Elizabeth Lowell - A Woman Without Lies

Angel closed her eyes, but it was too late. The image of Hawk was etched behind her eyelids as surely as if she had done the job herself with acid and flashed glass.

Keys jingled in front of Angel’s face.

“Thanks,” Angel said, her voice tight. “Your car is blocking mine. I’ll give you back the keys as soon as I move it.”

“Don’t bother. Just take my car.”

“What?” asked Angel, barely hearing his words.

Hawk had unbuttoned his shirt when he sat down for the round of morning calls. Tanned, powerful, with a wedge of curling midnight hair, the lines and textures of Hawk’s chest between the crisp white edges of his shirt appealed to both the woman and the artist in Angel. It was all she could do not to grab her sketch pad and go to work, capturing him.

Or to lean over and tangle her fingers in the rough silk of his hair, capturing him in a different way.

“Take my car,” said Hawk. “I won’t be needing it.”

His eyes roamed over Angel’s face, lingering on her moist, slightly parted lips. Anticipation flooded through his body in a wave of heat.

She was just within his reach.

With very little effort he could pull her between his legs, hold her against the growing ache of his arousal, the ache that came whenever he was with her for more than a moment.

Hell, Hawk admitted angrily to himself, I get hard just thinking about her soft mouth and haunted eyes, and what it will be like to hear and feel her passion.

When Hawk spoke again, his expression was impassive – and his voice a caress.

“Take it, Angel. It’s easy to handle.”

Then Hawk’s voice changed.

“No, Jennings,” he said into the phone, “I didn’t mean you.” Hawk’s mouth curled up at the left corner. “I wouldn’t give you a saucer of warm spit, and you know it.”

Angel heard the blast of laughter that came from the phone. She took the keys from Hawk and hurried out of the room, wondering if he had noticed her staring at him.

And if he had, what he thought about it.

Angel was drawn to Hawk as surely as waves were drawn to the shore. She wanted to be with him, to touch him, to talk with him, to enjoy his quick intelligence and even his abrasive wit.

Yet she didn’t know if he was attracted to her in the same way. There was no reason he should be. There was no lack of women for Hawk.

Women wanted him. It was that simple.

Every time Hawk walked down a street or into a restaurant, women looked, and then looked again, drawn by the maleness that radiated from him as inevitably as color radiated from stained glass.

Yet Hawk didn’t look back at the women who looked at him. Either he didn’t notice, or he didn’t care.

Angel slid behind the wheel of Hawk’s black BMW. A quick study of the dashboard told her everything she needed to know. She started the engine and drove confidently, enjoying the responsiveness of the car. As Hawk had said, it was easy to handle.

She wished that the car’s owner was half so easily managed. But he wasn’t.

All Angel could be sure of was that Hawk had made no unmistakable overtures toward her as a woman. Until he did, she could only assume that he wasn’t interested.

Despite her attraction to Hawk, she would not chase him. It not only wasn’t her style, but she had a deep feeling that he had been too often chased and never caught.

Not really. Not for more than a night or two.

That wasn’t enough. Whatever Angel’s feelings were toward the enigmatic Hawk, they were too complex to be satisfied in a few nights.

Angel parked in front of a small house that had been built forty years before. The other houses on the street were more recent, having been built after Mr. Carey died and his widow was forced to sell the small farm in order to pay death taxes.

After Angel retrieved the two bags of groceries from the trunk, she walked carefully up the cracked sidewalk to the front porch. On either side of the walkway, once-elegant roses were going to seed.

Next time I’m here, I’ll have to have a go at the roses with the pruning shears.

Mail stuck out from the box by the doorbell. Angel pressed the button with her elbow, then braced a grocery bag against the brick house long enough to grab the mail in the box.

“Mrs. Carey?” she called out. “It’s Angie.”

“Coming,” said a faint voice from inside the house.

Angel waited without impatience, balancing the bags of groceries and the mail in her arms.

After a few minutes the door to the small house opened. A tiny, gray-haired woman smiled up at Angel and retreated a few steps to allow her to enter. The woman’s walker squeaked slightly on the flagstone entryway.

“Come in, Angie. My, you’re looking lovely this morning. Such a pretty color you’re wearing.”

“Thank you,” said Angel, smiling.

The sea-green pullover sweater she wore matched her eyes exactly. The rest of her outfit was strictly functional – faded black jeans and sneakers, plus a rumpled black felt fishing hat that kept hair and sun out of her eyes. She’d forgotten to put on the hat, though. It hung rakishly out of her hip pocket.

“You’re looking very nice too,” Angel said. “How’s it coming with the walker?”

Mrs. Carey made a small face as she rested against the U-shaped steel support that had made walking possible since the cast had been removed from her hip. More like half of a cage than crutches, the walker offered a security that crutches did not.

Even so, it was obvious that Mrs. Carey was less than pleased at having to use a walker.

“Damned contraption hasn’t thrown me yet,” she said, both proud and defiant.

Angel concealed her smile. Mrs. Carey was one of Angel’s favorite people. The old woman’s astringent, uncomplaining approach to hardship was refreshing.

“You go on ahead,” continued Mrs. Carey. “I’ll catch up with you in the kitchen.”

“Thanks. I’m running kind of late this morning.”

Quickly Angel walked to the kitchen and began to put away the groceries she had bought for Mrs. Carey early that morning. She noticed the tea service set out with a tin of biscuits and knew that Mrs. Carey had hoped to spend some time with her over a cup of tea.

Angel glanced at the kitchen clock, hesitated, and shrugged. A few minutes more or less wouldn’t matter. If she and Hawk left by ten-thirty, they would be anchored in Needle Bay well before dark.

The rubber stoppers on Mrs. Carey’s walker squeaked on the linoleum floor as she walked slowly over to Angel.

“I’ll put away the rest, dear,” said Mrs. Carey. “You’ve done more than enough.”

Angel looked at what remained to be unloaded. She could do the work faster herself, but she knew how much being dependent on anyone for help bothered the proud Mrs. Carey. Swiftly Angel set on the counter a few items that she knew went into easily reached cupboards.

“If you take care of these,” Angel said, gesturing to the pile of tins on the counter, “we’ll have it under control in no time at all.”

Angel finished with the second sack just as Mrs. Carey placed the last tin of biscuits in the cupboard.

“Teamwork,” murmured Angel, folding the empty sack triumphantly. “That’s all it takes.”

“Do you have time for a cup of tea?” Mrs. Carey asked hesitantly. “I don’t want to keep you if – ”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Angel interrupted gently, smiling. “I was in such a rush this morning that I didn’t have tea.”

Mrs. Carey walked slowly toward the breakfast table, shaking her head vigorously.

“Nothing is more important than a cup of tea, young lady.”

Discreetly Angel looked at the kitchen clock as she sat at the table. But her impatience faded while she sat and drank tea, listening to Mrs. Carey talk about children and grandchildren, the crabapples that were almost ready to be made into jelly, and the berries that would come in later in the summer.

Gently Angel refused a second cup of tea. She stood and carried her dishes to the sink.

“I’ll call you in a few days to see what you’re out of,” Angel said, rinsing and setting aside her cup.

“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t eat much.”

“If you need anything before I get back, call Mrs. Schmidt.” Angel bent over and hugged Mrs. Carey gently. “See you in a week.”

“I don’t want to bother you – ” began Mrs. Carey.

“No bother,” Angel said honestly. “I have to shop for myself and Derry anyway.”

“I feel like a clumsy idiot.”

Angel smiled.

“Just unlucky,” Angel said, bending and giving Mrs. Carey another light hug. “You’ll be back to shopping for yourself in a few weeks.”

“Blasted cat.”

The cat in question chose that moment to meow at the back door. Mrs. Carey went slowly to let in the old tom, muttering every step of the way about the stupidity of the cat that had tripped her and caused her to break her hip.

Struggling not to smile, Angel watched. She knew that so far as Mrs. Carey was concerned, the sun rose and set on that scruffy cat.

Angel gave another glance at the kitchen clock, then let herself out the front door.

She made a concerted dash through the grocery store to get everything that she had missed that morning in her headlong rush to get back in time for the arrival of the glass. The unexpected delivery had disrupted her carefully planned morning.

It was more than worth it, though. The glass was exquisite. Already designs were forming in Angel’s head, mountains and the sea and a man’s hidden smile.

From the store it was just a short drive to the Ramsey house. Angel hurried anyway, eager to get out on the water. Although she and Hawk had taken out his big powerboat several times before, this would be their first real fishing expedition. Up until today their trips had been more sightseeing excursions than anything else.

Today, however, Angel was finally going to get to show Hawk what it was really like to go in quest of the silver salmon. Privately, she was sure that Hawk would succumb to the lure of the beautiful, powerful fish.

And, perhaps, to her.

Angel grabbed three bags of groceries from the trunk and rushed up the front walk. Juggling bags, leaning against the door, she groped for the front door handle.

The door opened suddenly, throwing Angel off balance. She grabbed at the bags desperately. Before she lost either the groceries or her balance, strong hands clamped around her arms, holding her upright until she was steady again.

Angel knew it was Hawk who held her even before she looked up. If the strength of his fingers hadn’t told her, his clean, male scent would have.

Does he taste half as wonderful as he smells?

The intensity of Angel’s curiosity disturbed her. Since Grant’s death, she hadn’t wanted to touch or be touched by men. Not like this, a sweeping hunger and a breathless heat.

Hawk had slid by Angel’s fears and defenses as easily as sunlight sliding through glass.

Yet Hawk didn’t seem to know it, or care.

“I – thanks,” Angel said, her voice strained, her thoughts chaotic.

“You wouldn’t be any good to me in a cast,” Hawk said, releasing her.

Though Hawk’s words were indifferent, almost curt, his fingers slid all the way down to Angel’s buffed nails before he let her go.

Angel’s breath caught again, caught between Hawk’s impassive exterior and the hunger she sensed beneath, a hunger like hers, a yearning toward the warmth and beauty that a man and a woman could give to each other. She had caught tantalizing glimpses of that feeling with Grant, sweet moments of passion before he pulled back and sat without touching her because he wanted to wait until they were married.

But Grant had died before they were married.

Angel wrenched her thoughts into the present as Hawk took the grocery bags from her arms. She followed him into the kitchen, admiring the silence and power of his movements.

“Where’s Derry?” she asked as Hawk set the sacks on the counter and began unloading items.

“Studying.”

“Organic chemistry?”

Hawk shrugged. “All I saw was a formula as long as my leg.”

“Organic chemistry,” confirmed Angel.

She began putting away food as fast as Hawk unloaded the bags.

“That’s the course that separates the ones who will be from those who might have been,” Angel said.

“Derry’s intelligent and disciplined. If he wants to be a doctor badly enough, he’ll be one.”

Only if you buy Eagle Head.

But the words went no further than Angel’s mind.

She looked toward the kitchen clock, wondering if they were going to miss the evening tide at Indian Head, which was just below Needle Bay. Even when she stood on her tiptoes, Hawk’s shoulders blocked her view of the clock.