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

before she caught the pain glittering in his eyes. “You can’t know how much I wish things were different.” His deep voice sounded scraped raw. “How much I wish I could give you and Connor what you both need and what you both deserve. But…I can’t. I’ve got nothing left, Astrid. Nothing at all.” He glanced at her then, and the look in his eyes made her throat close. “If I can give you nothing else, just know that I would have loved you if I’d been able. But love isn’t something I can do anymore. I’m sorry.”

It hurt, she couldn’t deny that. It felt like he’d picked up a sword and run her through with it.

But what could she say? She understood what he’d gone through and the cost it had exacted. And it made sense that he didn’t want to allow himself to feel for anyone else. Because it wasn’t that he couldn’t; it was that he wouldn’t.

He’d been betrayed too badly and been hurt irreparably, and she couldn’t fix that.

All she could do was let him go.

Slowly she walked across the gravel until she was right in front of him, then she tipped her head back and looked up into his sky-blue eyes.

“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll just have to love you twice as much.”

Something shifted in his eyes, flaring bright, an intense, deep longing. He wanted what she had to offer, wanted it badly—she could see the need inside him. But she also knew he wasn’t going to let himself have it for whatever reason.

“No,” he said. “Don’t.”

“I told you last night it was too late.” Her voice was surprisingly calm given how much her heart ached. “And I’m not going to ask anything of you. If you have to go, you have to go. I won’t stop you or demand that you stay. But know this.” She held his gaze. “If you ever need anyone, Damon Fitzgerald, you have me. And you have Connor too. We care about you. We’re here for you. And we’re not going anywhere.”

Emotion rippled over his face, but she couldn’t tell what it was. And then suddenly it was too hard to stand there, too hard to face him. Too hard not to reach for him and pull him to her.

“I think the meeting’s about to start,” she said, then turned around and headed back to the community center.

He didn’t call her name, and she didn’t stop.

She went in and closed the door behind her.

Chapter 16

Damon followed Astrid in—he had no other option. The meeting was important and especially so since he was there to add his thoughts on the financial implications.

Connor was on the far side of the hall and he didn’t look in Damon’s direction, not once.

Astrid called the meeting to order, her face betraying nothing of what had happened between them outside in the parking area. Or at least nothing anyone else could see. But he noticed the pale cast to her skin and the tightness around her mouth, her eyes gone dark, the sharp glitter dulled. And that tension was back, bristling and edgy.

I’ll have to love you twice as much.

His chest squeezed, like someone had closed their fingers around his heart, and it made anger churn in the pit of his stomach.

Why did she love him? He hadn’t asked for it, hadn’t wanted it. She said she wouldn’t ask anything of him, but he could feel her love pulling on him all the same, demanding things from him. Things he couldn’t give.

It’s not her you’re angry with.

He leaned his back against the wall, the tightness in his chest unrelenting.

No, of course it wasn’t her. He had enough insight to know that. It was himself he was angry with. Because he’d told her the truth. If he still had the ability to love, he would have loved her. He would have stayed with her. Would have brought his mother to live here in Deep River with them. Would have created a family with her and Connor, a life that wasn’t just lived on the surface. That was about something more, a tree with roots that went deep, not a leaf drifting in the current of a river.

But it would never happen. Love wasn’t something he could feel anymore.

“Okay, everyone settle down,” Astrid said, raising her voice enough to cut through the chatter and then waiting until it was mostly silent. “So, tonight we’re going to hear from those who’ve put forward some ideas on how to get some tourism dollars into Deep River. I’ve sat down with Damon over there, who you all know by now and who’s one of the new owners—”

“Hey, you can’t be an owner if you don’t live here,” someone piped up from the back. “Them’s the rules.”

Astrid glanced at Damon, raising one pale eyebrow, inviting him to speak. She seemed so together, but he could see how soft her mouth was, the vulnerability she hid from everyone. Yet even now, after he’d refused her, she was doing her job, carrying on.

She was so strong.

“I know the rules,” Damon said, his voice gravelly as the entire hall turned to look at him. “I’ll be passing my share on to Silas.”

A murmur ran through the crowd, several people turning to look at each other and whispering. April frowned in disapproval, while Harry shook his head.

“Well,” Mike Flint, the local grump and skeptic, said, “I don’t think that gives you the right to choose which ideas get to be voted on.”

“I didn’t, Mike,” Damon said. “Astrid and Silas were the main drivers. I gave them some financial pointers. As I told you when we had this conversation a couple of days ago.”

“You leave him alone, Mike Flint.” April turned around to give Mike a glare from her place in the front row. “And don’t take it out on him just because no one liked your motel idea.”

“Actually, his motel idea was a good one.” Damon nodded at Mike. “I’ve got it down