Finally she finished the hawk. More than seventy pieces of etched glass lay gleaming on her worktable, each brown feather highlighted in a fabulous network of bronze.

Angel began to assemble the pieces. She took the polished mahogany frame she had chosen to set the glass in and fastened the frame to a large, unusual table. It was rather like a drafting table on wheels, except that it was a table within a frame consisting of two thick, metallic runners with grooves deep enough to hold both the table surface and the frame of whatever Angel was working on at the time.

The table surface itself was rigged so that it could slide out and the frame could be tilted vertically, allowing light to pour through the panel while still holding it securely in place. Angel used the device to build and display stained glass panels that were too large for her to lift easily.

Angel worked steadily, disregarding midnight and noon, breaking only rarely to eat or catch a quick nap on the studio sofa.

And then she stopped sleeping at all, caught wholly in the creation coming together beneath her fingertips, glass polished and gleaming, a suggestion of a smile, a large crimson drop glowing amid the radiant gold, a subtle echo of that drop on the hawk; and all of it surrounded by the hard brilliance of beveled crystal shards.

Finally the last piece was leaded, the cement worked in and then removed, each glass surface polished until it shone.

With a sigh so deep that it made her earrings swing and cry, Angel leaned against the table. She knew that her summation was fin-ished, yet she was unable to accept it. She wasn’t ready to face the emptiness ahead of her, inside her, nothing left but the numb gray of exhaustion.

She pushed the special table into her bedroom. With hands that shook, she removed the plywood panel and fixed the frame in its vertical position, leaving nothing between the stained glass and the night beyond.

The panel was almost colorless, as bleak as Angel’s soul, for there was no light pouring through the stained glass, only darkness.

She looked at the bed that she hadn’t slept in since Hawk left. The small candy cane lay on the pillow, untouched, green ribbon gleaming in the light from the bedside lamp. With a silent cry, she picked up the candy, hearing the rustle of its clear paper wrapping, hearing even more clearly the echo of Hawk’s bleak past, the single sweet thing he had known of childhood.

Despite the exhaustion that made Angel tremble, Angel couldn’t face the thought of lying down, of sleeping, of wakening again.

And again finding Hawk gone.

Angel went back to the studio. For the first time in weeks, she really looked at it.

The room was a shambles. Normally Angel cleaned up as she worked. This time she hadn’t. Shards of glass covered the small worktable, colors she had tried and rejected, pieces she had broken and forgotten.

She walked into the studio, hearing silence and the tiny songs of the bells she wore.

As Angel stood near the worktable that was cluttered with brilliant fragments of glass, she realized that she was dizzy. She reached for the table, trying to brace herself, but it was too late. The table tilted, shaking off Angel, sending her into darkness.

A powerful black car pulled up in front of the Ramsey house. For a long time the driver sat unmoving in the darkness, staring up at the lights in the north wing.

Hawk had fought against coming back, was still fighting against being there. He hated himself for returning to Angel with no more to give her than when he left. Yet he could not stay away.

Life without Angel was as close to death as Hawk had ever come.

Slowly, he opened the car door. The stones of the front walk gleamed palely beneath the waning moon. He moved soundlessly, more shadow than man. He paused, then tried the door.

It was open.

He walked inside and called her.

“Angel?”

Only an echo returned. “Angel!”

The silence was like another shade of night, another kind of death.

Abruptly, Hawk ran down the hall to Angel’s studio. He saw the tilted table, the glitter of shattered glass – Angel unconscious, veiled in brilliant, lethal fragments.

He called her name as he knelt beside her, and the sound of his voice was like glass breaking. His hand trembled over her neck, seeking her pulse. When he found it, he bowed his head to the weakness and relief coursing through him.

Delicately Hawk removed each shard of glass covering Angel. As he picked off the last bronze fragment, he saw that Angel’s hand was clenched around something.

With infinite care he opened her fingers, afraid that he would find a piece of razor glass pressed against her palm. It was not glass that he found, but a candy cane wrapped in a green ribbon.

For the first time since he was a child, Hawk wept.

Angel didn’t awaken when Hawk undressed her and carried her to bed. She didn’t stir when Dr. McKay examined her and then told Hawk in sleepy, irritable tones what Hawk had already guessed. Angel had pushed herself too hard and her body had shut down, hurtling her into a deep, restoring sleep.

Hawk undressed and went to Angel’s bed, gathering her into his arms, giving her his warmth. His clear brown eyes watched her sleeping face through all the hours of night. He watched her as the strong morning sun climbed above the mountains and poured in the bedroom window, flooding the stained glass panel with life and light.

Beveled crystal daggers split sunlight into rainbows. Fantastic colored shadows crept across the room until they spilled over Angel, bathing her in beauty.

Distracted by the dancing light, Hawk looked from the rainbow shadows on Angel’s face to the panel that stood in the midst of radiance.

And then Hawk forgot to move, forgot to breathe, forgot everything but the stained glass so silent and yet so incredibly alive.

A hawk descending from a transparent sky, a single talon outstretched to pierce a golden cloud. Where the talon touched the cloud, a large crimson drop welled, glistening with light.

And there was something more… something in the cloud itself.

Compelled by beauty, Hawk came to his feet and approached the panel, drawn by the enigma within the golden cloud. As he walked, he saw first the swirl of evocative lines that transformed part of the cloud into a woman’s hair lifted on the wind.

Next he saw the slightly tilted eyes, a blend of shadow and brightness that shifted from moment to moment, extraordinarily alive. Her enigmatic smile could have come from agony or ecstasy or a beautiful, terrifying combination of both.

Hawk made a muffled sound and leaned closer, staring at the blood-red drop that welled from the point where the hawk’s talon pierced the cloud.

A rose was deeply etched into the crimson teardrop.

For a moment Hawk closed his eyes, afraid to look further. Yet he knew he must. He couldn’t evade the hawk, its coldness and cruelty, the talon ripping into the defenseless golden cloud.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and confronted Angel’s vision of him.

The hawk was magnificent.

Captured at the ultimate moment of its descent from the sky, the bird of prey shimmered with light in every shade of bronze and brown. Power and grace and speed were implicit in each line of the wings and body, the talon reaching down, the topaz eye fixed on its prey.

There was something more, too, something so tiny that it was almost lost in the fire of the larger pieces.

A crimson tear welled from the hawk’s eye.

Silently, Hawk went even closer, staring at the tiny teardrop. On its surface was etched the faint, delicate outline of a rosebud. More suggestion than reality, more hope than certainty, the emerging rose told Hawk more than he had believed he would ever know about love.

Hawk stared at the crimson tear until he could no longer see it. He hadn’t believed in love, yet he had held it in his arms time and again, heard love call his name in ecstasy, felt love hot and sweet and unafraid around him…

And then he had turned and walked away, afraid to risk and love in return.

He could see that now, see it as clearly as sunlight pouring through glass, shattered fragments of the past transformed into a beauty that tore at his soul mercilessly, making room for love to live and grow.

Motionless, Hawk absorbed light and color into himself until the muted cry of bells called to him. When he turned around, he saw Angel’s hand move restlessly over the empty bed as though searching for something.

He went back to the bed in a silent, gliding stride and gathered Angel against himself, understanding finally why he had returned, knowing that he would never leave her again. He had learned what love was.

It was an angel who loved a hawk enough to offer him everything, risk everything, give everything in the hope that even a bird of prey could learn to love.

He had learned, too, that the hawk was neither cold nor cruel, simply the instrument of an angel’s awakening, an awakening that was both agonizing and beautiful. The hawk shared in the beauty, and in the pain.

And in the awakening.

Silver bells shivered and sighed as Angel instinctively moved closer to the naked warmth of Hawk’s body. He kissed her very gently, cherishing her.

Her eyes opened, shadows and brilliance focusing on him, disbelief and incredible hope combined.

Hawk bent his dark head toward the bright golden cloud of Angel’s hair.

“Hawk…?”

“I love you, Angel.”

Hawk joined the heat and sweetness of Angel’s mouth with his own, retreating only long enough to whisper his love again and again, love returned by her soft lips, words and caresses mingling until he became a part of her.

With slow, sensual movements they rediscovered what they had lost, cherishing and consuming and renewing each other, words transformed into soft cries of ecstasy and completion. And then sounds became words again, I love you whispered amid the shiver of silver bells.

Bathed in colored shadows, wrapped in each other’s arms, the woman who had no lies and the man who finally had found truth slept deeply, their pain transformed into peace by the healing power of love.

Elizabeth Lowell

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