Read Online Always Conall (Bitterroot #2) by Sibylla Matilde - Free Book Online

her mother and even a few I strangely recognized in myself. Everything Sage had told me about her and more.
    After a little while, Sage leaned in through the doorway to the kitchen.
    “Mattie, why don’t you take Conall on the deck to find a tomato for the salad.”
    Mattie wrinkled her nose and looked at me. “Ewwww… tomatoes…” she said, although she hopped up to her feet and grabbed my hand, pulling me from the couch. “But Mommy likes them, so I guess…” she sighed, sounding much more mature than four years old.
    I glanced over at Sage as I followed Mattie out the door. She had adjusted the plates, silverware, and glasses on the table, and was starting to bring out the food. I caught her eyes as she set down a basket of garlic bread. Her mood was strange, hard to read. She remained a bit standoffish, yet the level of emotion in her eyes was startling. She looked away, biting her lip, and hurried back into the kitchen as a timer went off.
    I followed Mattie out to the balcony to see a framework of rectangular planting boxes fixed to the wall. Each box contained some type of homegrown vegetables – peas, some leafy lettuce-type shit, tomatoes, broccoli, and a bunch of other things that I really had no clue what they were – to make up a small patio garden. Mattie pointed towards a deep red tomato on the plant that grew along to the side.
    “Mommy would like that one,” she informed me. “She says the green ones are nasty and to pick the reddest ones.” Once I had picked the ripened tomato, she looked at a long, deep box that ran the length of the contraption towards the base. “These are carrots,” she said. “Mommy puts them down here because I love to be a bunny. She says to move a little dirt away to make sure it’s ready.” I watched as her pudgy little fingers scattered some soil to reveal the little rounded orange top of a carrot. Then she wrapped her dimpled fist around the green and pulled out a fresh little veggie. Grinning up at me, she held the carrot aloft. “Mommy says it’s ‘portant to wash it because it’s all dirty, though. But bunnies don’t wash their carrots.”
    “You’re probably right, but little girls who are being bunnies probably should.”
    Her mouth twisted for a second while she contemplated my advice. “Okay,” she sighed eventually, and trudged back inside to wash the carrot.
    Sage pulled a stepstool over to the sink so Mattie could scrub off her carrot with a little plastic brush. When she was finished, she climbed down to the floor and smiled proudly. “See, now I can be a bunny,” she giggled as she began to munch. Then she hopped into the living room, bunny style.
    “That’s kind of a neat little set-up you have out there,” I said to Sage, nodding out to the little patio garden.
    “That was a project we built at New Beginnings. Something productive to keep us wayward girls from losing our minds. Plus, it is supposed to encourage the kids to eat fresh veggies, although Mattie will barely touch anything but the carrots. Maybe a little lettuce from time to time.”
    Sage drained the noodles over the sink in a puff of steam before transferring them to a large bowl.
    “Would you set this on the table?” she asked. “I’m just about done. Just need to cut up the tomato for the salad.”
    Everything about this moment felt strange. But it also felt right. Which felt strange. Sage cooking. Mattie playing in the living room. Setting food on the table for dinner.
    It felt like… family . Like when we were kids sitting down to eat with her mom and dad. The only real family I’d ever had. God knows my own mom hadn’t done much to earn mother-of-the-year awards, and my dad was even worse before he left. Looking back, their behavior was nothing short of negligence, likely why Sage and Matt’s mom had taken me under her wing like she did. That made it all that much harder when I fucked up and cost her the life of her son.
    “Mattie,” Sage called as she