do I know you’re not going to do that again?”
“But I’m back.”
“But I don’t trust you to stay.”
“Then what was this?” I asked vehemently. “Last night? Why are you sitting there stark naked in my bed?”
“You were there, Conall. It’s not like I did this all alone.”
“Honestly,” I coldly stated, “I was trying to chase you away.”
“What?” She gasped with a tortured look. “That’s why you slept with me? That was all for show?”
“I tried for the last five fucking years to forget you. But I never could. Every woman I was with became you. I hoped it would fade, but it only got stronger and stronger.”
Her breath caught painfully in her throat, and tears filled her eyes.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?” she quietly asked herself in a choked voice. Her watery eyes spilled over, leaving wet trails down her cheeks. “Why the fuck do I keep falling back to you? I try to stay away, to get away from this feeling. And for a little while, every now and then, I feel strong. And then, something happens and all my strength and fight is just… gone.”
The remorse cut through me. “Fuck, Sage.” I crossed over to the bed and pulled her tightly into my arms. Her slender shoulders shook as she took a bracing breath, and I pressed my lips to her forehead. “I’m always making you cry.”
“Were there a lot?” she quietly asked after some time had passed. After her tears had lessened. “Were you with a lot of women?”
Ashamed, I nodded, yet tried to find a way to justify it. “I just wanted to forget you,” I finally whispered.
“I wanted to forget you, too,” Sage said morosely. “Even now, I still do. With you right here in front of me. Even after last night. It still hurts to think about when you left. How it felt to be so alone. How much I don’t want to care about you anymore.” She closed her eyes tightly. A fragile, choked sound escaped her throat. “I just can’t seem to get over that, Conall. I can’t seem to move past it,” she whispered in a broken breath.
The weight of her words squeezed the life right out of my heart. This raw emotion that reflected in her eyes. “Sage—” I began.
“We’re so fucked up,” she interrupted. “I don’t even know who I am anymore, much less who you are. And you need space and time to come to terms with Mattie. With being a father. I just don’t feel like I can be a part of the picture,” she harshly grated out with her eyes tightly closed. “I feel like this thing,” she motioned back and forth between us, “is so tenuous and my fear is so strong that I’ll end up making everything worse.”
For a minute, neither of us moved. Her quiet sniffles reverberated off the walls as I gently kissed her forehead. Then, her voice, so timid and full of agony, quietly reverberated in my ears.
“I know you’re a good man. You always were. Just maybe not good for me. So let me go, Conall.”
“This is bullshit, Sage.” Every muscle in my body tensed as she attempted to cull me from her heart. That wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted her to want me. Not just for Mattie. But for herself, too. I wanted her to fight for me.
But she didn’t. She pushed away from me and quietly reached for her dress, slipping it over her head. Combing her fingers through her shoulder-length, mussed hair, she turned her luminous eyes back to me.
“I know you love me,” I said with a quiet seriousness, daring her to deny it. She couldn’t.
“This can’t happen again. I trust you to do what’s best for Mattie, but this… I just… can’t.”
“I’m not leaving again,” I growled.
“I don’t believe you,” she cried back and turned on her heel. Striding into the great room, she grabbed her purse and keys. “I shouldn’t have come here. We shouldn’t have done this. This was a mistake.”
Another sock to the gut. Another regret for her that stabbed into my lungs and took my breath away.
“Don’t say that,” I urged.
“You called it a mistake five years ago, Conall. I’ve been living with your mistake. I love your mistake. She’s my whole life now. So you can’t be anymore.”
With that parting shot, she turned and left my cabin. I stood there, thinking back over the years. Over those words I’d said to her so long ago on the riverbank in the rain.
We shouldn’t have done this. This was a mistake.
Those words had planted a seed in her heart, and it had grown and festered and twisted through her soul for the past five years. My poisonous words, my cowardly actions… it all had left her b
are and raw.
So she would never forgive me.
And I couldn’t really blame her.
Chapter 15 ~ Common Ground
Sage
I managed to dry my eyes and poured about a gallon of Visine in them to get the red out before I went to pick up Mattie. But apparently, my emotions still showed all over my face. Brynn noticed the minute she opened the door.
“Oh dear,” she said with a discouraged tone to her voice. “I was hoping since you didn’t come home till now that things went well last night.”
I shrugged sadly. “Last night… things actually didn’t go too bad. It was this morning that things got a little fucked up.”
“So you did sleep together, then?”
I guiltily looked up at her and nodded. “Brynn,” I started as the tears once again filled my eyes, “it’s so messed up.”
She gave me a warm hug in an attempt to console me. “It will all work out, Sage,” she said. “I know things seem awful now, but that won’t last.”
“Shit,” I sniffed, pulling back and wiping my eyes. “I don’t have time for this. Mattie’s got a birthday party and she’s going to be late I don’t get going.”
“Tell you what, I’ll get her ready and take her.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” I began.
“That’s what friends are for, Sage,” she murmured. “I know you don’t want her seeing you so upset, and you don’t seem quite up to a room full of sugared-up four- and five-year-olds. Take a little time while she’s there today. Cry it out. Do what you need to do.”
A short time later, I found myself driving out to the cemetery. I needed to be close to Matt. I needed to feel him near me. I knew how he’d feel about all this. He’d want me to find a way for Conall to know his daughter. To be her dad. Matt was always so true blue. So I needed his strength to do this. To do what I was so afraid of doing.
As I pulled through the iron gateway into the cemetery, my breath caught. I could see Conall’s pickup through the trees, parked over by Matt’s grave. With a shaky breath, I debated leaving. Letting him have his time with my brother instead. With every conversation we had, things seemed to be deteriorating so fast that it made my head spin.
But a part of me wondered if the healing presence of my brother could help us find common ground. He was what had brought Conall and I together. He was what had torn us apart. And maybe he was showing me, by Conall’s presence at his grave, that I maybe needed to put myself in Conall’s shoes. To see what he had been through.
I want her to know who I am… His words echoed through my mind.
Conall didn’t move as I slowed my car to a stop and climbed out. His back was to me, his face looking towards Matt’s grave. He sat on his knees in the cool grass, shaded by the quaking aspen trees. I slowly walked up behind him, standing there just feeling his turmoil of emotion, until he turned slightly towards me. His jaw was clenched tightly and his eyes held a raw pain. I lowered my fingertips to his shoulder, and with the slightest hint of my touch, his arm encircled my legs, pulling me closer as he rested his head against my stomach. Every muscle in his body was wrought with tension, his heavy arms held me tightly and he breathed in a shaky breath.
“I miss him,” he finally whispered. “Every day.”
“So do I,” I murmured back, trying, but failing miserably, to keep the tears from streaming down my cheeks. My fingertips combed through his short hair, gently soothing the pain that radiated from his soul.
And letting it mix with mine.
Conall
For a long time, I just held her, trying not to turn into a total girl and burst into tears. Her fingernails grazed my scalp, soothing the agony that ripped through me. Her touch was healing, comforting, although I had no right to feel comfort in it. After a while, she pulled away and settled onto the grass beside me, leaning her head on my shoulder.
“It’s easy to forget sometimes that you lost them too,” she murmured, her quiet voice caressing the fabric of my t-shirt. “My dad loved you like a son. Matt loved you like a brother. My mom… she was always so worried about you. When you left, I know I came off selfish, wanting you to stay for me. But I also was worried about you. Who was going to look out for you?”
“When I left, I didn’t feel like I deserved looking after.” My own voice could barely be heard over the rustle of the leaves overhead, the light breeze that dusted her hair against my bare arm.
“Is that why you didn’t call me?” she asked.
I shook my head and looked down at my hands. “I wanted you to be happy, I guess. I felt like I was just a stain in your life. The wastoid neighbor boy who sponged off your family until there was nothing left. My own mom didn’t even want me, really. She left as soon as it was socially acceptable to do so. And, to your mom, I was only a reminder that Matt was gone. I had to go.”
“I waited… whenever I could, I sat by the phone. Every day, especially those first couple weeks. Every minute I was home.” With an almost angry expression, she plucked at a blade of grass. “I’d wake up at night thinking I heard it ring. But you never called.”
“And, if I called,” I countered, “what was I supposed to say?”
“That you were okay,” she whispered fiercely. I turned to face her more directly, and her pained eyes locked onto mine. “That maybe you missed me… a little. That you at least thought about me.”
“How would that have helped you, Sage?” I asked hoarsely. “I was a shitty reminder that your brother was gone. Fuck, it was my fault he was gone.”
She shook her head in confusion. “It wasn’t your fault, Conall.”
“Over the years, I’ve sort of come to grips with it, but I don’t know that I’ll ever totally get over it,” I started as I looked down to where my hands lay flat on my thighs. I didn’t want to tell her this. I didn’t want to see the condemnation in her eyes. I’d given her so many reasons to despise me over the years already. “I couldn’t tell you then. I didn’t want you to hate me. I hated myself enough already.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I hadn’t talked him into going to that party…” I started, and my voice left me. I’d thought this a million times, turning it over and over in my mind. If only…
“That? You can’t blame yourself for making him go to a party. That’s… shit, Conall, that’s what you guys did. That doesn’t make it your fault.”
“But, he didn’t want to go,” I replied, looking back at her, “not to that one. Not that night. I don’t really know why. I didn’t really care. I talked him into it because I was all hot for Lacey Riggs, and she was supposed to be there.”
Sage’s eyes dropped to her lap, and she swallowed hard. “It wasn’t your fault, Conall…” she repeated in a tormented whisper.
“And then, I just bailed on him once we got there. I found Lacey, I got bombed and went off to bang her while he was falling asleep at the wheel on his way back to town. So, yeah, it was kinda my fault that he died.”
“You didn’t make him leave,” she said quietly.
“I gave him all kinds of reasons to go and didn’t give him any reason to stay,” I frowned. “I know now that it was really bad circumstance. But I still – I will always – feel like it’s it a little bit my fault.”
Sage looked up at me with a haunted, dead expression before her eyes drifted shut. Something about the hitch of her breath caught my attention and slowly pulled me from my self-abasement. With a faint sniffle, she shook her head in remorse, her eyes tightly closed. “It’s not your fault,” she whispered. “It’s mine. I called him.”
“What?” I asked.
“That night. I knew what you were going to do, or, more precisely, who you were going to do,” her lip trembled and she took a deep breath, “and I was jealous. So I called Matt’s cell. I told him mom was freaking out, like she used to do sometimes after dad died. I really turned on the waterworks and begged for you guys to come home… but he came alone.” Her breath caught as a flutter
of her eyelashes sent a single tear trailing down her cheek. “So, you see, it wasn’t your fault. It was mine. Matt died because I was selfish. I didn’t want you with her,” she whispered. “I wanted you with me. I’ve made a mess of my life, of yours… all because I wanted you with me.”
She started to rise, the clear need to bolt reflected in her tearful eyes, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her back down to her knees, up against me.
“Let me go, Conall,” she brokenly shivered, her face turned away. Her eyes darted away from my face – towards the trees, the tombstones, the floral arrangements… the buttons on my shirt. Anything but me.
“Fuck that, Sage. You can’t tell me something like that and then take off.”
Her body shook with remorse as she pushed at me. I wrapped my arms around her and felt her warm, wet tears soaking into the thin material covering my shoulder. Her struggles finally lessened and I was able to coax her to settle in my arms as she poured out five years of guilt.
“Shhh…” I murmured against her hair. “Sage, honey… don’t cry. Don’t feel that way. It’s not your fault, either.”
“But it is. And my mom,” she inhaled with a broken breath, “she was bad before. She was already on edge. But when I told her that, she could see it, too. She blamed me. She froze up. She wouldn’t talk to me anymore. Wouldn’t even respond to my touch or my words. She just… went somewhere else in her mind. So, I never told anyone else,” she mumbled almost incoherently. “My own mother hated me for it. She just shut off. Because she knew that, if it wasn’t for me, Matt would still be alive.”
My chest constricted with the onslaught of her agonized keening. “That’s not true,” I murmured.
She pulled back and looked up at me. “But it is, Conall. You weren’t here. You didn’t see it. You left me, too. You all left me.”
Always Conall (Bitterroot #2) Page 14