Elizabeth Lowell - A Woman Without Lies

This time Hawk’s silent arrival did not take Angel wholly unaware. Though her back was turned to the door, she sensed his presence as clearly as if he had spoken to her. She ate the last bite of egg, turned, and rinsed the plate under the faucet.

Because she wanted very much to avoid Hawk, she turned and faced him. The past had taught her that the more she avoided something, the more she came to fear it. Only when she faced a problem could she begin to accept it, live with it.

“When is Carlson meeting you?” Angel asked, her voice calm and her eyes direct, empty.

“He isn’t.”

Hawk’s fierce, clear eyes searched Angel’s expression. He hadn’t expected this calm stranger looking at him out of Angel’s bleak, blue-green eyes.

“By the time Derry was patched through to the Black Moon, Carlson was halfway to Alaska,” Hawk said. “There’s a run on, apparently.”

Angel’s long eyelashes swept down, emphasizing the darkness beneath her eyes.

“That’s too bad,” she said. “You would have enjoyed Carlson. Who did Derry get to guide you?”

“No one.”

Angel lifted her head so suddenly that her silver earrings swayed and chimed, hidden beneath the luxurious fall of her hair.

Hawk’s eyes dilated at the unexpected sound. He leaned toward her. Instantly she stepped back, another sudden motion that set other bells to quivering. His dark eyes searched over her, finding and counting each tiny bell, each bit of silver shivering and sighing with every breath she took.

The sound of Derry’s crutches thumping on the wood deck was almost shocking. Gratefully Angel turned toward the unmusical noise, freed from the dark intensity of Hawk’s eyes.

“You look a lot better,” said Derry. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

The answer sounded too abrupt, too cool to be a decent response to Derry’s concern.

“Thanks for bringing in the quilt,” Angel added quickly.

“Quilt?” said Derry.

Angel looked at Hawk, but he said nothing, did nothing, simply watched her with the intensity of a hungry bird of prey.

“Nothing,” said Angel.

The tiny pool of peace inside her fragmented into sharp confusion.

Apparently Hawk has some human feeling after all. Guilt, perhaps.

God knows he earned it.

“How goes the studying?” Angel asked, pushing aside her memories.

Derry grimaced. “It goes slowly.”

He hesitated. His eyes searched hers, concern and affection apparent in his expression.

“Angie?” he asked tentatively.

Angel braced herself, knowing what was coming.

“Yes?” she whispered.

“Carlson can’t guide Hawk.”

“I know.”

“The other guides have their hands full for at least a week, and even then… ”

Angel waited.

Derry said nothing.

And then she knew that he wouldn’t ask her despite the need and hope burning behind his eyes.

She didn’t have to condemn herself to four weeks of Hawk’s contempt. All she had to do was live a lifetime knowing that she hadn’t been strong enough to help Derry gain a foothold on his dream. Derry, who had given her life itself and asked for nothing in return.

Not one thing.

Four weeks of Hawk’s contempt against a lifetime of self-contempt if she refused.

“It’s all right, Derry,” Angel said calmly. “I’ll take care of it.”

Derry couldn’t conceal the relief that made him sag slightly against the crutches. Nor could he hide the concern that came when he saw the pallor of Angel’s face. He swung his powerful body across the room until he was close enough to touch her. He put his hand on her forehead.

“You sure, Angie?” he asked. “You look pale and there’s some kind of flu going around… ”

Again Derry didn’t finish. He wouldn’t ask Angel to do something that benefited only him.

For a moment Angel closed her eyes and let her forehead rest on Derry’s large palm, drawing strength from him. When she straightened, her eyes were blue-green and calm.

“I’m sure,” she said simply.

Hawk sensed the currents of concern and affection flowing between Angel and Derry, and was both intrigued and irritated. He wondered what hold the charming Derry had on Angel that could compel her to shut herself up on a boat for four weeks with a man she hated.

Abruptly Hawk decided that he was going to have some answers from Angel. He hadn’t misjudged a woman so badly since he was eighteen. He wanted – needed – to know what had gone wrong, how he had been misled. He was no longer enraged, simply very certain that he must have Angel’s truths.

If Derry was the only way to flush Angel out of hiding, then Derry was what Hawk would use.

“You haven’t asked if it’s all right with me,” Hawk pointed out, his voice cool.

Startled, Derry looked away from Angel. “But you said you wouldn’t mind.”

“Angel and I are going to have a talk. At the end of it, either one of us may change our minds.”

Then Hawk lifted his eyebrow and pinned Angel with a glance as hard and brilliant as a bird of prey’s.

“Right, Angel baby?”

Derry’s eyes widened. It was the first time he had gotten even a hint of the whiplike quality Hawk’s voice could hold. Troubled, Derry looked at Angel.

She touched Derry’s arm gently, telling him without words that it wasn’t the first time she had heard that note in Hawk’s voice. But unlike Hawk, she couldn’t back out. She loved Derry too much to destroy his dream.

“Wrong, Hawk,” Angel said distinctly. “Just like you’ve been about everything else.”

She turned and walked quickly out the door. The sound of tiny silver bells and her words floated back after her.

“We’ll talk on the beach.”

The whiplike quality of her voice was the same as Hawk’s.

As Angel scuffed into the beach walkers she always kept by the back door, she gathered gauzy folds of cloth in one hand, and set off down the trail with a speed that came from years of familiarity. She didn’t notice the narrowness or the gaps where the railing had fallen and not been rebuilt.

The trail clung precariously to the face of the cliff. The path wasn’t actually dangerous, unless it was wet or very windy. But it wasn’t a place for children, or clumsy people of any age.

Even if the trail had been flatly dangerous, Angel would have taken it. She desperately wanted to get Hawk to a place where Derry could neither see nor overhear their conversation.

Derry, like Carlson, was very protective of Angel. It was as though having saved her life, Derry felt directly responsible for any further pain Angel suffered. He knew that it was impossible for him to protect her from life’s bitter surprises, but the impulse was still there, buried beneath layers of rationality.

Angel blamed herself for Derry’s guilt. Years ago she had accused Derry of selfishly forcing her to live just so that he wouldn’t be alone. A cruel accusation, but it had been a cruel time. Now she regretted her hateful words. Now she, like Derry, had a need to protect.

She raced down the switchbacks that snaked through forest and rock to the beach below. The day was unusually hot for Vancouver Island. By the time she reached the bottom of the trail she was perspiring lightly.

The tide was out. When she let go of the hem of her dress, the breeze picked it up and pressed the supple cloth against her legs, outlining their slender length in soft rose. Folds of cloth billowed lightly behind her, creating graceful shadows over the sand.

Angel had barely taken a breath before Hawk crossed the beach and stood beside her, watching her. It didn’t surprise Angel that Hawk had come down the trail with a speed to equal hers. He had the reflexes of a predator.

She turned to face Hawk. Her movement and the wind sent folds of cloth licking over him, and brought to his keen ears the tiny cries of silver bells.

Hunger raced through him, hunger and something more, something that threatened every certainty he had left. And so he did what he had always done when cornered.

Hawk attacked.

“What does Derry have on you? You’d as soon kill me as look at me, but you’ll shut yourself up on a boat with me for a month because Derry asks you to. Hell, he didn’t even have to ask, did he?”

“No. I hope that Derry never will have to ask me for anything that I can give him. And he doesn’t have anything on me, either,” said Angel, her voice flat.

“Then what’s his hold on you? Money?”

Angel’s mouth curled at one corner, a cold gesture that couldn’t be called a smile.

“No,” she said softly.

“Then what?”

“Something you wouldn’t understand.”

Hawk’s hand fastened on Angel’s arm. The softness of cotton and her flesh only infuriated him.

“What is it, damn you!” he snarled.

“Love.”

There was an instant of silence.

“Love,” repeated Hawk.

The word was a curse. His voice vibrated with disgust.

“That’s a woman’s word for sex,” Hawk said flatly, “and you sure as hell weren’t getting that from Derry. Which is the lie, Angel baby – love or that you don’t want sex with Derry?”

Angel simply stared.

“What’s Derry’s hold on you?” Hawk demanded. “Talk, damn you! Let me hear all your lies!”

For the space of a breath, Angel looked at Hawk as though she had never seen him before.

“Have you ever loved anyone?” Angel asked quietly. “Your mother? Your father? A brother? Sister? Child? Anyone?”

“Are you saying that Derry is your brother?”

“Close,” Angel said, meeting Hawk’s cold eyes.

“How close is close?” “Twenty-four hours.”

Hawk hesitated. Angel had spoken with such conviction that he felt he should know what her answer meant.

“I don’t understand,” he said finally, loosening his grip on her arm.

“I know. There’s a lot about people – and me – that you don’t understand.”

“Don’t push me, Angel,” Hawk said, anger tightening the already harsh lines of his face, “or I’ll go ask Derry my questions and then tell him some things he really doesn’t want to know.”

Angel closed her eyes. She knew that Hawk would kill Derry’s dreams as casually as he had killed hers. That must not happen.

“Derry came within twenty-four hours of being my brother-in-law,” she said, her voice empty.

Hawk’s eyes narrowed.

“Grant,” he said. “That was his name, wasn’t it? Grant?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“He died.”

“When.”

The word was flat, the demand unavoidable. Angel had known it would come to this. She had prepared herself for it every step of the way down the cliff.

Maybe if I tell Hawk, he can find enough human compassion in himself not to make my life hell for the next four weeks.

Maybe there could be a truce.

The thought gave Angel the strength to take a slow breath, to reach for the colors cascading through her mind, to make of those colors a single rose unfolding.

“Grant – ” Angel’s voice thinned into hoarse silence.

She rarely spoke Grant’s name aloud. The hurt of hearing it surprised her. When she spoke again, her voice was without emotion or music.

“Grant died four years ago last night, the night before our wedding. His mother died then, too. So did my father and my mother.”

Hawk went absolutely still. He had no doubt that he was hearing the truth.

He would rather have heard lies. Lies can be disregarded, discarded, ignored. Truth could not. It hurt too much.

Like Angel, hurting.

He could sense the intensity of her emotions breaking over him in waves of rage and helplessness and pain. Yet her voice didn’t show any of it, nor did her face. Only her eyes, haunted by shadows, the color of the sea torn apart by hidden rocks.

Her words continued calmly, relentlessly. Her eyes were dry. The tiny bells she wore shivered and cried with inhuman beauty, inhuman pain.

“I would have died, too,” Angel said, “if Derry hadn’t dragged me out of the wreckage as it burned. I was badly injured. He came to me in the hospital, fought for my life harder than I did. And then he took care of me until I could walk again.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you sleep with him?” snarled Hawk, angered by the deep emotion he sensed beneath Angel’s calm words.

“That’s not the kind of love we feel for each other.”

Hawk waited.

Angel’s eyes focused on Hawk. There was nothing of comfort in them.

“I don’t know if I can make you understand,” she said simply. “Derry is the only person on earth who shares my memories of growing up, of my parents and Grant and summer picnics on the beach… laughter and firelight and the beauty of falling in love for the first time. Derry is the only one who remembers the night Grant and I announced our engagement, the words and the – ”