Deep River Promise Read online

  After she’d gone, he’d gathered up the books and taken them to Phil, the old guy who lived at the top of the hill behind the town. Phil had given him a look around his fledgling animal sanctuary and explained what he was trying to do. An interesting little operation, and given the quirk factor of Phil himself, it had definite tourist potential.

  Of course, it would have been better if he’d paid attention to the old guy, but he hadn’t. He couldn’t. His head had been too full of Astrid.

  The beer was cold on his tongue, the buzz of conversation in the bar around him loud. It was Saturday night and clearly the Moose was the place to be, packed as it was with town residents all talking and shouting and drinking.

  Some idiot had put on Sweet Home Alabama on the jukebox for the third time that evening, the twangy sounds of the guitar competing with the click of pool balls and the sounds of loud laughter.

  Damon found the noise irritating.

  He’d been dead set on leaving tomorrow and he had no reason to change his mind, especially not after his mom’s call earlier today. Two days and then he had to get back to her, that had been the plan. So why he should be feeling so unsettled and like he was making the wrong decision somehow, he had no idea.

  Sex with a woman—even good sex—was not a reason to stay. He had to get back to LA. He couldn’t keep relying on Rachel, especially not when his mother was uncomfortable with her being around; that wasn’t fair.

  What about your promise to Cal?

  Well, what about it? He’d spoken to Connor, let the kid know he was around and available. Maybe he’d come and see him, maybe he wouldn’t. Two days, that’s what he’d told Connor. The kid knew where to find him if he wanted to talk.

  And what about Astrid?

  But his promise to Cal didn’t include Astrid. And she was cool, capable, and strong. Yes, the sex had been fantastic, and perhaps if there hadn’t been all those added complications he might have considered sticking around for a little more of it. But there were those complications and nothing had changed.

  You’re still thinking she’s like all the rest and she isn’t.

  No, she wasn’t. Five years since she’d been with someone, a long time for a woman as passionate as she was. Why was that? Was it fear of small-town gossip? Or had she just not met anyone she liked enough? And why the hell had she chosen him? Had he simply been convenient? Or was it something more?

  Not that he wanted it to be anything more, definitely not.

  “Hey,” Silas said, interrupting Damon’s whirling thoughts as he pulled out a chair opposite and sat down. “How’s the financial stuff progressing?”

  Damon gave him a long-suffering look. “Did I say you could sit there?”

  “No.” Silas put his elbows on the table and gave Damon a grin. “So? What’s happening? Has Debbie gone into detail about Carl’s beer coaster collection yet?”

  Damon took another sip of his beer, not hurrying. “I’m going over options.” Best to keep things noncommittal and not give away the fact that he’d been struggling to keep the Deep River tourism ideas at the forefront of his mind.

  “Options,” Silas echoed. “That’s helpful. You want to talk about those options?”

  “Not right now, no. Need some more time to think about it.”

  Silas’s gaze narrowed. “Isn’t time something you don’t have?”

  Well, this conversation could end up in some uncomfortable places if he wasn’t careful.

  Damon leaned back in his chair, hooking one elbow over the back of it and meeting his friend’s gaze levelly. “I want to be sure that whatever advice I give is the right kind. I don’t want any of these options to fail.”

  “Okay, then.” Silas nodded his head in agreement. “But we need to make a decision about which ideas are viable and which aren’t. People are getting antsy to get this sorted out so we need to do it soon.”

  That was all true.

  He resisted the urge to rub a hand over his face. Hell, he really needed to get his head back in the game. He couldn’t think about anything clearly when it was still full of Astrid.

  “Yeah, I hear you,” he said.

  Silas was silent a moment, then asked, “You still planning on leaving?”

  “Tomorrow, yes.”

  “Okay, well, I guess you’d better hurry up on it, then.”

  Irritated, Damon shot him an annoyed glance. “Thank you, I’m aware.”

  “The sooner we get this done, the better,” Silas went on, apparently not picking up on the please go away and leave me alone vibes that Damon was projecting. “We need to get the ball rolling, keep everyone engaged and thinking about the future of the town and all the good things that will come to them, instead of thinking about the oil and what they could do with the money.”

  It was a fair enough concern. Phone calls from oil execs had been made to various townspeople, with money dangling from sticks like particularly juicy carrots. And he knew what people were like with money. It was a great motivator and not necessarily for the good, which was a concern.

  He didn’t like the idea of machinery everywhere, tearing up the landscape and ruining all that lovely scenery, destroying the peace and the magic of this place. Connor would be furious and upset, and that would in turn upset Astrid, and that would sure as hell bother Damon.

  He wasn’t sure when their feelings had started to be a concern for him. Their feelings in particular, as opposed to anyone else’s…

  “What does Astrid think?” Silas asked, apparently picking the thought right out of his head, the sneaky bastard.

  “Still talking to her.” Damon tried very hard not to let even the smallest part of that mind-blowing experience he’d had with her in the library this morning show.

  “Okay, good. I’d like us to get a short list of viable projects together, organize a town meeting so everyone can get the info, then we put the issue to a town vote. People need to see something’s happening.”

  “Fine, I can do that.” And he’d pull his recalcitrant thoughts away from the beautiful mayor and back to the problem at hand while he was at it too. Then another thought hit him. “Hey, you hear anything from Zeke?”

  Silas let out a breath. “Not a damn thing. None of my leads have gone anywhere either. It’s like he’s disappeared off the face of the earth.”

  “Great timing,” Damon noted dryly.

  “Tell me about it. I guess all we can do is carry on and hope that eventually he turns up.”

  “I guess so.”

  Silas gave him a meaningful look. “Which means you’d better get moving on all those ideas and figuring out which ones are going to be the most likely to succeed.”

  Silas wasn’t wrong. The sooner Damon dealt with this, the sooner he could get back to LA. Perhaps he needed to go for a walk, clear his head, then hopefully he’d be better able to concentrate on what he was actually supposed to be doing.

  Damon swallowed his beer, collected his papers, stood up, and gave his friend a mock salute. “Roger that, chief.”

  After depositing the papers in his room, he came back down the stairs and stepped outside the Moose.

  It was a particularly beautiful evening, the twilight getting longer in preparation for summer when it wouldn’t get dark until almost ten at night. The light lay still and golden over the mountaintops, dancing off the rushing green water of the river. And once the heavy door to the Moose had shut behind him, silence fell. The kind of deep, heavy silence that only came with the wilderness and no cities around for hundreds of miles.

  The kind of silence that sometimes made him very conscious of the silence within himself too. It could be oppressive, that silence. But it wasn’t tonight, not with the warmth of Astrid’s arms around him, the memory of that smile she’d given him as he’d pushed inside her. Looking at him as if he was something special. Magic…

&
nbsp; Except he wasn’t all that special, not these days. Maybe once he had been, to his daughter and to Rebecca, Ella’s mom. But not to his own mother. He’d only ever been a burden to her, and he knew it.

  Not that he wanted to be special to anyone, though. Being special demanded things emotionally from him, and he wasn’t in any position to give those things to anyone. The surface life with no ties, nothing to pull him down under the water again, that’s all he wanted. Nothing was going to change that. Nothing and no one.

  Walking slowly from the boardwalk and onto the road that ran behind the stores facing the river, he then came to a stop, distracted by the sounds of raised voices.

  Glancing in the direction of the noise, he saw two figures standing on the sidewalk outside the back entrance to the mayor’s office. One small, female, and blond. The other tall, gangly, and very teenage boy.

  Astrid and Connor.

  Astrid had her arms folded, a set look on her face, while Connor glared at her. Both of them were radiating the same sharp, prickly, angry energy.

  “That’s none of your business,” Damon heard Astrid say, her voice very, very cool. “I’m an adult, Con, and it’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “I’m just looking out for you, Mom,” Connor said fiercely, waving a hand.

  “I know, but you don’t have to do that. I’m not your responsibility, and neither is the town.”

  “You’re wrong. It is my responsibility. Who else is going to protect it? Those idiots?” He waved another hand in the general direction of the Moose. “They’re strangers who don’t care about this place like I do. And you’ve got no one to protect you except me, and I—”

  “I don’t need your protection, idiot boy,” Astrid said furiously.

  “Oh yeah?” Connor’s voice vibrated with anger. “Do you really want another Aiden situation?”

  Something like shock rippled over Astrid’s face before giving way to fury.

  A family argument, which wasn’t his business. And it definitely wasn’t his place to intervene. Yet Damon couldn’t walk away. This was the type of fire that could spiral out of control if cold water wasn’t poured on it, and the only person around here with that water was him.

  “Hey, you two,” he said calmly, strolling toward them. “Need help with anything?”

  One pair of furious blue eyes and one pair of chilly gray turned in his direction.

  “No, thank you.” Astrid’s voice was ice-cold, and she stared at him as if he were a complete stranger and not someone she’d shared mind-blowing sex with in the library that morning. “We’re fine.”

  “No, we’re not fine,” Connor snapped at almost the same time, glancing at Damon, an expression on his face that Damon at first didn’t recognize. And then he did.

  The kid was looking at him as if he wanted Damon’s help.

  “Oh? What’s the problem?” Damon came closer.

  “It’s nothing we can’t handle,” Astrid said in frigid tones. “I appreciate you want to help, Damon, but—”

  “I want to stop school until this oil business is over,” Connor interrupted, staring at Damon. “I don’t want to be away for hours during the day when I’m needed here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Astrid said. “You can’t just stop going to school completely. I won’t have it.”

  “School’s nearly over anyway, and who else is going to take care of this town?” Connor turned his furious gaze on his mother. “Who’s going to make sure everything’s—”

  “Hey.” Damon made sure his voice was calm but firm enough to get the kid’s attention. “Need a chat, Connor?”

  “No, he does not,” Astrid said.

  “Yes, I do,” Connor said at exactly the same time.

  Astrid glared at him. “I’m your mother. I’ll make the decisions around here.”

  “Yeah, and you don’t understand—”

  “It’s okay,” Damon interrupted again, cutting across the kid’s fury, meeting it with firmness and calm. “We can talk. Just give me five minutes with your mom here.”

  Connor gave Astrid one ferocious glance, then he nodded and stalked off to give them some privacy.

  Astrid’s face was white, her gray eyes gone dark in the evening light, not at all the lovely, flushed woman he’d held in his arms earlier that day. But the impact of her was still the same—a punch direct to his gut. She looked furious and beautiful and sexy, and he wanted to take her face between his hands and kiss her passionate mouth.

  “You okay?” he asked instead. “What’s going on?”

  Her expression shuttered. “Connor has this ridiculous idea about giving up school while this oil business is going on.”

  Damon frowned. “Why?”

  “Because you’re leaving tomorrow, and he doesn’t trust Silas or Zeke to do things right.”

  He muttered a curse under his breath. That hadn’t been what he’d intended when he’d spoken to Connor earlier. Sure, get the kid to trust him, but also the others too.

  “I don’t know what you said to him before,” Astrid continued, “but he seems to think you’re on the level now and the other two are potential oilmen.”

  Damon sighed. “That’s not what I had in mind, I have to say. Will you let me handle it?”

  She gave him an unreadable look, then glanced away. She was angry and he could see why. But there was something more going on here, he was sure of it, and it wasn’t only due to a stubborn teenager who wouldn’t do what he was told. Maybe he needed to ask, because he couldn’t help if he didn’t know what was going on.

  “Who’s Aiden?” He kept the question very casual.

  Silver glinted in her eyes, her whole body stiffening. Then just as quickly as the reaction had appeared, it vanished.

  “Fine,” she said flatly, completely ignoring the question. “You talk to him, then. See if you can make him see sense.”

  Without another word, she strode past him, heading in the direction of the road that led up the hill behind the town, her hair gleaming in the last rays of the sun.

  Okay, so whoever this Aiden guy was, he was a subject she didn’t want to talk about.

  Damon didn’t like that. He felt like he was flying in the dark with no autopilot and no navigation and heading straight into a cloud bank.

  Looking around for Connor, he eventually spotted him standing just a little way down the street, his back to Damon, his attention determinedly forward. He looked big standing there, and broad. Not a kid. A man.

  “So,” Damon said as he came up behind him, “you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Connor swung around. He looked furious. “You heard already. I want to quit school early. But Mom won’t let me. She doesn’t understand—”

  He stopped short as Damon held up a quietening hand.

  “I hear you,” Damon said, wanting to prevent a deluge of irritation right here in the street. “Let’s talk, but not here, okay?”

  “But I—”

  “You want people listening in on what you have to say? The whole town knowing your secret?”

  Connor’s chin jutted. “They can. Perhaps they’d take me seriously if they knew.”

  “They might,” Damon allowed. “But what about your mom? That’s going to affect her too, don’t forget. Also, it’s a hell of a way for your aunt to find out that her brother had a son she didn’t know about.”

  Connor opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he looked away, thrusting his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, okay.” He was still angry, that was clear, but there was a grudging admittance in his tone. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Good kid. Unlike many teenagers, he wasn’t just thinking of himself when it came down to it.

  “Have you got somewhere we can chat without anyone listening in?” Damon asked. “Like, a hideout or something?”

  �
�A hideout?” Connor’s tone dripped with disdain. “I’m not ten.”

  Damon grinned. “No, but you’re an angry teenage boy. You can’t tell me you don’t have a place to go brood on the injustices of life.”

  The kid rolled his eyes, but the tension around his mouth eased. “Maybe.”

  “Good.” Already an idea about what he was going to do was revolving in Damon’s brain. “Stay here a second. I’ll be back.”

  Without another word, he turned around and made his way to the market. It was still open, so he went in, bought a couple of beers, then came out again.

  Connor glanced then at the bottles in his hand. “Beer?”

  “Serious conversation requires serious refreshment. My mom preferred whisky, but you’re underage, so beer it is.”

  “You know beer has alcohol in it, right?”

  Damon lifted a shoulder. “Hey, I’ll drink both of them if you don’t want—”

  “Let’s not be hasty,” Connor interrupted quickly. “I didn’t say that.”

  Damon laughed. “Didn’t think you did. Come on, show me where this ‘maybe’ hideout of yours is.”

  Connor gave him a dark look, then turned and started heading down the street to the boardwalk, while Damon followed.

  They stepped onto the boardwalk and walked down it, heading to the steps at the end that led to the path that ran along the bank beside the river.

  The sun was going down, throwing out long streaks of gold and red and yellow light, bathing everything in a pretty twilight glow. It was starting to get cold, the unseasonable warmth of the spring day beginning to fade along with the light, making Damon draw his parka closer around him.

  Stars started to glitter in the pale sky. When darkness fell, they’d be scattered across the night like jewels spilled from a treasure chest.

  Connor continued on down the path and then abruptly veered off toward the river. Damon followed, curious.