Deep River Promise (Alaska Homecoming #2) - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,26

walk away from it. Not yet at least.

“I have a theory about that,” he said. “Want to hear it?”

* * *

The whisky sitting in Astrid’s stomach was giving her a nice glow and her hand was still tingling from the warm, firm grip of Damon’s fingers.

And he was leaning against the desk, cradling his own glass, the sun falling across his dark brown hair, striking sparks of gold and caramel from it. His sky-blue eyes were fixed on her, and there was a heat in them that made something quiver deep down inside her.

A faint smile curved his beautifully carved mouth, warm and sympathetic, making her want to wrap herself up in it like she would a cozy blanket when it was cold.

He was so ridiculously attractive, and she shouldn’t even be noticing, not when all of this Connor stuff was happening. Aiden had been attractive too, and charming to boot, and look how that had turned out.

Beneath the glow of the whisky sat guilt and the edge of a familiar bitterness. She’d made a lot of mistakes over the years, but she’d thought she’d done better since she’d come to Deep River. Yet clearly not. She should have said something to Connor about Cal. Connor clearly hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her about the letter he’d received, and maybe that was her fault.

You knew this would come back to bite you at some stage.

Yeah, she had. She’d just hoped it would have happened when the timing was better. Not that the timing with this particular secret was ever going to be better.

“Your theory based on what?” She didn’t bother to hide her sarcasm, letting her anger at herself get the better of her. “Your twenty minutes of being alone with my son?”

He irritatingly refused the bait, merely shrugging one powerful shoulder, making the blue cotton of his T-shirt pull tight across it in a distracting way. “Fair call. But I was a teenage boy once. And my mother was a single parent. And I was what you’d call overly responsible, so I have a bit of insight.”

He was so calm and measured. It irritated the crap out of her. “You don’t have to placate me. I’m not a horse you need to soothe.”

“When I start offering you carrots and sugar cubes, then you can start to worry about me placating you.” Damon’s smile deepened, amusement lighting his eyes. “Anyway, so far I haven’t offered any of my horses whisky.”

Damn him. She didn’t want to be jollied out of her temper. She didn’t want him being nice to her. What she wanted was a fight, which was never a good sign.

She kept her temper on a tight rein these days, ever since Aiden. Getting angry and hurt about the things he’d said to her only made him worse, so she’d gotten very good at ignoring them. Cool and calm had been the way to handle him, and cool and calm she’d ended up being.

And she’d stayed that way even in Deep River, because though the people here had never intimidated her or been cruel the way Aiden had been, it always paid to be careful. Especially with men, because men were unpredictable at the best of times, and most especially when they were being nice. When Aiden had been nice to her, it was always because he was building up to some cruelty he was going to dump on her later or because he’d needed something from her for Connor.

Damon probably wasn’t like Aiden, but who could tell? You could never judge a book by its cover, no matter how pretty that cover was.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” she said, pushing the irritation away and trying to find her usual cool manner.

She didn’t want to ask him about his theory. She didn’t want to acknowledge that he might have an insight into Connor that she, as his mother, didn’t. But it would be stupid not to even listen to him just because she was feeling irritated. Especially when that irritation was more about herself and the way she’d handled things with Connor than it was about Damon. Or Aiden for that matter.

Best not to give in to her temper. Treat this the way she treated most issues that cropped up as mayor: be objective and don’t let her personal feelings get in the way.

“Okay.” She took another sip of the whisky. It really was very good. “Tell me then.”

“Well,” he said without a hint of smugness, “it’s like this.