Free Night Jasmine by Erica Spindler

came with the dark; passion overrode sense during those still, sultry hours.
    So, night after night he lay alone in his bed, remembering, longing for her, battling the ache in his loins and the urge to cross the lawn and make her his once again.
    Giving up all pretense of reading, Hunter made a sound of disgust and shut the book. Even more potent, he admitted, more painful, were the memories conjured by being around Oliver.
    He lifted his gaze. Aimee stood directly across from him, talking with a customer. She held Oliver in her arms; he snuggled against her, his arms wrapped around her neck, his legs her middle. The boy’s eyes drooped sleepily and Aimee rocked gently back and forth as she talked.
    It hurt to watch them. Flat out. On a gut level, the place where he had felt being a parent, in the place that had once welled with pride and tenderness while watching Ginny hold Pete the very same way.
    Hunter fisted his fingers against the pain. As he watched, Aimee lightly stroked Oliver’s hair; every so often she would touch his cheek or the back of his neck. The gestures were ones of love, of ownership, ones that strengthened the physical bond between parent and child.
    He’d touched Pete the same way. A lifetime ago. Then it had seemed as natural as breathing—now it seemed strange, foreign. The man he’d been five years ago was a world away from the one he was today. Hunter drew his eyebrows together and shifted uncomfortably in the rocking chair. Was he even capable of such tenderness, such love, any more?
    He thought not. That part of him had died with Ginny and Pete.
    Although looking at Oliver and knowing he was a part of the child but not a part of his life tugged strangely at him. It felt odd, knowing he was connected to Oliver in the most basic way, without ever having touched him at all—certainly not in the small, possessive ways of a parent. Odd, knowing that in all probability he never would.
    He’d missed that part of being a parent. He hadn’t realized how much until this moment. The memory of how Pete’s skin had felt, baby smooth and as soft as rose petals, slipped out of his strongbox of memories and filled his head. Hunter’s throat closed with emotion. Pete had liked his back rubbed as he drifted off to sleep. Hunter remembered continuing to stroke him long after Pete fell asleep, just because it felt so good to touch him.
    Hunter squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the sweet memory because he knew what would follow it, fighting even though he knew it was too late. With his mind’s eye he saw Pete, angelic in sleep, curled up on his side, his favorite toy, Toby Tiger, clutched to him. Hunter felt his mouth lifting at the mental picture, the joy of it filling him. Although a towhead, Pete had had long, dark eyelashes. Women had laughed about how unfair it was for a boy to have such lashes. In sleep they had formed soft, dark crescents against his downy cheeks, and his rose-colored mouth had been pouty in total relaxation.
    Suddenly, the image in his head shifted, changing into another image, that of the very last time he’d seen his baby. Not sleeping. Not angelic though surely with the angels then.
    Pain, swift and sharp, knifed through him. Jumping to his feet, Hunter strode out to the gallery, directly into the harsh sun. His eyes teared, then ran. He sucked in a deep breath, hoping to clear his head, but instead filling it with the smell of the morgue. And of the fire.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mr. Powell, but I have to do this. Is this your son?”
    Hunter’s stomach pitched, the bile rising in his throat, hysteria with it.
    His baby. His little Pete.
    Hunter pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, the nightmare upon him.
    â€œAnd this? Is this your wife?”
    Dear God. Ginny…Ginny…
    He’d lost it then, crumbling. They’d had to drag him out; he hadn’t wanted to leave them there like that. They deserved so much better. His