Deep River Promise by Jackie Ashenden (cat reading book txt) 📕

He was ridiculously tall, his shoulders broad. She felt like she was sitting at the foot of a skyscraper.

“Yes,” she said with what she hoped was some degree of cool, leaning back in her chair and giving him a dose of Deep River suspicion. It wouldn’t hurt to let him know that though he might have charmed other people in the town, he wouldn’t necessarily charm her. “And I know who you are already,” she added. “You’re the guy I saw standing bare-ass naked on the balcony of the Moose this morning.”

Probably wasn’t the greatest thing to have said, but he’d put her off balance a little and she didn’t like it. Charming men, in her experience, were usually covering for something, and she didn’t trust them as far as she could throw them.

He at least had the decency to look slightly shamefaced, raising a hand and rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry about that. Had a hangover and kind of forgot I wasn’t wearing clothes.”

Which would have mollified her if that smile hadn’t still been playing around his mouth, making him look like a boy who knew he’d done something he should be ashamed of and yet was quite pleased about it all the same.

It was ridiculously charming.

“Uh-huh.” Astrid did her best to resist that smile. “Well, my son was definitely not impressed.”

“No, nor should he be.” Damon’s hand dropped from the back of his neck, his blue eyes sparking with something that made her breath catch. “Believe it or not, I actually do have some manners.” He took a step toward the desk and leaned over it, extending his hand, his smile now slightly rueful. “If you could forget about me being the naked guy on the balcony, I’d appreciate it. I’m actually Damon Fitzgerald. Silas’s friend.”

Astrid eyed the extended hand. Some old and unfamiliar instinct was telling her that taking it would be a bad idea. However, not taking it would be rude, and she didn’t want to be rude either.

Then again, if she didn’t, she’d be admitting that he got to her, and since she didn’t let men get to her these days, she leaned forward and took it.

His fingers were warm as they closed around hers, his grip strong but not painfully so. Her skin prickled with an unexpected heat and her heart beat oddly fast.

Oh, she did not want that. Not at all.

She pulled her hand away, covering the abruptness of the motion by gesturing at the scuffed wooden chair that sat on the other side of her desk. “Take a seat, Mr. Fitzgerald,” she said, ignoring her stupid physical reaction. “Tell me what I can do for you.”

His blue gaze regarded her speculatively for another moment. Then he reached for the chair, pulled it back, and sat with an easy, lazy grace. He leaned back, long, powerful legs stretched out in front of him, and folded his arms across his broad chest.

He somehow reminded her of an old-time cowboy, the ones that ambled and moseyed, unhurried and measured, all slow smiles and syrupy drawls. In no rush. Patient.

“Call me Damon,” he said in that deep, rich voice. “And as to what you can for me…well, I’m here to talk about Connor.”

Chapter 3

Astrid James’s cool gray eyes widened in surprise, which he was expecting. And then just as quickly narrowed into thin slits of quartz. Which he was also expecting.

A mother was never going to simply take some stranger wandering into her office and asking her about her son at face value. In fact, he’d be surprised if she wasn’t deeply suspicious on some level and most especially when she’d seen that stranger with his junk flapping in the breeze barely an hour before.

No, it wasn’t Astrid’s suspicion that bothered him.

It was the fact that she was gorgeous that did.

She was built delicate, with the kind of precise, elegant features that belonged in elegant society, rather than a tiny backwater like Deep River. Her skin was creamy, her hair pale gold, and her eyes were the color of mountain mist; she looked like she’d been carved from sharp, clear ice. A snow queen…

But no, she wasn’t a snow queen. Not when the warmth from her hand was lingering against his palm like he’d brushed it over a living flame.

He ignored it. She might be pretty, but he wasn’t here for a pickup. He was here to talk to her about her son and then get back to LA. ASAP.

“What about Connor?” The look of cool welcome she’d given him just before had disappeared to be replaced by something much more wary.

Damon allowed his smile to fade, since it was clear she wasn’t going to be moved by it.

A superstitious man might have said it was fate that the pretty blond he’d seen from the Moose’s balcony had turned out to be Astrid and that the kid who’d been following him around the past couple of days was her son, Connor.

But Damon was not a superstitious man. And there was a reason Connor might have been following him around.

He was Caleb West’s son after all.

Damon regarded the woman sitting on the other side of the desk steadily.

How to go about this? How to break it to her that he was here to fulfill Caleb’s last wish, to make sure that the son he’d sired fifteen years earlier, the son who no one else in the world knew about except the boy’s mother and Damon, was “looked after”?

There were so many things to consider. Did she mourn Caleb’s death? It had only happened a few weeks ago, and hell, he, Zeke, and Silas were still dealing with his loss, let alone the woman who’d had his kid. And things were made even more tricky by the fact that no one knew Cal even had a kid, or that said kid was living in Deep River. Not even Cal’s sister, Morgan, knew.

The easiest thing