Deep River Promise Jackie Ashenden (best life changing books .txt) 📖

under her arm, blond hair sticking to her skin, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes brilliant. And he hadn’t been prepared for his reaction to her. An intensely physical, almost visceral reaction.

She’d looked beautiful, as if she’d spent a couple of hours in his bed rather than in a yoga class. And he hadn’t been able to think.

Then she’d come closer, pink-faced and sweet, one golden curl stuck to her cheek, and so very different from the cool, collected woman she’d been the day before. He’d reached out to tuck that curl back behind her ear before he could stop himself, her skin so warm and silky…

No. He had to exercise his control. She was off-limits in every way, and flirting with her like this was stupid in the extreme.

“You really want to know what I want?” He gripped the thin cardboard of his cup, ignoring how it burned against his fingertips. “I want to take you to dinner. I want to talk to you. I want to get to know you. And then I want to take you home and spend the night with you.” It was far too blunt, but for some reason, all his charm had suddenly deserted him and all he had left was honesty. “But you’re the mayor of Deep River and you’re Connor’s mom. And I’m leaving in a couple of days. And so what I want isn’t a good idea, not given those other things.”

He shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. He should have kept it to himself. But she’d asked him, and he’d wanted to give her the truth. Maybe if she hadn’t responded the way she had to him, it would have been different, but she had. And so he wanted her to know that he found her attractive in a lot of different ways.

“I see.” The flush in her cheeks deepened and she looked away, sipping on her coffee and taking another bite of her donut. Trying to be casual, no doubt, but he could see through her. She’d liked what he’d said, that was clear.

“Serves me right for asking, I suppose,” she added.

He wasn’t going to ask her if she felt the same way about him. He suspected she did, but since it wasn’t going to change things, there wasn’t much point.

“So,” he said into the heavy silence, changing the subject and pushing away the way she made his heart beat faster, “how was Connor this morning?”

She dusted the sugar off her fingers. “You said you weren’t going to talk about Connor.”

“I’m not. I just wanted to know if he gave you a hard time about Cal.”

She shook her head, but the expression on her face shuttered, the pretty blush dying away, the glitter in her eyes dimming.

Helpless concern rippled through him. He wanted to reach out and put a hand over hers, ease that look on her face, but he stayed where he was. Touching her was not a good idea.

“What happened?” He leaned forward. “Was there a problem?”

“It’s nothing. He just…didn’t want to talk about it. And I was going to try and have a conversation with him about it this morning, but he was still asleep.”

Ah, kid… This was tough, no doubt about it. And if he was angry with his mom but didn’t want to talk to her about it, it was probably because he was trying to protect her.

“Did you tell him I was staying on?” he asked.

“Yes. He didn’t say anything.”

No, he probably wouldn’t. One thing, though, was clear: Connor needed someone to talk to. Damon had told Astrid yesterday that he’d wait for the kid to come to him, which would be the ideal scenario. But if Connor didn’t, and if Damon ran out of time, he might have to search the kid out himself.

Tough call.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked carefully.

“No.” There was no denying the firmness in her tone. “I don’t. I think we should discuss the tourism ideas for Deep River instead.” She swallowed more coffee, then put the cup down on the desktop, obviously now in business-mode. “Shall I run by you some of the ideas we’ve collated?”

Damon leaned back in his chair. She didn’t want to talk about Connor and that was fine. He’d muse on what he was going to do about it later. In the meantime, he could help with this.

“Sounds good.” He nodded to the folder he’d put down on the desk with the coffee and donuts. “This morning I went over some of the suggestions Silas received, and there were a couple that looked like they could be interesting. Why don’t you take a look at those, then show me what you have?”

“Okay, good.” She pulled open a drawer in the desk, took out a similar-looking folder, and put it down. Then picked up the one Silas had given Damon.

The suggestions for possible tourism options were mostly good ones, and he’d been intrigued in spite of himself. Kevin Anderson’s potential fishing charter business was a solid idea, as was Harry’s wilderness skills and guided hikes along some of the game trails that looped through the bush surrounding Deep River. With Silas taking people on scenic flights, there was a good base from which to build other options that centered on Deep River’s natural beauty and didn’t require a whole lot of capital up front.

“My take on this,” he said as Astrid leafed through the folder, “is that if you start small and invest a little here and there before gradually building, it’ll be less risky in the long run. Because there’ll be other things the town will need to invest in that aren’t only tourism projects.”

Astrid leaned back in her chair, sipping on her coffee. “Such as?”

“Infrastructure, mainly. This place isn’t built to cater to a lot of tourists, and if you’re going to be chasing those dollars, you’re going to need some amenities, like public bathrooms. Then you’ll need businesses that will cater to them. More stores,