A Woman Without Lies (22 page)

Hawk’s face changed, memories like talons in his mind.

“But your parents—” began Angel, only to stop.

Hawk’s harsh laughter overrode her, laughter tearing through her, hurting her as it must have hurt him. She held her hand out as though to touch him.

“Hawk,” she said, “don’t.”

Then Hawk spoke, and his words were worse than his laughter.

“My mother was six months pregnant with me when she married my father,” Hawk said. “Only he wasn’t my father. He didn’t know it at the time. She told him when I was six. She told him by pinning a note to my shirt just before she ran off with a traveling man.”

Hawk’s smile was sardonic.

“Nice touch, that,” he added. “Dump a kid on a man and tell him it isn’t his.”

Angel tried to speak.

Hawk didn’t notice. His clear, bleak eyes were focused on the past.

“Dad kept me,” Hawk said. “I never could figure out why. It sure as hell wasn’t out of love. His mother came to live with us. There wasn’t any love in her, either. Oh, they were kind enough, so far as that goes. I didn’t starve. They never used anything worse than a belt on me no matter how drunk they were.”

Angel flinched, remembering when Hawk had told her that he had taken his dad’s fishing gear without permission and been soundly beaten for it. She had thought it a joke at the time.

Now she knew better. The knowledge didn’t comfort her.

“I had already learned how to work when my mother took off,” continued Hawk. “I grew vegetables, raised chickens, delivered papers, whatever. The money went to them, to pay for room and board.”

“But you were only a child,” Angel said, hardly able to comprehend.

“I ate their food. I wore clothes they found for me. I slept in a blanket they gave me.”

Hawk shrugged again, dismissing the subject of material wealth. Being poor hadn’t bothered him. Being unloved had.

“They weren’t fattening themselves at my expense,” he said. “Our farm was a joke. Five hundred acres, and not enough water to irrigate more than ten. It’s dry in west Texas. Real dry. Only thing that land is good for is raising dust and hell. It’s more fun to raise hell than dust. I raised more than my share.”

With a sudden movement, Hawk went to the far side of Angel’s car, opened the door, and slid into the passenger seat.

Angel stood without moving, still caught in the words that illuminated an aspect of Hawk that she had never suspected—Hawk’s past, as harsh as the land he had described.

She wanted to ask questions, many questions, because she sensed that there was more to be told.

Other boys have been abandoned by mothers and yet learned to love and trust women. Carlson, for one. His childhood was no better than Hawk’s. Even worse Carlson had been half-Indian; he had to fight for room to live and work in white society.

Yet Carlson knew how to love.

Why didn’t Hawk?

Hawk leaned over and opened the driver’s door, silently inviting Angel to get into her own car. She slid behind the wheel. With a hand that trembled slightly, she turned the key and started her car. She glanced swiftly at Hawk.

He didn’t notice. Other than opening the door for her, he seemed unaware of her existence. She wondered what he was thinking, what fragments of the past he was looking at, what their colors were . . . and how many edges they had, how deeply they cut him.

Angel asked no more, though. She was still learning from the first instants when Hawk’s words had illuminated him. The colors he had shown her were dark, almost brutal, yet their intensity was compelling, their possibilities alluring.

Silently Angel drove to Mrs. Carey’s house. As she parked in front, she looked questioningly at Hawk. She hadn’t expected him to come with her in the first place. She didn’t know whether he wanted to go inside or wait in the car until she was finished.

Hawk looked at Angel.

“I take it we’re here, wherever that is,” he said.

“Mrs. Carey’s house.”

Hawk encouraged Angel with a look.

“She broke her hip a while ago,” Angel said. “I’m bringing her groceries and taking her to the doctor until she can drive herself again.”

Black brows came together as Hawk turned the name over in his mind.

“Mrs. Carey,” he muttered. “I’ve heard that name.”

“Jams and jellies,” said Angel, opening her door.

Hawk got out and joined her at the trunk.

“As in this glass?” he asked, lifting the quilt-wrapped panel out of the trunk.

“As on our breakfast croissants.”

Hawk made an appreciative sound and licked his lips.

“Now I remember the name,” he said. “Are we going to buy some more jam today?”

“Mrs. Carey would sic her cat on me if I even suggested it. I’ve eaten her wonderful jams all my life. Gifts. Every last bite.”

“And all the sweeter because of it,” Hawk said.

Again Hawk had surprised Angel. She hadn’t expected him to understand.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Don’t look so shocked, Angel. I know what gifts mean. I used to wait in an agony of hope every birthday, every Christmas. I learned not to hope after a while.”

Angel closed her eyes, trying not to feel Hawk’s pain.

“And then my third-grade teacher gave me a small candy cane with a green ribbon on it,” Hawk said. “I kept that candy cane until Christmas morning, when I knew other kids would be opening their presents.”

Angel’s hands clenched in helpless sympathy.

“Then I walked out into the fields until I was alone,” Hawk said. “I can still feel the wrapping crinkle beneath my fingers, smell the freshness of the mint, see the bright green ribbon and the clean red and white of the cane. It was the sweetest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever tasted. I carried the ribbon in my pocket until nothing was left but a few green threads.”

Hawk shook his head, almost baffled by the bittersweet shaft of memory.

“I haven’t thought about that for a long, long time,” he said.

Angel fought tears as she compared her own Christmases and birthdays heaped with gifts and laughter and love. She had lost so much four years ago, but at least she had something to lose.

Years of memories, years of love.

Hawk had nothing but rare moments, the fading taste of mint, and a ribbon worn to shreds in a boy’s pocket.

Quietly Angel shut the trunk and followed Hawk to the front door of Mrs. Carey’s house. She rang the bell and waited, knowing it might take a while for Mrs. Carey to reach the front door.

Hawk noted Angel’s silence and drawn face, saw the tiny indentations where she had bitten her lower lip. He didn’t know what had upset her. All he knew was that he wanted to soothe the marks away with the tip of his tongue.

Like the memory of mint, the impulse surprised Hawk. He realized that he wanted to comfort rather than seduce Angel. He wanted to see her smile because he had brought pleasure to her. He wanted—

Mrs. Carey opened the door. Her gray head barely came to Hawk’s breastbone. She adjusted her glasses as she looked up at the tall, dark man who stood so unexpectedly on her doorstep.

“Good morning, Mrs. Carey,” Angel said, her voice soft, still shaken by Hawk’s sad memories. “I’d like you to meet Miles Hawkins. Hawk, this is Mrs. Carey.”

“Mr. Hawkins,” said the old woman, nodding her head.

“Call me Hawk. Everyone else in Canada does.”

He slanted a sideways look at Angel. Then he shifted the quilt-wrapped stained glass panel to his other arm as he took the old woman’s cool, dry hand in his.

“A pleasure, Mrs. Carey.”

The old woman’s shrewd black eyes measured the man in front of her. Then she nodded once, abruptly.

“Not many men could carry that nickname. You can. Come in, Hawk.” Then, dryly, “You too, Angie. Tea’s brewing.”

A big orange tomcat wove in and out of Mrs. Carey’s walker with breathtaking disregard for safety as she led the way to the kitchen. Finally Angel could stand the suspense no longer. She bent down and lifted the heavy cat into her arms.

“Tiger, you have no sense,” she scolded softly.

She rubbed the cat with her chin as she followed Mrs. Carey into the kitchen. The tom watched Angel with wise orange eyes, touched his nose to hers, and flowed out of her arms. Angel didn’t try to keep the cat. Mrs. Carey was sitting down now, no longer in danger of becoming tangled in her cat’s furry little feet.

“Pour for me, would you?” Mrs. Carey asked. “I must have slept on my hands wrong last night. They’re kind of slow waking up this morning.”

Angel looked quickly at Mrs. Carey. “Have you called Dr. McKay?”

The old woman laughed dryly.

“I’m seventy-nine, Angie. I’ve earned a few slow mornings, don’t you think?”

“I’m driving Derry over to see Dr. McKay later this morning,” said Angel. “I’ll pick you up and—”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Carey interrupted firmly. “Pour the tea, Angie. There’s nothing the doctor can do for me that a cup of tea can’t do better. Sit down, Hawk. You can put whatever you’re carrying on the counter.”

Angie poured tea and passed the plate of shortbread biscuits around.

“About the doctor,” she began firmly. “I think—”

“I remember a time a few years ago,” Mrs. Carey said, interrupting with equal firmness. “Derry came flying over here with his knickers in a twist because he found you asleep on your studio floor. Seems you’d been working too long, or something. Dr. McKay went to the house, thumped and poked and listened, and you never woke up. He told Derry nothing was wrong with you that a lot of sleep wouldn’t cure.”

“Yes, but—”

Mrs. Carey put her teacup down with a firm motion that cut off Angel’s words.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with me that being young again wouldn’t cure,” Mrs. Carey said. “The day the doctor can turn back time is the day I’ll call him and tell him I feel tired in the morning.”

Angel sighed and gave up.

The phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” Angel said, moving quickly toward the living room.

Mrs. Carey followed much more slowly.

Angel answered the phone, exchanged a few words with the person on the line, and then gave the phone to Mrs. Carey. The instant Angel walked back into the kitchen, she felt the intensity of Hawk’s stare.

“Do you do that often?” he asked, watching her.

“Answer the phone?” Angel asked, sitting down.

“Work yourself into exhaustion.”

Angel shrugged, trying to dismiss the subject.

“No,” she said calmly.

“Just when you’re upset?” Hawk asked, his voice too soft for Mrs. Carey to hear.

Angel sipped her tea.

“How long has it been?” said Hawk.

“Since what?”

“Since you worked until you couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, until your body just shut down and dumped you on the floor.”

For a moment Angel thought of refusing to answer. Then she realized that it didn’t matter. Hawk would just ask Derry.

And then there was the fact she
wanted
to tell Hawk. There would be a certain almost cruel pleasure in revealing to him just how badly he had misjudged her.

“It was more than three years ago,” Angel said, sipping her tea. “It was the night Carlson finally convinced me that the man I loved was dead and I was alive and there wasn’t one damn thing I could do about it except crawl into the grave and die with him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Carlson wouldn’t let me.”

Angel’s eyes darkened, remembering Carlson’s cruelty. But it had been cruelty with purpose, cruelty that forced her to accept that she was alive and Grant was not.

Carlson had paid, too, more than she knew at the time. Angel hadn’t forgiven him for a year, hadn’t spoken to him, had refused even to look at him or the letters he sent. She hadn’t known then that Carlson loved her as a man loved a woman.

By the time she understood, it was too late. Carlson was inextricably bound up in her mind with Grant’s life and death. She could no more be Carlson’s lover than she could be Derry’s.

“Carlson loved you,” Hawk said flatly.

“Yes. Even before Grant did. But I never loved him, not that way.”

“Because he’s Indian?”

Angel smiled sadly. “Because he wasn’t Grant.”

“But after Grant was dead?” Hawk persisted.

With a weary gesture, Angel pushed tendrils of hair out of her eyes.

“Carlson still wasn’t Grant,” she said simply. “I couldn’t forgive him for that. I couldn’t forgive Derry. I couldn’t forgive any man.”

Angel saw another question form on Hawk’s lips. Abruptly she knew that whatever she had hoped to do to Hawk, she was being hurt worse by her words than he was. Memories punished her, memories she hadn’t allowed herself to review for years.

“No more, Hawk, please,” Angel said, her voice low, ragged. “Or do you enjoy torturing me with the past?”