Night Jasmine (20 page)

“Not now,” she murmured, her attention slipping back to something Hunter was saying. “Maybe later.”

“Want to go now.” He stuck out his jaw stubbornly.

“No,” she said sharply. “Maman said no.”

His face puckered with hurt and regret curled through her. It wasn't fair to take out her frustration on Oliver. This situation wasn't one of his making, nor could he be immune to her tension. She ruffled his hair. “Maman will take you later. After lunch.”

“No!” Oliver stomped his foot. “Want to go now.”

Aimee stared at her son, shocked at his display of bad temper. Oliver had always been an easygoing child, his tantrums few and far between. And she certainly wasn't up for one right now.

“Oliver,” she said sternly, “I said I would take you later. But if you don't straighten up immediately, we won't go at all. Got that?”

Oliver glared up at her, his eyes narrowed with determination, his lower lip out in a pout.

“Now,” she finished, “go play with your toys.” For a moment, Aimee thought he was going to argue with her some more. Then he turned and marched off.

She sighed, battling the urge to chase after him, take him in her arms and hug him silly. She wanted to give him everything he asked for. But she couldn't, not if she also meant to do her job as a mother. Aimee sighed again. Oliver was testing her, she understood that. It was part of growing up. But understanding didn't make it any less wrenching.

Hunter hung up the phone and she looked back at him in time to see an expression of resignation cross his face. Fear, icy cold, washed over her. He was leaving. He'd made his decision.

She drew in a deep, calming breath and faced him. “So when are you going?”

“Excuse me?”

“When are you going home, Hunter?”

He looked away. “I haven't made a decision yet.”

“I don't believe you.”

He met her eyes once more, his hot with anger. “I haven't made a decision,” he repeated slowly, carefully.

“And I'll be the first to know when you do. Right?”

Hunter made a sound of frustration. “Let's not talk about this now. Okay?”

The beginnings of temper began to burn inside her. If she were Oliver's age she would stick out her lip and stomp her foot. But she wasn't. She inched up her chin instead. “When then?”

“I don't know, Aimee.” He held up his hands. “Just…not…now.”

She crossed to him, stopping when she stood directly in front of him. She tipped her face up to his, anger, full-blown now, pulsing through her. “You can do better than that, Hunter. How about tonight? Or tomorrow? Next week maybe? I'll mark it on my calendar.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What's with the sarcasm, Slick? If you've got something on your mind, just say it.”

She began to shake. Wheeling away from him, she squeezed her eyes shut and breathed deeply through her nose. When she turned back to him, she had garnered a modicum of control. “Why are you still here, Hunter? What things do you still have to take care of?”

Hunter drew his eyebrows together in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“You told Russ you still had some things to take care of here. What things? A settlement for Oliver? If that's it, I accept.” She pushed her bangs away from her face. “Whatever you want to give him, whatever will ease your conscience is fine with me.”

She started to walk away, he caught her elbow and swung her back around to face him. He searched her gaze. “Why are you acting this way? This morning everything was fine.”

“Was it?” she muttered. “Was it really?”

He frowned. “I thought so.”

“But you're not the one being left hanging, are you, Hunter? You're not the one who's going to be left with the messy cleanup. You're not the one waiting to hear about her future.”

Hunter swore. “What do you want me to say to you?”

“How about the truth?” She took a deep breath. “It's not a question of
if
you're going to go, is it? It's a question of when you're going.”

He met her eyes. In his she saw regret. And bittersweet longings. “You know I have to go back. I have the clinic. I can't just up and—”

“Let me rephrase, then.” Angry, hurt, she balled her hands into fists. “It's not a question of if our affair is going to end. It's only a matter of when. Isn't that right, Hunter?”

“That's not—”

“I love you.”

Hunter took a step back, his expression tight with denial.

Aimee sucked in a sharp breath. He didn't want her to love him. It was so much easier, so much neater, for him to pretend everything between them was light and breezy. Even though he knew better.

She wished she could play the outraged innocent. The hapless victim. She couldn't. She was as much a part of the charade as he.

“Why didn't you tell me?” he managed, his voice thick.

“I had my reasons. Among others, because I didn't want to pressure you.”

He clenched his hands into fists. “I didn't want this to happen, didn't plan for it.”

“But it doesn't change the fact that it has.” She inched her chin up. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Aimee,
chère
…” Roubin wheeled in the store, looking around in confusion. “…what are you doing here?”

Aimee turned to her father, confused herself. “What do you mean, Papa? Am I supposed to be somewhere else?”

Roubin's face slackened, and he shifted his gaze from her to Hunter, then back. “My
petit-fils…
Oliver, he told me you were taking him fishing.”

Aimee stared at her father, a tingling sensation starting at her forehead and moving down, numbing her. She shook her head to clear it, to throw off the sensation. “I told him I would take him after lunch.”

“But…Oliver, he had his fishing pole.”

She shook her head again, her heart thundering in her chest. “He knows not to go down to the water…without one of…” Her words trailed off. She thought of Oliver's expression when she'd told him no. Thought of his independence of late and of the way he'd stuck his chin out stubbornly.

“Oh, my God.” She started for the door, Hunter with her. At a dead run, they slammed through the screen door and down the stairs, heading for the bayou.

Aimee was aware of her father following behind them, but she didn't pause or look back. “Oliver!” she called. “Where are you? Oliver! Answer your
maman!
”

Nothing.

“Where?” Hunter shouted.

“I don't…know. I—”

“Then guess, dammit!”

“Beside the house.” She brought a hand to her throat, a dozen different prayers screaming through her head. “By the…the big cypress tree. We've fished there before.”

Hunter shot past her. Aimee watched him, the sense of doom she'd been feeling for days weighing down on her. No, she told herself. Oliver wouldn't go to the water alone. He knew the danger. She'd been drumming that into his head since he'd been old enough to listen.

Aimee sucked in a deep breath, trying to hold hysteria at bay. They were afraid for nothing. They would find him safe in his room, playing with his toys. Safe. He would be…

* * *

Oliver floated facedown in the bayou.

A cry ripped from Aimee's throat, high and tight, rending the peaceful morning air. “No!” she screamed. “Oliver!”

Hunter hit the water at a run and it splashed up
around him, the drops glistening in the sun like tears. Sobbing, Aimee reached the water's edge as Hunter scooped up Oliver and carried him head down from the water.

To drain the water from his lungs.

Aimee brought a hand to her mouth to hold back a cry.
He wasn't breathing. Her baby wasn't breathing.

“Call 911,” Hunter shouted to Roubin, who was already wheeling up the gallery ramp. “Call 911, then bring a pillow and a blanket!”

Aimee heard her father's answering shout as if from a great distance. She dropped to her knees beside Oliver. How many minutes had it been? she wondered, the hysteria rising inside her. How long was too long? A sob caught in her throat. She couldn't lose him. She couldn't.

She wrapped her arms around herself, rocking back and forth as she watched Hunter press his mouth over Oliver's face, breathing for him, waiting a moment then repeating the procedure again. And again.

“
chère
… Oliver, he is all right?”

Aimee looked up, tears streaming down her face. Her father wheeled toward them, a pillow and blanket on his lap. She opened her mouth, but couldn't voice her fears.

He stopped beside her, and she reached her hand up. He clasped it, his big, callused hand closing around hers like a hug. “Hold on, Aimee. The ambulance, she is coming.”

Aimee nodded and turned back to Oliver. What would she do if she'd lost him? How would she go on?

Oliver coughed. Aimee cried out in relief and caught his hand. He was alive. Her baby was alive.

“Thank God,” Roubin murmured, crossing himself. In the distance the ambulance wailed. Oliver's lids fluttered open; he coughed again.

Aimee brought his hand to her cheek, to her mouth. His skin was alarmingly cold and clammy. She rubbed his hand between hers. “Maman's here, Oliver. You're going to be fine. Hold on…baby. Hold on.”

“Don't expect too much right now,” Hunter said, the sound tight with strain. “He's in shock.” Hunter looked up at Roubin; the older man tossed him the pillow, then the blanket.

Hunter placed the pillow under Oliver's feet, then laid the blanket over him, tucking it carefully around him. The ambulance sounded closer. Hunter smiled tenderly and stroked Oliver's head. “You're going to be all right, Tiger. You're going to be all right.”

The next minutes were a blur. The ambulance arrived and the paramedics raced down to the bayou with a stretcher. While they loaded Oliver onto the stretcher and carried him to the waiting ambulance, Hunter conferred with them.

Aimee and Hunter didn't speak to each other during the race to the hospital. They sat on either side of Oliver, each clasping one of the boy's hands, each murmuring comforting words. Once they'd looked up simultaneously and their eyes had met. They'd just stared at one another, a curious emptiness between them. As if, in the aftermath of what they'd just been through, they had nothing left to give one another.

It shouldn't be that way, she thought several hours later, gazing at her sleeping son. They should have clung to one another, should have provided each other solace from the pain.

Tears welled in her eyes. She'd almost lost Oliver. She'd almost lost her baby. She ran her gaze over him. He looked terrifyingly pale, even against the white hospital sheets. But not blue, she thought, shuddering at the memory.

The image of Oliver floating facedown in the water filled her head, and she hugged herself. That image would haunt her dreams forever, she knew. She doubted she would be able to sleep tonight, or sleep well for a long time.

Bending over the bed, she pressed a kiss to Oliver's forehead, saying a silent prayer of thanks to
le bon Dieu
for letting her keep her baby. It wasn't the first prayer she'd said since Oliver had come back to life, coughing up the bayou, and it wouldn't be her last. No amount of thanks would ever be enough.

From behind her, Aimee heard Oliver's door open. She turned; her eyes met Hunter's. He stood in the doorway, his eyes dark with grief, his expression tight with strain.

He'd been terrified. She'd seen it, felt it. The fear had emanated from him in waves, even though he'd kept his composure, doing what he'd had to do in order to save Oliver.

She owed him her thanks. Without his quick, cool thinking, she might have lost her son. She liked to think that if Hunter hadn't been there she would have kept her wits, done whatever necessary to save her child. But she couldn't know for sure.

She intended never to find out.

“How is he?” Hunter asked.

“Sleeping.” She squeezed her eyes shut, against fatigue and a lingering fear. And against the image of Oliver in the water. “The doctor wants to keep him overnight. To watch him.”

Hunter nodded. “I think that's best.”

She clasped her hands together. “I'm staying with him. They're going to move a cot into his room. I wouldn't want him to awake in the night…and worry that—”

“Sure.” Hunter shifted his gaze from hers to Oliver. “Roubin's on the phone, calling to see how Oliver's faring. Want me to tell him you'll call later?”

“No. I'll take it.” She looked back down at Oliver, then back at Hunter. “If he wakes up—”

“I'll tell him you'll be right back.”

“Thanks.”

She started to move by him; Hunter caught her arm. “Aimee?”

She met his eyes, hers full of questions. For long moments he gazed at her, all the things he wanted to say swelling to near bursting inside him. He dropped her hand. “I'm glad he's safe, Aimee,” he whispered. “So glad.”

She nodded, tears filling her eyes. Without another word, she went to get the phone.

Hunter watched her as she left the room, helplessness pulling at him. Resignation. A man didn't admit fear. A man had to be strong, invincible. Ready to take on the world. He hadn't felt invincible in a long time. He hadn't felt whole.

He drew in a steadying breath. Aimee deserved a whole man. So did Oliver.

He wished for a different ending anyway.

Hunter turned toward the bed. Oliver slept, his breathing light but regular, a hint of color—of life—tinting his cheeks. He'd never meant to stay so long. He hadn't meant to get attached. To Oliver. Or Roubin. To this place.

He'd already been attached to Aimee. He just hadn't realized it.

Hunter crossed to the bed and gazed down at the boy—his son. As he did, his heart swelled in his chest, pressing against his ribs and lungs, making it difficult to breathe. Oliver was a beautiful boy, special and bright. A miracle.