Deep River Promise (Alaska Homecoming #2) - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,58
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…
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.