Deep River Promise, Jackie Ashenden [large ebook reader .TXT] 📗

the river and the mountains beyond were spectacular, but there was definitely a shabby, worn air to the room.

Damon dumped his bag carelessly on the bed and then turned to face her, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He wasn’t smiling now, the lines of his face stark in their beauty.

He looked like a very serious angel.

“Better shut the door,” he said. “That is if you want some privacy.”

She did, so she shut it, turning back to him and getting straight to the point. “This is about Connor, isn’t it?”

Damon’s gaze was very direct. “He knows, Astrid.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

Damon hesitated a moment, and for a second, she thought she saw a hint of compassion in his gaze. “He knows who his father is.”

Chapter 5

Astrid went white as a sheet, her pretty eyes darkening. “No,” she said in a shocked voice. “He doesn’t know. He can’t.”

All the unflappable capability she’d been radiating this morning in her office had disappeared, and even that taut, bristling energy was gone.

For a moment, she looked as lost as her son.

Sympathy shifted inside him, though perhaps, given that she’d kept a vital piece of information from her very hurt and worried son, it shouldn’t have.

Then again, Astrid hadn’t given him the impression that she was a cruel or mean woman. Certainly in the past few days he’d been in Deep River, he’d heard nothing but good things about her. That she was a touch reserved maybe, but also that she was calm and cool and she got things done.

He suspected that there was more to her than that, though. He’d seen little flashes of dry humor, little sparks of temper too. That snow-queen cool was a front, he was sure of it, but what lay beneath it, he didn’t know.

What he did know was that if she’d kept something from Connor, then presumably it had been for a good reason.

Connor himself, when he’d told Damon that he knew Cal was his father, had shrugged it off. The kid had muttered something about how he wasn’t angry with Astrid for not telling him and that she was probably trying to protect him, though from what he didn’t say. Damon had the sense that he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince Damon.

Whatever, the kid’s confession had made it clear to Damon that he couldn’t leave Deep River quite yet.

Cal had wanted Damon to make sure Connor was okay, but it had soon become evident, as Damon had talked to him, that the kid wasn’t okay.

He hadn’t let slip much, and Damon hadn’t pushed him, but it was obvious that Connor was upset and angry and hurt, and was desperately trying to hide it.

Damon couldn’t go off and leave the kid like that—he just couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. And most especially not when he’d made a promise to Cal.

Sure, it was going to mean involving himself in something far too complicated for his liking, not to mention dealing with messy things like emotions and whatnot, but perhaps that would be okay.

He could be a neutral party, the peacemaker, like he’d been in the army. It was easy to be laidback and calm when the ability to feel about anything in any depth had been burned right out of you.

So he’d called Rachel right there and then—mercifully, there was service at the airstrip—to let her know that he’d be a few more days, just enough to give him some time to deal with the Connor situation.

“He does know.” Damon kept his voice measured. “He’s been following me around because I’m a friend of Cal’s and he knew it.”

The lost expression on Astrid’s face lingered, then abruptly vanished, her mouth hardening into a line, her jawline tight. “How?” she demanded. “How did he find out?”

“The same way I did, apparently. He got a letter after Cal died. Seemed Cal had written one before he was deployed and got the lawyer to hold on to it and send it in case of his death.”

Astrid shut her eyes and put a hand to her forehead, rubbing at it as if she had a headache. She looked even paler than she had in her office.

The thread of sympathy inside him pulled harder and he let it. He might not feel things deeply these days, but he wasn’t without compassion.

Going over to the small desk pushed up against the wall near the balcony, he pulled out the chair.

“Sit,” he ordered calmly.

Astrid opened her eyes, shooting him an irritated look.

He ignored it. “Come on, sit down before you fall down.”

She let out a breath and dropped her hands from her forehead. She looked like she wanted to argue, but then thought better of it, moving over to the chair he’d pulled out and sitting down instead.

“There.” She gave him a look that was every bit as challenging as her son’s. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” He folded his arms. “Want to tell me why you didn’t tell him about Caleb?”

“A lot of reasons.” She leaned back, resting her head against the back of the chair and closing her eyes again. “God, what a mess.”

“Want to share?”

“Not particularly.” She opened her eyes again. “Look, it’s nothing personal, Damon. You might have been a friend of Cal’s, but I don’t know you from a bar of soap, and it’s really none of your business.”

She wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t his business. And normally he wouldn’t have argued with her about it. In fact, if he’d had his way, he’d be flying the Cessna the hell back to Juneau right now.

But this was kind of important and he’d never been able to turn his back on someone who needed help, most especially not when that person was a kid.

“Sure,” he said mildly. “But sadly Caleb West made it my business. And I can’t ignore the last request of a good friend. Cal told me to take care of Connor, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

Irritation rippled over Astrid’s finely carved