Night Jasmine (24 page)

A gentle breeze stirred the palm trees and sent the smell of flowers, rich and sweet, wafting through the air. Hunter breathed deeply, but instead of the fragrance of the cemetery's cultivated flowers, the scent of Aimee's night jasmine filled his head, wild, potent and heady.

With the scent came memories that stung his senses just as sharply of the night they'd made love on the porch swing, of the one when they'd sat on the steps and Aimee had poured out her frustrations, and of others when they'd just lain in bed and let
the scent drift over them.

Hunter shook his head to rid himself of the memories, sweet though they were, and looked around him. After the Louisiana bayou, California had felt strange. Had looked and smelled strange. Too manicured. Dry and earth-toned instead of humid and vividly green. Hunter slipped his hands into his trouser pockets, moving his gaze over the vast cemetery, its green a brilliant contrast to the sepia and gold of the mountains.

He'd come to say goodbye to his past. And hello to the future. He could not have one without letting go of the other; they were inextricably bound.

Aimee.

God, he'd missed her. Her smile. Her husky laugh. The way she looked at him, as if he were the only man in the world who mattered, the way she melted in his arms. But most of all, he'd missed the way she made him feel.

Alive.

It had taken leaving her to see how much he needed her. How much he loved her.

And how much he loved Oliver. His son.

Hunter looked down at the teddy bear he had clutched in his hands, matted and worn from hours of loving abuse. Pete's love. He rubbed his fingers over the bear's fuzzy head. All their personal belongings had been taken by the fire. All that had remained were the few pictures he'd had in his office, his wallet. This bear he'd found under the front seat of Ginny's car.

He hadn't discovered it until weeks after the funeral, weeks after he'd buried Pete with a new toy. He'd always felt bad about that.

Hunter brought the toy to his face, to his nose, and breathed deeply. It smelled of Pete still. Or maybe, Hunter acknowledged, that was only his imagination.

He rubbed the bear lightly against his cheek. Pete had known and loved this toy. He'd slept with it crushed against his face, had hugged it, had dragged it around behind him. It hadn't been his favorite, but it should have been buried with him. Pete shouldn't have had to be buried with a stranger.

The future, Hunter thought again, walking through the gates. He followed the winding walkways, lined with flowering bushes, knowing the way by heart even though he'd made this trip only once. On the day his family had been buried. It had hurt too much for him to come again. Until today.

Hunter reached the plots, the marble markers he'd picked out while still in shock. He stared at the side-by-side graves, his heart beating slowly and heavily against the wall of his chest.

Mother and child. His wife, his son. It hurt. It would forever. Their deaths had been a senseless waste of life. He'd loved them with all of his heart. Just as passionately, he hated that they'd died. The way they'd died.

But the pain inside him had changed. The anger had shifted, his feelings of blame and guilt with it. He'd changed.

Hunter shook his head. For five years he'd wished he were here with Ginny and Pete, had wished he'd died, too. He didn't any more. He wanted to live.

Hunter closed his eyes and his head filled with images from the past, filled with happy memories of times he and Ginny and Pete had spent together: the moment of Pete's birth, when he and Ginny had looked at one another with wonder and love; the night he'd asked Ginny to marry him; Pete's first step; their wedding; Pete's first birthday.

They were memories of life. Of living. Of loving. They filled him with happiness and light. They chased away the nightmares, the endless cold.

Aimee had given this back to him. The ability to remember. The ability to feel. To love. Aimee had given him back life.

Hunter squatted down in front of Pete's resting place. He'd arranged for fresh flowers to be placed weekly on the graves, and the ones that adorned the plots now were bright and cheering.

Hunter brushed wilted petals and leaves lovingly away. Emotion welled in his chest until he thought he would burst from it. But it didn't frighten him as it would have only a week ago, and he didn't try to fight it off or control it. Grieving, letting go, was a part of life, awful though it was.

“Hey, Buddy,” he murmured thickly. “Brought you something. An old friend.” Hunter propped the teddy bear carefully against the headstone, then arranged the flowers around it. “Thought you might want the little guy around. Remember the time you took it in the bathtub with you?” He shook his head. “You couldn't understand why he couldn't swim.”

Hunter smiled at that memory and a dozen others that rushed into his head with it. “I miss you, Buddy. So much.” Hunter thought of Roubin and of faith. “But…it's okay now. I know that wherever you are, wherever heaven is, you're being loved.”

Hunter drew in a ragged breath, his chest heavy and aching. “You have a brother now.” Hunter thought of Oliver and smiled. “You'd like him, I know you would. And I know you would have been a good big brother.”

Hunter reached out and touched Pete's marker, moving his fingers slowly across the chiseled letters. “He can be shy, Pete. Too cautious.” Hunter thought of the bayou and a shudder moved over him. “Sometimes not cautious enough. If you were around, you'd show him the ropes.

“I'll tell him about you,” he continued, his voice husky with tears. “You'll always be my baby, Pete. And…I'll…always love you.”

Hunter shifted his gaze from Pete's grave to Ginny's. How did one do this? he wondered. How did he tell the memory of the woman he'd once loved about the woman he loved now? And strange, he acknowledged, how it felt at once awkward and right.

As he had with Pete's, Hunter straightened up the grave site, brushing away dead flowers and leaves, rearranging the live ones. “Ah, Gin,” he said finally, softly, “there's so much I have to say to you, so many things I didn't get to say to you. Like goodbye.” His throat closed and he worked to clear it. “I couldn't come before this. Because I blamed myself. For the fire. For your and Pete's deaths. Because of those damn locks, because I wasn't home to protect you.”

He shook his head, thinking of the wasted years, the debilitating guilt. “Accidents happen, Ginny. I realize that now. Tragedies occur. They're a part of living. I'm not to blame. No one is.”

He reached out and touched her marker, the smooth marble warm beneath his fingers. “I couldn't face my own guilt. I couldn't face the pain of living knowing that you and Pete had died. For five years I ceased living to avoid the pain.

“You wouldn't have liked the man I'd become. Cold and controlled, so wrapped up in my own misery I couldn't even see love when I had it in my hands.”

In the distance Hunter heard the sound of laughter. Children's laughter. It rippled over his senses like music, and he smiled. “I want to live, Ginny. Aimee made me see that. She brought me back to the world of the living. She's a remarkable woman. Strong and beautiful and full of life. You'd like her.”

Hunter lifted his face to the cloudless blue sky, drinking in the beauty of the day. “I never thought I'd feel anything again, and now…I love her so much it's like a miracle.”

The sound of the children came closer. They appeared from around a corner, a boy and girl, their arms filled with flowers. As they saw him, their mother tried to hush them.

“I'm sorry,” the woman said as they passed, her cheeks crimson with embarrassment.

Hunter smiled. “Don't be. They're children, they're supposed to laugh. Besides, we like it. We like it a lot.”

The trio moved on, and Hunter reached out and touched Ginny's marker one last time. He smoothed his fingers over the sun-warmed marble, then dropped his hand. “Goodbye, Ginny. Take good care of our baby up there. I love you.”

Even as he murmured the words, he thought of Aimee. And of the life they would have together. Whispering a final goodbye, Hunter stood and turned away from the past and headed toward his future.

* * *

Aimee stood on the gallery and gazed at the horizon and at the most spectacular sunset she'd ever seen. Brilliant pinks and lavenders, fiery reds and oranges, a hint of gold, they transformed the sky into an artist's canvas. Sighing, she rested her head against one of the cypress columns. How could nature be capable of such an incredible feat when she couldn't even put Hunter out of her mind?

She had tried. She'd immersed herself in her plans for the future—attempting to decide where she and Oliver were going to live, contacting art galleries about handling her photographs, pricing darkroom equipment. But even filling every minute of the day with activity, she'd still missed Hunter. Still ached for him.

Still wished things had turned out differently.

At the sound of tires turning on to the shell drive, Aimee shifted her attention away from the sunset and her own brooding thoughts. She watched the car as it inched down the long drive in her direction. Who would be calling at this hour? she wondered, not recognizing the car. And on a Sunday, no less?

Hunter.

A trembling started in the pit of her stomach, and Aimee sternly told herself to put that thought out of her mind. A beautiful sky did not a miracle make. Hunter had been gone ten days. He wasn't coming back, no matter what she wished, no matter what she felt in her heart.

No matter how often Oliver assured her he was.

The car stopped. The driver-side door swung open; her breath caught on a prayer.

Hunter stepped out.

Heart thundering, Aimee gripped the column for support. He'd come back. He'd come after her.

She didn't move, she couldn't. She was afraid to breathe. Inside
her hope warred with the numbing fear that he'd come back for the music box, or Oliver, or anything else besides her.

He started toward her, his blue gaze unwaveringly on hers. He hesitated only once, at the bottom of the gallery stairs. He tipped his face up to hers. Behind him the sky blazed with color.

For long, breathless moments, they stared silently at one another.

Hunter broke the silence first. “No hello for an old friend, Aimee?”

She shook her head, fear a living thing inside her. “Not until you tell me why you've come. I couldn't bear to say hello only to say goodbye again.”

He climbed the stairs, stopping before her. He reached out and cupped her cheeks. “No goodbyes, never again.”

The breath shuddered past her lips, hope ballooned inside her. “I told you not to come back unless—”

“I love you, Aimee. All the way and with everything I am and have. You brought me back to life, you showed me how to feel again. How to love.”

She brought her hands to his chest, searching his gaze for a clue to his sudden change of heart. “I want to believe you,” she whispered. “I want to believe so badly I ache with it. But…I'm afraid to believe too much. I'm afraid to hope for too much. I don't want to be hurt again.”

He threaded his fingers through her hair. “You worked your magic on me long ago, Aimee Boudreaux. But I was too blind, too afraid, to see the truth. I came to La Fin because I couldn't forget you. I told myself to keep emotionally distant from you, to stay removed from your life. You drew me in. To your life. Your warmth. I began to feel and the cold, with its nightmares, began to recede.

“I called what was happening to me, what I was feeling, other things.” He laughed softly, still incredulous over his own inability to see the truth. “I made excuses. Rationalized about how I had nothing to give, about how you were better off without me.”

Aimee searched his gaze. “But…why?”

“Because I loved you already,” he said simply. “And I was terrified. Before I left, your father accused me of being just that, of leaving you because of that fear. Your father's a smart man. I lost my family once, I didn't think I could stand the pain of losing another.”

“So,” she murmured, “you didn't allow yourself to be loved. Didn't allow anyone get close to you.”

“Self-preservation.”

She stroked his cheek. “But so lonely.”

“When we found Oliver…all my fears became a reality. It was the most awful moment. It brought all the horror back.” Hunter drew in a ragged breath. “I thought I was going to have to bury another son. I shut down, then I bolted.”

The image of Oliver in the water, of those minutes when she'd thought they'd lost him, filled her head again, and she shuddered. She could only imagine what it must have been like for Hunter having already lost Pete. “What happened?” she asked, her eyes swimming with tears. “What made you—”

“Realize how much I love you?” Aimee smiled, and he touched one corner of her mouth with a fingertip. “The pain of living without you was unbearable. And so senseless. Out of fear of losing you, I was throwing you away. Just as I had been throwing life away.”

“Never again,” she whispered. “I'll never waste one precious moment of the life we've been given.”

Hunter tumbled her against his chest and caught her mouth in a searing kiss. For one long moment Aimee allowed herself the pleasure of his arms, his kiss. Then she eased herself free of them.

She wanted to simply melt against him. She wanted to take what he offered and not worry about the past. But she couldn't. Not yet. “You haven't mentioned Ginny or Pete. And I have to know, Hunter. I have to ask. What about them? I can't compete with ghosts. And I won't.”

Aimee clasped her hands in front of her, waiting, bracing herself for his answer. She understood now what she needed to be happy; if Hunter couldn't say the words she needed him to, she would have to tell him goodbye.