Deep River Promise

by Jackie Ashenden

  “Sometimes you can’t suck it up and carry on.” Astrid’s voice was husky. “Sometimes you have to break a little before you can. And you can’t do that alone.”

  Yet he had. He’d broken, and there had been no one to help him or give him comfort. But he’d gotten through it. And afterward, he’d pulled himself together and gone on.

  “You can,” he said. “It’s just much harder.”

  “Yes, you can,” she agreed. “But you shouldn’t have had to is what I’m saying.”

  “Well, I didn’t get a choice.” He was aware of the bitter edge to his voice. Couldn’t do a thing about it. “Anyway, you managed, didn’t you?”

  Astrid was quiet a moment. Then she said, “But I wasn’t alone, Damon. I had Connor.”

  Of course she had.

  He still had his eyes closed and he didn’t want to open them. Didn’t know what to say either. He could have told her that he was fine, that he hadn’t needed anyone back then. That yes, it had been hard, but he’d sucked it up and carried on, just like his mother had told him to.

  But the words sounded hollow in his head. As hollow as he was.

  Because he wasn’t fine and he knew it. His heart was a cold hearth full of dead embers and ashes, and there were no sparks left to coax it back into burning.

  He’d never found it a problem—he’d never wanted to light it again. But…with Astrid’s arms around him and her warmth soaking into him, there was a part of him that wished he could. That wished he could to set it alight for her.

  And maybe she knew, because her arms tightened. “Whenever you want to talk about her, about grief or about how it hurts or about anything at all, you can talk to me, understand?” There was a ferocity in her voice that wrapped around him. “You don’t have to suck it up and carry on with me. Everyone needs someone, Damon. And you have me. You will always have me.”

  * * *

  Astrid felt Damon’s big body go rigid, all his muscles tightening. Then he turned in her arms and she found herself looking up into his blue eyes.

  She was trembling, and it wasn’t with anguish or rage, but a powerful, fierce emotion she didn’t have a name for. It was determination and protectiveness and an urge to give comfort all in one, and it was concentrated on him.

  She hated how he hadn’t had anyone, because she knew what it was like to feel alone. To have nothing and no one to turn to. That was what her entire pregnancy and early motherhood had been like.

  Sure, she’d had Connor in the end, but initially she’d been alone, with a baby and no support. And everything she’d done, she’d done on her own. She’d had no one to talk to and no one to care, and she knew how lonely that could be.

  It broke her heart that the same thing could happen to such a caring, protective man as him, and she didn’t want to ask herself why that hurt so much; it just did.

  He shouldn’t have had to be alone. He should have had someone.

  And now he did.

  He didn’t look away, his gaze burning with a fire that found an echo in the powerful intensity currently flooding through her. And it wasn’t only desire she saw there, but something that went deeper. A longing and a hunger, as if she was the treasure he’d been searching his whole life for.

  “Why?” His voice was stripped right back to bare rock and gravel. “You barely know me, Astrid. Why should it matter to you so much that I have someone to talk to?”

  “Because I’ve been there, Damon. Yes, I did have Connor, but not at the beginning. When he was first born, it was just me in a crappy apartment that I shared with four other people because I couldn’t afford to have my own place. Everyone would complain when Connor cried, so I had to make sure he didn’t. No one wanted to hear me talk about him, and they certainly didn’t want to hear me talk about how lonely I was, or how frightened.”

  His gaze was shadowed, his hands coming up all of a sudden and cupping her face between them. “Oh, honey…”

  But this wasn’t about her. This was about him.

  “Like you, I got through it. I survived.” She wrapped her fingers around his strong wrists. “But I don’t ever want to go through anything like that alone again, and neither should you. And it matters to me because you matter to me.”

  She hadn’t realized it until the moment he’d walked into the room. Hadn’t fully understood her own feelings, though after the night before, maybe she should have.

  He’d seen her sitting there and heat had flared in his eyes. Then he’d shut it down, tension in every line of him.

  He seemed to be a man at war with himself, a man in pain even though he possibly didn’t realize it himself. And she wanted to help him so badly. Put her hands on him and make it better, because under those easy smiles and charm burned something intense and fierce. He felt things so deeply, and he should have had someone to hold him, ease his grief and his pain. Someone to listen to him talk about his daughter.

  He should have had someone to love him when he’d needed it and it was clear he had needed it.

  But there had been no one, not even his mother, and that was so unfair.

  He’d had his trust broken as badly as she had. The people who should have helped him had abandoned him, leaving him to deal with his grief alone.

  “Astrid.” His voice was still gravelly and raw. “You shouldn’t let me matter. I’m not staying. I can’t.”

  Too late, too late…

  Oh, she knew that. She was fully aware.

  “I know that.” Her voice was as raw as his. “But you gave me a moment, so now I’m giving you one. You can let yourself matter to me, Damon. Right now, here in this room, you can let yourself be important to me.”

  He’ll be important to you long after this moment.

  Yes, she knew that too. But if a moment, a night, was all he’d let himself have, then that’s what she’d give. He’d done it for her, after all.

  Damon stared at her but didn’t speak, and she wondered if he’d do it. If he’d really allow himself to have it. She wanted him to so much, because he deserved it. But it all came down to trust, didn’t it? He had to trust her that she meant what she said.

  She held his gaze, let him see the truth in her eyes.

  He slid one hand to her nape and then up to the back of her head, his fingers curling in her hair, drawing her head back.

  Then his mouth was on hers.

  The kiss was fierce and raw, hungry and hot. And it went on and on for endless minutes of heat and fire. Until he let go of her hair, his arms coming around her, strong as iron bands, pulling her up against him.

  She didn’t fight, didn’t resist. She could feel the need in him, that longing for a connection and so she gave it to him. He’d given her what she needed the night before and so she’d hold nothing back from him now.

  And she deliberately didn’t think about the small voice in her head that kept nagging at her, that kept reminding her about how important he’d become to her when this was only supposed to be about sex. When he’d be leaving anyway.

  She didn’t listen to it. And when he picked her up and carried her to bed, putting her down, then stripping their clothes away before dealing with protection, she ceased to hear it at all.

  She wanted to touch him, to run her hands all over him, but this wasn’t for her—not now. This was for him. So all she did when he came down onto the mattress with her, pushing her onto her back and spreading her thighs, was slide her arms around his neck and hold him.

  He didn’t wait, pushing inside her hard and deep without any preliminaries. She wrapped herself around him, pulling him close, and when he leaned down to kiss her, hungrily, desperately, she held him tight, her legs wrapped around his waist, her arms wrapped around his neck.

  It was more than a meeting of bodies and more than simply a pursuit of pleasure. He needed contact, a connection, and so she gave it to him w
ithout restraint or reservation, wrapping not just her body around him but her heart as well. Because he was as vulnerable as she was, and he deserved to be kept safe. He deserved to know that he wasn’t alone.

  She wouldn’t have cared if he’d taken his pleasure without thinking about hers. It wasn’t about keeping score. It was about him taking and her wanting to give, and an orgasm didn’t matter, not in the greater scheme of things.

  But Damon had never been selfish in bed and he wasn’t now. He moved faster, harder, pushing deeper, his mouth ravaging hers. Then he slid his hand down between her thighs, stroking her until she could feel the orgasm beginning to splinter around her.

  She sobbed as the pleasure pulled unbearably tight and then let go, making her shudder and twist and gasp beneath him. And then it was his turn, his rhythm fast and getting faster, before he groaned her name, his big, rangy body shuddering as the climax came for him too. But her grip on him was strong, and it was she who held him tight as he fell apart in her arms.

  Chapter 15

  Damon leaned against the wall of the community center and watched as the entire population of Deep River trooped in and sat themselves down on the long wooden benches that had been set out, all of them talking loudly and interestedly about the meeting that was about to take place.

  Connor had come to stand beside him in companionable silence as the buzz of conversation rose and fell around them.

  The short list for tourist plans had gone out the day before, the announcement for a town meeting going up at Mal’s that afternoon, and while there had been some grumblings about the short list, word was that most people were keeping an open mind. This was going to be important for the town—historic even—and while everyone was united on keeping out big oil, Deep River was in need of direction. Tourism couldn’t be a dirty word any longer, not when the future of the town itself was at stake.

  A sense of purpose, a sense of community, that’s what the people of Deep River had always been best at, and that’s what would save them now.

  Or at least that’s the speech Silas had given him just a few hours earlier. It had been pretty inspiring.

  Damon shifted his attention from the chattering townspeople to the woman who stood silently at the front of the hall. Her arms were crossed, and she had that no-nonsense mayoral look on her lovely face.

  His heart tightened behind his ribs, no matter that it shouldn’t have.

  Last night, she’d held him in her arms, keeping him together as he’d talked about his daughter. Giving him the gift of her presence, letting his little girl live again as he’d shared his memories of her.

  “You can let yourself matter to me, Damon,” Astrid had told him. “Right now, here in this room, you can let yourself be important.”

  He wasn’t sure why those words hit him as hard as they had. Or why he’d gone against his better judgment and given in to the need inside himself. The longing for something deeper, the need for a connection to someone that went beyond physical.

  He shouldn’t have. He’d told himself he wouldn’t. Yet she’d offered him that moment and he’d taken it with both hands.

  Perhaps it was because it was for a limited time and they both knew it. Or perhaps it was because he just wanted her and hadn’t been able to hold out any longer.

  Selfish of him to put his own needs first, but she’d wanted him to and it had made her happy. And afterward, they’d lain in each other’s arms, and more stories came flooding out. They’d shared the hardships of being a teenage parent and yet the wonder of having a child, and then had spoken about their own parents.

  She’d told him about her father, how cold he’d been and how her mother had simply followed his example, while he’d talked about his own mother and the difficulties of being the child of a proud single parent who worked every waking hour to make ends meet and who didn’t take handouts.

  It had felt good to talk, to hold her, to know that she was listening and that it mattered to her. That he mattered to her.

  She was special, was Astrid James.

  You could stay here. With her. And with Connor.

  No, he couldn’t. All of that changed nothing. If anything, it only clarified things for him even more. Astrid and Connor needed and deserved someone who could give them everything. And he’d given his everything already.

  He had nothing left to give.

  “So,” Connor said from beside him. “Um, I know you might get mad about this, but…I kind of called your mom.”

  Damon went very still, shock echoing through him, the hum of conversation in the hall fading into the background. Slowly, he turned to face the teenager standing next to him.

  Connor’s expression was determined, though he’d gone a little pale, as if he knew he’d probably stepped over the line.

  Which he had. Significantly.

  “Say that again,” Damon said.

  “I called your mom.” Connor’s jaw had a pugnacious slant to it. “I know I probably shouldn’t have—”

  “Probably shouldn’t have?” There was too much anger in his voice, but he couldn’t stop it. “Probably?”

  Connor had gone even paler, but the determination in his gaze did not lessen one iota. The kid wasn’t backing down.

  The anger inside him gathered into a tight, hard knot. He really needed to put a lid on it, because it wasn’t a good idea to start chewing the kid out for invading his privacy and contacting his sick mother in a room full of people.

  But he had to know just what the hell Connor had been thinking.

  “Outside,” he ordered curtly, jerking his head toward the doors.

  There were people still coming in and the meeting was about to start. But he wanted answers and he wanted them now.

  Connor turned without a word and headed toward the exit, Damon following. He passed Morgan West coming in, whom he’d met at Cal’s funeral, and she gave him a smile, but the look on his face must have given her pause because she didn’t say anything, letting him move past her without a word.

  Outside, late afternoon was starting to set in, the sun on its way down. The late spring air had a hint of chill to it, the last gasps of winter coming down off the mountains.

  Connor walked out into the gravel parking area. The line of people going in had lessened, the hum of conversation drifting out from the open doors ensuring people probably wouldn’t hear them.

  The kid came to a stop, then turned around, facing him and the community center, the stubborn look on his face pure mule.

  Damon stopped too, fighting to get a handle on the anger pooling in his gut. “Okay, so you get that calling my mother without telling me is a huge breach of her privacy, right?”

  Connor said nothing, a muscle in his jaw leaping.

  “How did you even get her details, anyway?”

  “Silas. He had next-of-kin details for you.”

  Okay, so that was good. At least the kid was giving him the truth and wasn’t hiding it. But still…

  “So, what? You just asked him and he gave you that information without consulting me?”

  “Yeah, he did.” Connor’s blue eyes glinted with challenge. “He agreed with me.”

  Right, so now he was going to have to kill Silas. And then maybe stick his head over the bar in the Moose.

  “Agreed about what?” Damon snapped, the iron of the officer he’d once been in his voice. “Tell me, Connor, and it had better be good.”

  Connor didn’t flinch. He stood there the way he’d stood near the Nowhere pole when Damon had stumbled out of bed that first morning. All confrontation, challenge, and stubborn determination.

  “We want you to stay,” Connor said flatly. “Me and Silas. We want you to stay in Deep River. And I know your mom is sick. Silas told me that you don’t want to take her away from her home, so I thought I’d call her and tell her what a great place Deep Rive
r is. How she’d be really happy here because there’s a porch to sit on and mountains to look at. And I’d visit her. She wouldn’t be lonely. Everyone here would visit her.”

  The dead hearth of Damon’s heart felt sore, a longing rolling over him so strong he could hardly breathe. Because he could see his mother sitting on that porch, could see Connor coming to visit her, the pair of them sitting and chatting. His mother was a social person, she liked talking to people and particularly young people. They made her feel young too, she’d once told him…

  No, it was impossible. Familiarity was important and there would be nothing familiar to her about Deep River. The confusion was already starting and it was only going to get worse, plus there were implications about being so far away from health services. The whole idea was ridiculous.

  “So you call my sick mother, whom you don’t know and who doesn’t know you, without my knowledge, to sing the praises of some tin-pot little town in the middle of goddamn nowhere.” His voice was rising now, his anger getting hotter. “Tell me, Connor. If I’d done that to your very sick mom, how would you feel?”

  Connor’s face had paled. “She didn’t sound sick. She said she liked the idea of it.”

  “She’s got early onset dementia,” Damon said harshly. “She probably thought you were me.”

  “No, she didn’t. I told her my name and where I was from and how I knew you. And I told her that I wanted you to stay here, with us. With me and Mom.”

  Damon’s anger stretched out, dark as a shadow inside him, but he didn’t move.

  Why are you so angry? When you weren’t supposed to care?

  He ignored the thought. He didn’t want to frighten the kid, but Connor had to know that he’d overstepped. That he was messing with things that didn’t concern him and when those things concerned Damon’s mother, then he needed a reality check. A hard one.

  “You had no right to do that,” Damon said coldly. “You had no right to invade her privacy and mine. You should have talked to me first.”