Come Home to Deep River

by Jackie Ashenden

  Mal nodded. “Oh yeah. I wonder if he heard about the town meeting and now knows that everyone in town is aware of the situation with the oil. He can’t just pretend to be some random guy calling to offer shitty money on leases from people who don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Did he offer you more?” Hope asked. “Like, did he mention the oil?”

  “Nope.” Mal folded his arms. “But he upped the price a little.” The store owner’s eyes glinted all of a sudden. “I wonder what he’d do if I called him up and asked for a cool million?”

  “I think,” Silas said calmly, “that he would realize something was up and that his little secret is out, and do we want him to know that?”

  “Good point.” Mal stroked his beard. “Though I like the idea of having a little fun with him.”

  “Mal.”

  Hope glanced around and saw Nate coming, making his way down the aisle to where they were all standing.

  “What’s up?” Mal put his hands on the counter and leaned on them. “Seen Harry? Got the rod he wanted.”

  “No. Harry’s not why I’m here.” Nate glanced at Hope and Silas. “You might be interested to hear this too.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Hope said, having an idea already. “You got another call from the same man who offered to buy the lease on the Gold Pan?”

  Nate frowned, his dark eyes narrowing. “Yeah, how did you know?”

  “Because I got a call too,” Mal said. “This guy is sure spreading the love around.”

  Damn. The sick feeling in Hope’s gut churned. Her mother would be on that list no doubt. Maybe she’d even received a call already. Hell, maybe she’d even accepted the offer, because there was no telling with Angela.

  “I’ve got to get back to the Moose,” Hope muttered, already turning for the exit. She at least had to tell Angela that there was another potential buyer for the Moose’s lease. That she couldn’t sell it to some oil company who might potentially knock it down to get to the riches under the ground.

  “Hope,” Silas said.

  But she ignored him, walking quickly out of Mal’s and down the steps, stepping onto the boardwalk outside and heading toward the Moose.

  Sandy was in the process of unlocking the tourist information center and gave Hope a wave, saying something to her. But Hope didn’t have time for conversation. She gave Sandy a vague wave in return before hurrying on to the Moose and pushing the door open.

  It was its usual dark and vaguely disreputable self, the way it always was in the afternoon, nothing unusual there. What was unusual was that her mother was standing behind the bar and appeared to be wiping it down with a cloth.

  Hope let the door swing shut behind her, frowning. “Mom? What are you doing?”

  Angela didn’t stop her wiping. “What does it look like? I’m cleaning this place up.” She gave a cursory look around, her gaze lingering on the taxidermied heads on the walls and the low-beamed ceiling, then sniffed. “It’s a disgrace.”

  “Why are you cleaning?” Hope moved over to the bar, puzzled and not a little weirded out because her mother almost never set foot in the bar, let alone cleaned it. “I normally do that.”

  “I know. And I think you need to do a better job.” Angela scrubbed at the bar top, not looking up.

  Hope stood on the other side and stared at her. “What’s going on?” She didn’t really have to ask. She already had a suspicion, but she wanted to hear it from her mother first.

  Angela scrubbed hard at a nonexistent spot. “We need to get this place looking good.”

  “Mom.”

  Finally her mother looked up. “Okay, so that guy called again with another offer. A better one. And you weren’t here, so I thought, why not?”

  Hope’s heart sank. “Please don’t tell me you agreed.”

  “Of course I agreed,” Angela snapped. “It was a lot of money.”

  Anger turned over in Hope’s stomach, a harsh, bitter feeling she could almost taste. “You know that guy’s from an oil company, right? Mal got a call from him too and he managed to track down the guy’s number.”

  Angela only shrugged. “So?”

  “So?” Hope echoed, knowing the word was too sharp. Getting angry at her mother wouldn’t help and it only upset her, but Hope couldn’t keep it locked down the way she should. “Mom, do you have any idea what these people are like? What they’ll do to the town?”

  “No, I don’t. And neither do you. And quite frankly, maybe it would be a good thing to have a whole bunch of strangers here. Shake this place up a bit, because God knows it could sure use it.”

  Hope stared at her mother, appalled. “So you have no problem with turning Granddad’s bar over to someone who’ll probably knock it down so they can start drilling? Who doesn’t give a damn about the livelihoods of the people who live here?”

  A bitter kind of fury etched itself into the lines of Angela’s still-lovely face. “You think I care about this damn town? You think I care about this stupid bar?” She threw the cloth she was holding onto the bar top. “Well, I don’t. I don’t give two shits about it. It’s a prison, this place. And you have no idea, but it was your goddamn grandfather who held the key.”

  A wave of shock went through Hope. Her mother never talked about her own father, and Hope had always thought it had something to do with grief. But there was no doubting the bitterness in Angela’s voice. “What do you mean he held the key?”

  Angela’s jaw was set, her thin, angular face rigid. “I know you thought the sun shone out of your grandfather’s ass, but he was no goddamn saint. Sure, he looked after me when you were born, helped me through the depression. But after I got better, I wanted to take you away. I wanted to get out of here, have a life somewhere else.” Her mouth twisted. “Dad refused to let me go. Told me I didn’t need to go anywhere else, that the town could give me what I needed. I was dependent on him, and he…made it difficult for me to go. I insisted and so he told me that if I was really set on leaving, then I could. But he would keep you here.”

  The shock inside Hope deepened. Really, it had been quite the day for surprises, and she was kind of over them. But her grandfather had really said that? Had threatened to keep her? Her grandfather hadn’t been a demonstrative man. He’d been typical of the folk in these parts, tough, hard. No-nonsense in the extreme. But would he really have threatened to take his granddaughter away from his own daughter?

  “But…why?” she asked. “Why would he do that?”

  Angela lifted her chin. “He didn’t like me being sick with that ‘head stuff.’ He was suspicious of it, didn’t understand it. He thought you’d be at risk if I took you away on my own, told me that you would be safer here with him.”

  Hope’s throat closed, guilt tugging at her. “So, what? You just stayed?”

  “What else was I supposed to do?” The anger in her mother’s eyes glowed hot. “I couldn’t leave you. And I didn’t have any money of my own. So yes, I stayed.”

  The lump in Hope’s throat grew bigger. “I was the key then, wasn’t I? I was the key that locked the door.”

  “Yes,” her mother said bluntly. “What kind of mom leaves her own kid? I’d already failed you by getting sick. I couldn’t fail you by leaving.”

  Hope didn’t know why she felt so raw about this, why it felt like this was scraping the edges of her heart. Her mother hadn’t been demonstrative either, clearly taking cues from her own father, and there had been times when Hope had wondered whether her mother even wanted her at all. Whether she blamed Hope for how her own life had turned out. And part of Hope had already decided that no, her mother hadn’t cared about her. Or at least she’d never seemed to.

  But now, to hear that Angela had made the choice to stay because she hadn’t wanted to leave Hope, well, it somehow made her guilt even worse.

  “You didn’t have to,” Hope said be
fore she could stop herself, her hands clenching. “You could have left years ago if you’d wanted to.”

  “Yes,” Angela replied. “I could have. But I didn’t.”

  “Why not? You could have at any time.”

  Her mother glanced away. “When someone tells you that you’re not to be trusted on your own, that you’re not to be trusted even to look after your own child…it gets stuck in your head, and sometimes it’s difficult not to believe them.”

  Hope’s own anger simmered inside her. A selfish anger. Because how could she direct that at her mother? If what Angela had said was true about her grandfather—and honestly, Hope thought it probably was—then what right did Hope have to feel angry about it? It was the guilt clawing at her, and she was so tired of it.

  Don’t make this about you.

  No, she shouldn’t. Her mother had obviously been treated badly by her father, but that didn’t stop the feelings from flooding through Hope all the same. That her mother hadn’t told her any of this. That she’d been used as a tool to manipulate Angela. That her mother had wanted to go, and yet, when the man who’d held that “key” to the doors of her prison had died, she’d stayed.

  And Hope had stayed with her, thinking she had no other choice.

  “Why did you stay?” she demanded, unable to keep quiet. “Why didn’t you go after Granddad died?”

  Angela’s mouth was hard. “Why do you think? Because I was scared, Hope. Because I thought he was right.”

  “But I stayed.” She shouldn’t have said it, but she couldn’t help herself. “I stayed here for you. You know that, right?”

  Her mother was silent a long time, and Hope couldn’t have said what was going on behind those dark eyes. Though for a moment she looked as hard and as blunt as Hope’s grandfather had. “Yes, I know you did,” Angela said at last. “And I was thankful that you did, don’t get me wrong. But I also know it was me who kept you here.”

  “Mom—”

  “For the longest time I was angry at you for staying, Hope. Because it felt like Dad all over again. It felt like you thinking I couldn’t look after myself. And I was angry at myself too, for being too afraid to leave. For doing nothing here and letting all those years go by. But that phone call…” She stopped and took a breath. “It got me thinking about my life. It got me thinking about what I could do with that money. It made me see all the lies I’ve been telling myself, and I’m done with them.”

  Hope understood and she could see where her mother was coming from. But that didn’t change the anger inside her, that didn’t make it any less or make it go away. All she could think about was that she’d stayed here for nothing. She’d thrown all her dreams of a college degree away to look after a woman who hadn’t needed it after all. A woman who’d simply been too afraid to leave.

  Seriously? You’ve been using her as an excuse for years. And you’re not angry at her. You’re angry with yourself because now you’re face-to-face with the reasons why you stayed.

  But she knew that already, didn’t she? That’s why she’d made the decision to leave Deep River. So she could finally stop letting her fear of reaching for what she wanted stop her.

  Fear is a nice excuse, but was it really fear? Or were you just happy to play the martyr? Because you wanted to prove yourself to her?

  The thought whispered in the back of her head, insidious.

  And then behind her, the door banged shut.

  “Hope?” Silas’s dark, gritty voice wound around her, and she had the terrible urge to turn and run straight into his arms, let him hold her.

  But she resisted it.

  “Silas,” Angela said, giving him an unfriendly look. She’d never been approving of him, and Hope had always assumed it was because she wasn’t approving of boys in general. Understandable given her own personal experiences. “Maybe you could come back at another time. Hope and I were just having a discussion.”

  “No, I don’t think I will.” Silas was suddenly right next to her, though she hadn’t heard him move. The damn man was soundless as a cat. “What did you say to her, Angela?”

  “This isn’t any of your business,” Angela snapped.

  “Actually, considering I’m going to be buying the Moose, I’d say it’s definitely my business.”

  * * *

  Silas had no idea what was going on between Hope and her mother, but he knew the moment he’d walked into the Moose that something was going on. Hope had been standing there with her back to the door, but he hadn’t needed to see her face to know that whatever was going down, it wasn’t good. Hope’s posture was rigid, her back poker-straight, her shoulders hunched. And her hands were in fists at her sides.

  Angela was standing behind the bar, a hard expression on her face, though Silas had to say that was nothing new. Angela Dawson had always looked like she’d been sucking on a particularly sour lemon.

  Except there was anger in the air, he could feel it, and it was sparking in Angela’s dark eyes. And he knew that whatever it was, it had to do with the Moose. Nothing else would have gotten Hope so upset.

  “What do you mean you’re buying the Moose?” Angela demanded, her gaze narrowing on him.

  “I offered to buy it from Hope.” He put his hand on her rigid back to ease her, hoping the warmth of his touch would help. “She agreed.”

  Angela’s dark gaze flicked to Hope, then back again, and he could see the suspicions growing, noting how close he was standing to her daughter and no doubt drawing her own conclusions. “I didn’t agree. And my name is on the lease. And anyway, I already agreed to another offer, so you’re too late.”

  An intense, protective urge washed through him, and he didn’t fight it. Instead, he put one hand on Hope’s hip and drew her in close to his side, making it very clear where his loyalties lay. “Whatever your offer, I can do better,” he said, meeting her gaze squarely. “Name your price.”

  He couldn’t really afford it, not when the business was just getting off the ground, but he couldn’t let the Moose get into the hands of whatever oil person was making offers on all these leases. Even one property was one property too many.

  Angela’s gaze dropped to where his hand rested on Hope, then narrowed even further. “You can’t afford it, I’m afraid,” she said flatly.

  Hope remained rigid for a moment, and then just like that, she relaxed against him. He was overstepping the mark by laying claim to her like this, but he’d wanted her to know that he was on her side.

  Besides, it feels right to hold her like this, doesn’t it?

  It felt more than right. It felt like it was meant to be.

  He let that thought sit a moment in his head, his fingers tightening on her, meeting her mother’s disapproving gaze. “I think you’ll find I can,” he said just as flatly. “Name it, Angela. I won’t let this property fall into the hands of people who are only going to exploit this town.”

  “Oh, the way you’re exploiting my daughter?”

  Hope’s hand suddenly covered his. “Don’t be stupid, Mom.” Anger threaded through her voice. “He’s not exploiting me. We’re together for a little while, that’s all.”

  “I see.” Angela’s tone made it clear that she did see and that she didn’t much like it. “And so if she gets pregnant, you’ll naturally stay here and bring up the child with her, right?”

  “Mom, for God’s sake!” Hope said angrily. “I’m not going to get pregnant.”

  “That’s what I thought too and look what happened to me.”

  “Yes,” Silas said, because he had to. “I would stay and help her bring it up.”

  There was a stunned silence.

  Hope had stiffened, but Angela only gave him an intense, piercing look. “Really? Most men wouldn’t.”

  “I’m not most men.”

  Angela snorted. “High opinion of yourself. Then you always did
, didn’t you?”

  But Silas was getting impatient with this conversation, and he had no time for Angela getting annoyed with him for being with her daughter. “I’ve decided I’m going to stay anyway,” he said. “So good luck with legally being able to accept the offer you received. It won’t be binding unless this guy is actually planning on staying in town.”

  Hope’s mother chewed on her lip for a second, obviously not pleased with having this pointed out to her. Then she glanced at Hope. “So I guess you’re staying as well? Throwing everything away for someone else again?”

  “No.” Hope’s voice was hard. “I’ve decided to leave.”

  Something passed over Angela’s angular features that Silas couldn’t interpret. “So you’re okay with me selling—”

  “No,” Hope repeated. “I’m not okay with it. Yes, we’ll need the money, but I don’t want this place passing into the hands of a stranger. I want it to go to Silas.”

  Her mother said nothing, staring at the two of them. “I don’t know why you have such a loyalty to this place, Hope,” she said after a long moment. “It was never anything but a millstone for the both of us.”

  “Maybe it’s not so much about the building,” Hope said. “I know you were never happy here, Mom, but I was. And this town means something to me. Even if I leave it, I still want to know it’s here and still the same. That it won’t suddenly be flattened by a whole bunch of rich assholes from the city.”

  Angela chewed again on her lip, giving nothing away. Then, finally, she said, “Okay, fine. If you have an offer, Silas, you’d better bring it to me and I’ll think about it.” She turned to the door that led to the stairs and strode out without another word.

  Hope abruptly shoved his hand from her hip and stepped away from him, moving toward the bar before coming to a stop and turning. Anger glowed in her dark eyes, though Silas didn’t know if it was all directed at her mother or whether some of that was for him. “You shouldn’t have done that.”