Night Jasmine by Erica Spindler Page B

now.”
    â€œUnfair,” she whispered. “You know me too well.”
    Hunter smiled. “Yeah, but you have the same advantage.”
    She smiled then, a gentle curving of her lips that he felt like a punch to his gut. Hunter retrieved the tray and carried it out to the porch. They sat side-by-side on the steps. The air was warm, heavy with both moisture and the scent of the jasmine. In the distance they heard the hoot of an owl, the cry of an egret; closer to them, the song of the crickets and the sound of their own breathing.
    Hunter uncovered his food, he smelled the sting of the spice a moment before he tasted it. “This is delicious.”
    â€œIt’s probably cold.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. It’s still wonderful.”
    â€œI’ll tell Tante Marie you said so.” Aimee drew her knees to her chest and stared out at the darkness. Minutes passed with neither of them speaking.
    Hunter thought of all the times they had sat together like this, quietly but with a sort of unspoken communication. Tonight, the atmosphere between them was one of awkward truce and uncomfortable awareness. He cursed the loss even as he accepted blame for it.
    â€œTell me about today, Aimee,” he murmured, needing to break the silence. “What happened?”
    She tipped her face to his, then looked away again, gazing across the yard to her home. “Papa’s not making the kind of progress he should be, and the therapist thought that if he watched us work together he could help us correct any problems we were having.” A touch of bitterness colored her tone. “Of course, all we’re having are problems.”
    She sighed and rested her chin on her drawn-up knees. “The therapist supervised while I worked with him. It was awful. Papa fought me, fought the physical therapist when he tried to intervene. He refused to cooperate on any level.”
    Hunter set his plate aside and covered one of her hands with his own. He hated to see her despair. Her bitterness. They were so foreign to the woman he had known before. It saddened him to see her so unhappy.
    â€œEvery time I touched him,” she continued, “he complained. Or criticized. I couldn’t do anything right.” She breathed in, the sound shaky and aching. “It hurt. It was humiliating to be treated that way in front of a stranger. I felt like a fool. Like an incompetent, uncaring daughter.”
    Hunter moved his thumb gently across her knuckles. He should ask her why she allowed her father to treat her that way. He should give her the advice he knew she needed, should tell her that was exactly how her father wanted her to feel, at least on a subconscious level.
    But he didn’t want a confrontation, not tonight. He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to be there for her. “I’m sorry.”
    She lifted her lips in a small smile, then tilted her face up to the star-strewn sky. “You should have seen Papa before his illness. Big and strapping. Confident. Full of life and strength.” She laughed, the sound full of love. “When I was a little girl, he was my hero. Maybe all little girls say that of their fathers, but Papa, with his booming voice and deep, rich laugh, was so much larger than life to me. In my eyes he could do nothing wrong. I remember just looking up at him and being filled with…awe.”
    â€œAnd he doted on you.”
    â€œYes. I was his little girl, his only child. He thought I was perfect.” She frowned then, and slipped her hand from his. She dropped her right hand to the old wooden step and ran her finger back and forth across its surface, grooved and scarred with age. “I’m not certain when it began to go wrong. Maybe when Maman died. Maybe when I began to see that he was a man, not a hero.”
    Hunter caught her hand again, this time lacing their fingers. “Maybe it didn’t go wrong,” he murmured. “Maybe it just changed.