Deep River Promise (Alaska Homecoming #2) - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,44

threw it hard into the river.

Damon didn’t want to hurt him. He only wanted Connor to acknowledge the weight of the burden he was carrying, that it was heavy even for an adult. Responsibilities always were.

“You know I told you that my mom was sick?” Damon said after a moment.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t look out for her on my own. Because I have responsibilities to Wild Alaska, to Silas and Zeke. So I get a housekeeper to check on her, to make sure she’s okay. It’s not the best, which is why I have to go home soon. But trusting the housekeeper helps Mom and it helps me handle what I need to up here. Everyone wins.”

“Is this some kind of ‘everyone support each other’ story that old people like to tell?”

This time Damon didn’t hide his grin. “Guess I can’t get anything past a teenager these days, huh?”

Connor gave him a withering look. “I’m not stupid.”

“And I’m not stupid either. Which is why I trust Mom’s housekeeper.” He let his grin fade. “You’ve got a weight on your shoulders, kid, and I get it. But if you need someone to help you carry it, you can trust me, okay?”

Something flickered through the boy’s eyes, something that looked like longing. Then it was gone, suspicion replacing it, along with a cool wariness that reminded Damon forcibly of Astrid. “What? You’re not going to tell me it’s none of my business and that I should butt out?”

Damon shook his head. “Why would I do that? Deep River’s your town. You’re a West, right? All of this is your business.”

Connor stared at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. The kid did a nice line in stoic when he wanted, that was for sure. Then he looked away again. “Why did he tell you about me? Why did he ask you to look out for me?”

The scar on Damon’s heart, the one that he’d carry for the rest of his life, ached.

There were lies he could tell Connor. Lies that would stop that scar from aching, that didn’t have the potential to tear it or make it bleed. But Connor needed more truth, not less, and besides, that scar was an old one and most of the time it didn’t hurt.

“Because I was a father once.” He hadn’t said those words to anyone else, not for years. “And Cal knew I’d do what he asked.”

Connor threw in another stone. “You had a kid?”

“Yeah. A little girl.”

“Where is she?”

He could feel the tightness of that scar and the exact shape of it. Strange to feel it again after so many years, when all it used to do was ache. But gradually, time had worked its magic, and these days he could even pretend that scar wasn’t there at all.

Except it was.

“She died,” he said.

He could feel the kid looking at him. He didn’t look back though. Some things you had to keep to yourself and the kid didn’t need to see what was no doubt in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Connor said at last and with feeling. “That sucks.”

Bizarrely, the aching tightness eased. Telling someone about Ella was always hard because not only did he have his own grief to bear, he had to bear someone else’s. Their sympathy and their pain as they tried to empathize, tried to imagine what it was like to have something similar happen to them and then shy away from it, the reality too awful to contemplate.

Yeah, it had always been complicated telling people. So now he never told anyone.

But Connor was a kid, with a kid’s viewpoint. He didn’t and couldn’t understand a parent’s unique hurt. His sympathy was honest and heartfelt, but Damon knew the boy wasn’t taking on anything else but that.

And somehow “that sucks” was the best response he’d heard for years.

“Yeah,” he said and he didn’t have to force the words. “It does.”

Connor didn’t say anything for long moments after that and neither did he, the pair of them sitting in a silence that bordered on companionable.

The river rushed beneath the dock, the mountains stretching up all around, touching the hazy blue of the sky, the sun lying warm on their shoulders. An eagle soared above them, wings outstretched, drifting on the breeze.

Then finally, Connor shifted. “How long are you staying?” He didn’t look at Damon.

“Today and tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Connor slowly pushed himself to his feet. “Good.”

Then he turned and walked away.

Damon watched him go, a complicated kind of emotion sitting in his chest, then