Deep River Promise

by Jackie Ashenden

  But Damon went on before she could speak, “I talked to him, Astrid, and we sorted some things out. The beer was just a way to ease the process.” His smile became a little wicked. “It was either that or whisky, and I didn’t think you’d approve of whisky.”

  Are you really going to stand here arguing about a beer?

  That did seem pointless, especially considering there were greater problems to worry about.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “Fair enough. Come into the kitchen and we can discuss it.”

  She turned without waiting for him to reply, going back down the hallway.

  “You’ve been doing some work, I see,” Damon murmured as he came into the kitchen behind her, clearly noting the folder on the table.

  “We need to make a decision about what ideas to take to the town, so yes, I have.”

  “Silas said the same thing to me earlier.”

  “Good to hear he’s thinking the same.” She indicated a seat. “Do you want some tea?”

  “Sure. That would be great.” Pulling out the chair, Damon sat down in a long, lazy sprawl.

  She moved over to the stove where the kettle stood on the hob, picking it up and taking to the sink, filling it with water. Then she put the kettle back on the stovetop and turned it on.

  Turning around, she leaned back against the counter next to the stove, braced herself mentally, then met Damon’s mesmerizing blue gaze. “Okay, so tell me what’s going on.”

  “Connor’s very concerned about Zeke and Silas. He doesn’t trust them and it’s upsetting him.”

  “No kidding.” She couldn’t quite keep the bite out of her tone. “But he can’t quit school.”

  “I know that and I agree. So I made a deal with him.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “If he keeps going to school, I’ll stay on a couple of days more and keep an eye on the oil stuff, then report back to him about what’s happening and take any concerns he has to Silas and Zeke.”

  Astrid blinked, a jolt of shock going through her.

  Despite whatever responsibilities he had back in LA, Damon was going to stay for her son. And he wasn’t going to tell him not to worry, that it wasn’t his responsibility. No, he was going to include him in what was going on. He was taking Connor absolutely seriously.

  That he would make the effort for her boy made her heart contract painfully, and she had to turn around again to check on the kettle, trying to hide her reaction. Tears pricked at her eyes, which was ludicrous. Why was she crying about a man being nice to her son? Didn’t that mean she had to be more on her guard? Aiden had been nice to him too, and look what had happened there.

  God help her, if Damon hurt Connor, there wouldn’t be enough of him left to bury.

  “I don’t know how you managed to get him to agree.” She fussed with the kettle, conscious of how thick her voice sounded. “He flat-out refused for me.” And that hurt, she couldn’t deny it. That her son would do for Damon what he wouldn’t do for his own mother.

  “Well,” Damon said slowly, “he won’t for you because he sees himself as needing to protect you. That’s why he hasn’t discussed things with you either. He doesn’t want to worry you. He doesn’t have to worry about me or care about my feelings, so he can tell me anything.”

  Okay, that made sense. She could understand that.

  Letting out a breath and furiously blinking away her tears, she turned back to him.

  He sat sprawled in the chair, long legs outstretched, watching her.

  “So you said you’d stay.” She folded her arms over her quickly beating heart. “Didn’t you have responsibilities back in LA that couldn’t wait?”

  His eyes darkened. “Yeah, I do. But they can wait at least a couple more days.”

  Curiosity gripped her. He’d kissed her, held her in his arms, been inside her. But she didn’t know a single thing about him except that his mother had been a single parent and had brought him up herself and that she apparently liked whisky.

  “What do you need to get back to?” she asked, unable to resist the question.

  Damon let out a breath. “My mom isn’t well. I’ve got a housekeeper checking on her, but that’s not ideal. I really need to be around for her.”

  Somehow, the answer didn’t surprise her. She didn’t know him, but she’d suspected that whatever was drawing him away from Deep River, it was something serious. Especially given how adamant he’d been about seeing Cal’s last wishes carried out. He didn’t strike her as a man who’d let something minor distract him from the things he considered important.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, and she meant it. “Should she be in the hospital?”

  Damon hesitated. “She’ll need a care facility at some point but not quite yet.”

  “That sounds difficult.”

  “Yeah, it’s not great. Mom isn’t the easiest person to deal with. She’s very proud and doesn’t like to admit that she’s sick. The housekeeper can watch her for a little while, but she doesn’t like having another person in her house.”

  “You don’t have to stay here,” she said, feeling bad for him. “Sounds like your mother needs you more than Connor does.”

  Damon shook his head. “Mom will be okay for another few days. And I made Connor a promise. I’m not going to leave before I fulfill that.”

  Her heart gave another painful contraction. He was a man who made promises and kept them. He’d kept Cal’s and now he’d made another to her son, and she could see from the iron in his blue eyes he’d keep that one as well.

  Dammit, why did he have to be such a good guy? Why couldn’t he be awful? And for the love of all that was holy, why did she have to feel so incredibly attracted to him?

  Too good to be true…

  Oh, he was. Even now, even after she’d thought that particular curiosity would be satisfied, she couldn’t take her eyes off the long, powerful stretch of his legs. Or the open neck of his shirt where his pulse beat. Or the sensual curve of his mouth.

  He must have known the direction of her thoughts because suddenly his eyes glinted. “Kettle’s boiling, Ms. Mayor.”

  Hell. So it was.

  Astrid flushed and turned around, busying herself with making tea and trying to get a grip.

  She fussed around, getting out the cups and dealing with the tea leaves—she preferred a teapot and leaves to teabags. Once she’d gotten it all together, she carried the teapot, milk, and sugar to the table, then came back for the cups. Or rather the mugs, since she preferred a bigger cup.

  Damon watched silently as she carried everything to the table and put them down, sat, then poured out a couple of mugs. He nodded when she lifted the milk questioningly, before helping himself to some sugar. Apparently he liked his tea milky and sweet.

  “So,” he said as he stirred his tea, “Connor told me about Aiden.”

  * * *

  Astrid went very still, her mug lifted halfway to her mouth. Her face had gone curiously blank. Slowly, she took a sip of her tea, then put the mug down on the table with some care.

  “I don’t know if that’s something he should be telling people,” she said, a chill in her tone.

  She didn’t want to talk about it, that was clear, and maybe he shouldn’t push, given how painful it appeared to be for her. But he knew what it was like to have to bear painful things by yourself, how terribly lonely it could be, and how hard to get through it.

  No one had been there for him when Ella had died. Rebecca had been too consumed with her own grief to take on his, and his mother, never good with the more difficult emotions, had simply refused to talk about it. He’d had to deal with his grief alone and it had been immeasurably hard. He didn’t want that for Astrid.

  Did she have anyone to talk to about it? Anyone at all? She’d been keeping Connor’s secret a long time. No on
e knew here. So was this another secret? Another burden she had to carry?

  “Well, he told me.” Damon made sure his tone was matter-of-fact. “And you can tell me too, you know that, right?”

  Her chin came up, her eyes flashing. “Why should I tell you? What right do you have to my secrets?”

  She was guarded and he got it now. It made sense. That Aiden asshole had hurt her and hurt her badly. Connor had said that Aiden hadn’t been physically abusive, but emotional abuse could be just as bad and she wouldn’t trust easily, not after it had been broken like that.

  And he wanted her to trust him. If he was going to help Connor, he needed to help Connor’s lovely mother too.

  It’s not just about helping the kid, come on. You want to help her for yourself as well.

  No, because this wasn’t about him. This was about Astrid and Connor and what they needed, not about what he needed. Not that he needed anything.

  Whatever—if he wanted to gain Astrid’s trust, it wasn’t going to be as easy as sharing a beer. He was going to have to give her something else, something meaningful and precious. A secret of his own.

  “I don’t have a right,” he said. “And you don’t have to tell me anything. But secrets are hard to carry by yourself and I think you’ve been carrying Connor’s for a long time.”

  She looked down at her mug, her hands placed on the scrubbed wooden tabletop on either side of it.

  He didn’t wait, though; he carried on because now he was committed. “I have a secret too that I don’t tell anyone. Because it’s hard to talk about.” He could feel traces of a familiar tension gather inside him, pulling at his muscles. An old grief and the need to protect, even though the object of both that grief and that need was long gone: Ella, his daughter.

  Astrid’s head came up, her expression wary. “What secret?”

  “I was like you a long time ago. I had a kid when I was only seventeen, a little girl.”

  Astrid’s gray eyes went wide with surprise and not a little shock.

  “She wasn’t planned,” Damon went on, the tension pulling tighter. “But she was very much wanted, and both Rebecca—that was her mom—and I did our best for her.” The pain was still there despite the years, a deep, abiding ache that he carried close to his heart. And it felt wrong to tell Astrid about it, to put that pain on her, but he’d wanted her to have a secret of his, and his daughter was the secret that he held most precious.

  “When she was two, she contracted one of those rare childhood cancers,” he went on. “It was very aggressive and there was nothing the doctors could do. She died.” There, he’d said it now. That was enough.

  More shock flickered over Astrid’s face, followed by a pain that was intimately familiar to him. The pain of a parent losing a child.

  The grief had long since blunted so he didn’t know why the sympathy in her eyes seemed to conjure it up again, and sharper than it had been in years.

  He had to look away, his chest tight. This was crazy. Ella’s death had been hard, but he’d gone through the darkness that had fallen around him after she’d died and come out the other side. So why should telling Astrid bring it all back? And why should he feel it so acutely?

  A silence fell and he waited for her to tell him how sorry she was. Tell him she didn’t know what to say. How she couldn’t imagine how dreadful it was for him, all the trite bullshit that people trotted out when they were confronted by something they didn’t want to face themselves. Before they changed the subject so they didn’t have to talk about it.

  But she didn’t speak. Instead, she put out her hand and covered his where it rested on the table beside his mug. An instinctive, very human gesture of comfort. Her touch was warm, and there was a firm pressure to it, and he could feel the sensation of it flow up his arm and center itself in his chest.

  No one had held him after Ella had died. No one had put their arms around him and given him a hug. No one had even touched him. And not one single solitary person had told him it would be okay.

  So how strange that it should be a woman he’d known only a couple of days, with very real traumas of her own, who gave him the first significant, meaningful comfort he’d had in years. No platitudes. No trite phrases. Only a warm hand and a light pressure, an offer of strength, of wordless understanding.

  When she spoke, it was soft and she didn’t remove her hand. “Oh, Damon. I’m so sorry.”

  He looked at her at last. Her face was pale, but her gaze didn’t waver. She wasn’t afraid of his pain or his grief, that was clear, and was offering what she could: sympathy and comfort.

  Deep inside him, so far down he was barely conscious of it, something jolted like he’d been given an electric shock.

  “This isn’t a quid pro quo,” he said, ignoring the sensation. “I didn’t tell you to force you into giving me something you don’t want to give.”

  “Then why did you tell me?” The question was soft and genuine.

  Damon met her misty-gray eyes. “Because Ella is my secret. And carrying her alone is hard.”

  Astrid’s grip on his hand tightened and a small silence fell. Then she said, “I find it difficult to trust people. Especially men. And most especially men who seem to be too good to be true.”

  “Me?”

  “Of course you.”

  Well, he wasn’t totally evil, but he wasn’t exactly a great bet either. “Is there alcohol in that tea? Or are you drunk on tannin?”

  She smiled, her fingers warm against his. “Come on, surely you know how great you are? You’re freakishly good-looking. You’re very calm and very steady. You know how to tackle my son and you treat him with respect. You’re ridiculously charming… Have I missed anything?”

  “You missed that I’m excellent in bed,” he added flippantly, because while he might be some of those things, that didn’t make him a saint. And he had plenty of flaws.

  “Oh, I hadn’t forgotten.” Silver glittered in her eyes.

  Energy gathered in the space between them, every particle in the air charging with a hot, electric tension. The memory of their encounter in the library seemed to fill the room, making Damon’s breath catch. His jeans were abruptly too tight, the blood in his veins pumping hard and strong.

  Dammit, why had he mentioned sex? A stupid thing to do, especially when their chemistry was still tinder-dry and responding to any spark.

  He turned his hand over beneath hers, giving her fingers a quick squeeze before withdrawing it. Probably best if they didn’t touch for now.

  She flushed and quickly grabbed her mug. “Anyway, where was I?”

  “Me being too good to be true, I think.”

  Astrid leaned back in her chair, holding the mug. “Aiden was like that at first. He was a guy I met in Portland at a café where I was working. He was handsome. Friendly and charming. He was easy to talk to and he gave me lots of tips.” She let out a breath, the expression on her face giving away how difficult the memory was for her. “Those were hard years. After I got pregnant with Connor, my parents kicked me out and I decided I couldn’t stay in Ketchikan, so I went south. I ended up in Portland and had a neighbor look after Connor while I worked, but it was tough. The neighbor moved out, and I had to bring Connor into work with me at the café, which wasn’t ideal. Aiden was so nice to him. One day he even helped me keep him entertained for a whole shift.” She shook her head. “He seemed to be exactly what I needed. He was good with Connor, he was nice to me, and I was…lonely.” Her gaze slid away. “It’s hard being a single mom with no support.”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly, because he was familiar with that. “My mom had it tough too.”

  Astrid took another sip of her tea. “Maybe if I’d had friends it might have been different, but I didn’t. And Connor adored Aiden. He was five, looking for a father figure, and Aiden turned up and he was everything a little boy could want. Bi
g and strong and a firefighter.”

  More things fell into place. Connor had told him that he’d liked Aiden and Damon had heard the guilt in his voice. But what little boy wouldn’t look up to a man like that?

  “But Aiden had a dark side,” Astrid went on. “And only I saw it. About a year down the track, I started to be aware of how controlling he’d become. He didn’t like me working too many shifts at the café, and he didn’t like the few friends I’d made. He got very critical of me and the way I did things, especially with Connor. I dismissed it though, because he was supporting me financially and Connor really needed a father.”

  Pain ran through her voice along with an edge of guilt, though her expression was determinedly neutral.

  “It was only when he started talking about adopting Connor that I started having thoughts about leaving. Because at the same time, he started being very critical of the way I was bringing Connor up, making me question myself. I started to think that maybe I wasn’t a very good mother after all.”

  Anger coiled inside Damon, the same anger that he’d felt when Connor had talked about Aiden. Thick and hot and dark—sharp, so sharp. He hadn’t felt anger this intense for years.

  You haven’t felt this intense for years, period.

  Damon shoved the thought away.

  “And then the criticisms started to get more personal,” Astrid continued. “About me and my looks and…how we were together. It was very hard. I knew he was trying to undermine me, to make me dependent on him for everything, because that’s what he wanted. A family who basically worshipped the ground he walked on.” She sighed. “I put up with it for far too long, let him nearly cripple my confidence, but the last straw was hearing him tell Connor that he was better off without me.” She stopped suddenly, her voice hoarse, and put her mug down, her knuckles white.

  He wanted to touch her the way she’d touched him just before, offer her comfort and some reassurance. But touching was a bad idea, so all he said was, “That’s a goddamn lie. Some kids are better off without their mothers, but not Connor.”

  Slowly, Astrid lifted her gaze. “I know. That’s why I left. I just took him and drove away from Portland as fast as I could. I called Cal on the way, because I had no one else to turn to, and he told me to come to Deep River and he would give me a home here.”