A Woman Without Lies

Chapter 21

Hawk waded back from the boat to the shore. Angel waited there, stretched out on her stomach on an old quilt. Her chin was propped on her hands as she watched huge, sleek bumblebees go from blossom to blossom among the scattered wildflowers.

“Feeling sorry for the flowers?” Hawk asked.

“Hmmm?” murmured Angel. “Why should I feel sorry for them?”

“The bee goes from flower to flower to flower, sipping honey and then flying on without a backward look.”

“That’s the bee’s point of view.” Angel’s lips curved upward in a small, secret smile.

Hawk saw the smile as she rolled over gracefully and sat up to take a soda from his hand. Deftly he opened the can and gave it to her.

“What other point of view is there?” Hawk asked, popping open his beer.

“The flower’s.”

“Which is?” prompted Hawk, enjoying the very feminine smile on Angel’s lips.

“The flower gets bee after bee after bee.”

The corners of Hawk’s mouth shifted beneath the midnight mustache. There was a flash of white teeth and then the soft, rough-edged sound of male laughter.

Angel watched, riveted by Hawk’s transformation. The hard planes of his face gentled, making his expression younger, more open, a face both experienced and warm. She had thought him harshly handsome before; when he laughed, he was more beautiful than a pagan god.

Then Hawk turned and smiled directly at Angel. She felt as though she had been handed the sun after years of darkness. Her blue-green eyes drank in every instant of Hawk’s transformation.

“Bee after bee after bee,” he said. He shook his head, still smiling. “Angel, you’re… special.”

“So are you. And when you smile,” she added huskily, “you’re incredible.”

Surprise changed Hawk’s face again. Eyes that had lit with laughter changed to a blaze of brown when he saw that Angel, as always, was telling the truth. No matter how intently he searched her eyes, he saw only pleasure. There were no shadows of fear or unease.

“I’ll have to smile more often,” Hawk said quietly.

“Yes,” Angel said, meeting Hawk’s eyes. “That would be… special.”

Hawk’s lean brown hand reached slowly toward Angel. His fingertips traced the burnished curve of one eyebrow, the straight line above her nose and the hollow beneath one high, slanted cheekbone. He wanted very much to lower his mouth and taste her very gently, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath his lips.

Instead, Hawk smiled at Angel again and felt her own smile go through him, transforming everything it touched into radiant colors. Slowly, he withdrew his touch before the pleasure glowing in her eyes became shadowed by fear of him again.

“What else do we have to do for our dinner?” Hawk asked.

Although he had turned away and was gathering up the debris of the impromptu picnic, Angel heard the faint huskiness beneath Hawk’s impersonal words. Suddenly she realized that she had been sitting motionless while his fingers memorized her face.

A tremor moved through Angel as she remembered what being intimate with Hawk had been like. Gentle, at first, and then fierce, hurtful.

“F-fish,” Angel said. Then she cleared her throat and tried again. “Fish.”

Hawk looked out beyond the narrow neck of the bay. Wind and whitecaps claimed the Inside Passage.

“Maybe we should settle for crabs and clams,” he said doubtfully.

“In the bay,” Angel added quickly. “For cod. Maybe even a halibut if we’re lucky.”

“Salmon?” Angel sighed. “Doubt it, but anything is possible.”

Even a smile from a hawk.

Working together they bundled up all the equipment. Angel waded into the bay this time. The heat of the day made the water feel merely bracing rather than punishing. When she got to the boat, the water was just up to the curve of her hips.

The boat’s railing was at her eye level, and there was no sea ladder at the stern.

“Now comes the hard part,” Angel said, shifting her grip on the bucket.

Saying nothing, Hawk dumped everything he held onto the deck. Then he grabbed the railing and pulled himself out of the water and into the boat with a single, powerful movement.

Angel stared in disbelief as Hawk leaned over and plucked the bucket out of her hand.

“What hard part?” Hawk asked. “Cleaning the crabs?”

After a moment Angel realized that Hawk wasn’t teasing her. He really didn’t know what she had meant. She threw a glance at the sky, silently asking why life distributed physical gifts so unfairly.

“Getting into the blasted boat,” Angel said, her voice rich with disgust. “At least for some of us mere mortals, it’s the hard part.”

Hawk looked startled for a moment, then understood. His mustache shifted and glimmered with dark lights as he fought not to smile. Keeping his head down and taking his time about it, he braced the bucket so that it wouldn’t be kicked over in a careless moment.

Despite her disgust at her own limitation, Angel smiled.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Smile. I’ll get even.”

Soft, masculine laughter sent ripples of sensation through Angel. Hawk lifted his head and leaned over the rail toward her, revealing the white flash of his smile.

She noticed that both of his eyeteeth were slightly crooked, and there was a scar along the upper curve of his lip. The small imperfections in Hawk’s smile only made it more beautiful to her, like the flaws that made each piece of muff glass unique.

Then the smile vanished, leaving only fierce, clear brown eyes watching her.

“Let me help you,” Hawk said.

“You’re going to loan me your wings, right?” Angel asked wryly.

“Sort of.”

Hawk grasped Angel under her arms and lifted. He pivoted as he lifted, bringing her smoothly aboard without banging her shins against the railing. He saw the wince that she tried to conceal. Very gently, he set her down on the deck.

With a sigh, Angel forced her body to relax despite the pain lancing down her back from the hook wound. She knew that tensing against pain only made it worse. She breathed carefully and moved her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Hawk said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.”

“You winced.”

“My back’s still a bit sore,” Angel said.

“Let me see.”

For a moment Angel hesitated, remembering the last time Hawk had washed the wounds left by the fishhook. But this time she had on a bathing suit beneath her blouse, and it was full daylight rather than the mysterious intimacy of twilight on the sea.

And this time I know that an angel and a hawk are a bad match in bed.

“All right,” Angel said.

She turned her back on Hawk and unbuttoned everything quickly. When she flexed her shoulders in order to take her arms out of the long-sleeved blouse, she winced again.

“I meant to have Derry check it but – ”

The hiss of Hawk’s indrawn breath cut off Angel’s words. Dark eyes looked at the damage to tender flesh. The twin wounds where the hook had gone in were swollen, angry, hot to the touch.

Hawk’s mouth flattened into a grim line. He remembered the instant when Angel had thrown herself at him, protecting his face at the cost of her own flesh.

And then he had repaid her care by making her bleed again, hurting her even more.

“When was the last time you soaked this?” Hawk asked, his words like a whip.

Angel tightened to hear the harshness back in Hawk’s voice.

“I haven’t,” she said carefully, neutrally. “It’s rather hard to reach.”

Hawk swore softly, a single violent word.

“I’ll heat some water,” he said curtly.

Angel started to object, then realized it would do no good. She looked at the sun.

Plenty of time left for cod fishing, she reassured herself. A whole afternoon.

Maybe even a nap.

She hadn’t slept very well last night, with every sense alert to Hawk’s presence on the small boat. Not that a bigger boat would have been any better. At times, the knowledge that she and Hawk shared the same world was enough to unnerve Angel.

While Hawk heated the water, Angel spread the picnic quilt over the pad at the stern of the boat, where she had slept the night before. Carefully she stretched out on her stomach.

Though she wore only a bathing suit, she wasn’t cold. The sun was directly overhead, pouring warmth and light into the tiny, sheltered bay. The boat rocked very gently, rising with the subtle movements of the tide.

Random fingers of wind combed the trees, making them shiver and sigh, sounds that blended with the liquid murmur of water.

“Are you awake?” Hawk asked softly.

“Mmmmmm,” Angel said.

She turned her face toward Hawk, too relaxed to worry about making whole words into sentences.

Hawk looked at Angel with a hunger he could barely conceal. Her eyelashes made intriguing, fringed shadows that quivered across her clear skin. Sun had brought a delicate flush to her cheeks, and peace had softened her lips into full, sensual curves. The bathing suit was the exact color of her eyes in the sun, vivid blue-green, shining softly.

She had unclipped her hair and swept it aside. It shimmered white-gold in the sun, a fire burning across the dark quilt. Then there was the smooth curve of her shoulders, the tempting shadow valley of her spine, the contrast of her narrow waist against the surprisingly ripe swell of her hips, the graceful length of her legs emphasized by the French cut of her suit…

Every line of Angel’s body was so essentially feminine that Hawk had to look away from her for a moment in order to control the hunger that raged through him.

After a few moments, Hawk sat down next to Angel. He concentrated on wringing out the washcloth in the pan of gently steaming water. The sounds were liquid, sensual, like the sea and the sun and the random caress of the wind.

Hunger was an aching, insistent heat between Hawk’s thighs. Grimly he shaped the washcloth into a pad and placed it on the small, angry wound.

“Tell me if it’s too hot,” Hawk said.

Angel’s eyes closed until there was only a suggestion of blue-green glitter.

“Does it hurt?” Hawk asked softly, his voice gritty. Then, “I don’t want to hurt you again, Angel.”

Her breath came out slowly.

“It’s fine, Hawk.”

He let out a long breath. “Good. I’ll be back in a minute.”

When Hawk returned, he was wearing jeans over his swim trunks. He rinsed out the wash-cloth, renewing its heat. With the gentleness that was becoming second nature when he touched Angel, Hawk placed the pad over the wound.

“All right?” he asked quietly.

Angel nodded, sending ripples of light through her hair.

Sitting down again, Hawk looked at Angel with dark brooding eyes. Every time he rinsed out the washcloth, the twin wounds mocked him.

No one had ever gone out of the way to save Hawk from hurt before. Angel’s unselfishness was as shattering to him as her innocence.

And now he wanted her as he had never wanted a woman in his life. Yet even greater than his desire was his determination not to hurt her again. She had been hurt too much already, lost too much.

There were too many ghosts in her beautiful eyes.

“You should have let the hook go into me.”

Hawk didn’t realize that he had spoken his thought aloud until Angel’s eyes opened, blue-green, as deep as the sea.

“I couldn’t,” she said simply.

“Why not? Other people would have.”

Angel tried to answer, but in the end could only shrug.

“I just couldn’t. I knew what was happening. You didn’t. You had no way to protect yourself from something you couldn’t foresee.”

“That’s the nature of life,” Hawk said sardonically. Then, much more softly, “I wish I had known you a long time ago. Before – ”

Abruptly his words stopped. He rinsed out the cloth again, replaced it very gently on her skin.

“Before what?” Angel asked.

She watched Hawk from beneath her long eyelashes, wondering what memories had drawn his face into cold predatory lines.

“Who was she, Hawk?”

“There was more than one.”

The sardonic voice and cold line of Hawk’s mouth were back, yet his hands were still gentle. Then his face changed, hardening into contempt.

“That’s not quite true,” he said clearly. “There was only one woman, really. The first one. She taught me everything a woman can teach a man.”

“Except love.”

“She didn’t have that in her.”

Angel closed her eyes against sudden tears. She could no longer bear to see his eyes narrowed against memories that brought only pain. The hunger and the yearning buried deep within him reached out to Angel with unnerving force.

Who was she?

What did she do that taught Hawk hatred rather than love?

When Angel opened her eyes, Hawk was gone.

Before she could call out, he emerged from the cabin with a basin of steaming water in his hands. He sat down again, then bent over Angel and touched the skin around her wounds with exquisite care.

She drew in a swift breath.

“Hurt?” Hawk asked, lifting his fingers.

Angel shook her head. She could think of no way to tell Hawk that it was pleasure rather than pain that had made her gasp.

The gentleness of his touch radiated through her, taking away pain as surely as hot water took the inflammation from her back. The washcloth touched her again, bringing a soothing, healing heat to her flesh. With a shivering breath, Angel relaxed and gave herself to the sensation of his unexpected tenderness.

Hawk saw as well as felt Angel give herself to his touch. The knowledge that he had brought her something besides pain eased the talons of need and regret digging into him.

Then the easing of his own tension taught him that there was more to his desire for Angel than simple sexual hunger.

He needed to know that he was capable of more than destruction and hurt. He needed to believe that being with Angel wouldn’t be another kind of wounding for her, a deeper, more destructive wounding that would ultimately poison her as he had been poisoned long ago.

Hawk couldn’t take back the past, wiping out his bitterness and all its consequences. He could try to explain what had happened, though, and then perhaps Angel would realize that he hadn’t meant to hurt her, not really.

Not the person who was Angel Lange.

Hawk had simply been doing what he had always done since he was eighteen, using women as casually and cruelly as he himself had been used.

But how can I explain that?

When Hawk finally spoke, his voice was as calm as the soft sounds of the water as he rinsed the washcloth.

“I was twelve when my father died,” Hawk said. “The tractor rolled on him, crushing him. I tried… but there was nothing I could do to help him.”

Angel’s hands curled slightly, fingernails digging into the quilt. Hawk spoke of death so calmly, a fact like sunset, just one fact among the many facts of life.

“Grandma and I couldn’t handle the farm alone, but we couldn’t afford to hire a man,” Hawk said. “She had another grandchild. A true grandchild, as she always pointed out to me. Her daughter’s daughter.”

Silence. Then, “Jenna was eighteen when she came to live with us. She was strong, wild, and cold as a winter wind.”

Instinctively Angel knew that Jenna was the woman who had taught Hawk how to hate. It was there in his voice, ice and contempt.

“The three of us kept that farm alive,” Hawk said. “It was brutal work. Grandma died when I was fourteen. Jenna became my guardian.”

Hawk hesitated, comparing what he was about to tell Angel with her own teenage years, picnics on the beach and laughter. Innocence.

“Jenna seduced me the night of Grandma’s funeral.”

Angel couldn’t conceal the shock that went through her.

“You were only fourteen!” she said.

“I was man-sized and I’d been woman hungry for two years without knowing it. Jenna knew, though. She knew everything about men. She was a born whore. Cold-hearted screwing was her specialty.”

Angel made a small sound.

“I didn’t know what Jenna was then,” Hawk said, his voice rich with self-contempt. “My body was a man’s, but my judgment and emotions were those of a boy. I thought Jenna was the most perfect woman God ever made.”

Hawk’s near-silent, bitter laughter raked over Angel’s nerves. She bit back a protest at the pain he had endured.

The pain was still caught within.

“The truth was a bit different,” Hawk said. “The truth was that I was the biggest fool God ever made.”

Angel rose up on her elbows, twisting in order to see Hawk’s face.

“You were just a boy,” she said. “How could you expect yourself to know about a – a – ”

“Bitch?” Hawk suggested sardonically. “Whore? Slut? I’ve called Jenna those names and worse. All of them were true, especially the worst ones.”

His eyes narrowed to glittering brown lines, but his voice was neutral when he spoke again.

“Jenna told me we needed money, so I took to racing boats, cars, whatever I could get my hands on. I had good reflexes and a kid’s belief in life everlasting. I won more than I lost.”

Breath held, Angel waited.

“I gave the money to Jenna,” Hawk said, “and she kept the bank from closing us down during the dry years. Then we had two good years, rain and sun in just the right amounts at just the right times.”

Hawk looked at Angel and realized that the washcloth had fallen from her back.

“Lie down,” he said quietly.

Angel hesitated. She wanted to see Hawk’s face while he talked.

Strong hands pressed gently on her shoulders.

She gave in, lying down again. But her eyes never left his face as he wrung out the wash-cloth in hot water. She hardly noticed when the cloth again rested on her back, held in place by the light pressure of Hawk’s hand.

“I kept on racing,” Hawk said. “The money was better than anything I could make working on the farm. Then Jenna came to me with a plan – sell the farm and buy a real car for me to race.”

Hawk’s voice was lazy, but cold contempt for himself and Jenna made every word distinct, cutting.

“I couldn’t believe my luck,” he said. “Not only was I screwing the hottest piece of tail in all of Texas, but she was willing to give me her half of the farm so that I could race in the big time. What more could any boy ask?”

Love, said Angel.

But she said it only to herself. She was learning why Hawk thought love such a bitter sham.

“So we went to the lawyer and signed the papers,” Hawk continued. “The money would come to me on my eighteenth birthday, the day Jenna stopped being my guardian. We were going to get married, buy a race car, and live happily ever after.”

Hawk said no more.

Angel tensed. She didn’t want to ask, knew she shouldn’t, she had no right… but she couldn’t stop herself.

“What happened?” Angel asked starkly.