A Woman Without Lies

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Carlson? This is Angie. Where are you?”

  “Heading up the passage for ten days.”

  “Oh.” Angel’s disappointment was as clear in her voice as it was in her face. “You’re an elusive man, Carlson.”

  “You’re a bit hard to catch yourself. Must be those big white wings growing out of your back.”

  Angel smiled.

  “Derry’s been trying to raise you on the radio for the last hour,” Carlson said. “I figured you must be jigging behind one of the islands, so I offered to relay for him.”

  “He’s all right, isn’t he?” Angel asked anxiously.

  “He’s doing okay. Grouchy as a spring bear, but otherwise fine. There’s a message for a Mr. Hawkins. Your client?”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly Angel was aware that Hawk was leaning against the frame of the open cockpit door, listening.

  “Derry said that Lord Something-or-other called with a counter-counteroffer.”

  Angel grimaced.

  Carlson’s amusement was clear in the extraordinary precision of his words.

  “Poor Angie,” he said. “You always end up with the stuffiest shirts and the clumsiest white eyes ever to get a yen to go fishing.”

  “Not this time.” Angel smiled at the man in the doorway. “This time I’ve got a real live hawk.”

  Carlson’s deep laugh seemed too big for the small speaker.

  “Have fun, Angie, but watch your fingers. Hawks are the meanest birds ever to fly.”

  “Take care of yourself, Carlson. I heard that there was a storm coming down out of the Aleutians.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I left without waiting to see you.”

  “Call me when you get back.”

  “Don’t I always?” There was a pause. “I may still be out on the twelfth.”

  “That’s okay,” said Angel.

  Her voice was too even, too calm, belying the sudden paleness of her cheeks.

  “Are you sure?” Carlson asked.

  “Derry will be here. I’ll be fine.” Angel’s voice softened, revealing a hint of the emotion beneath. “Thanks, Carlson. It means—a lot.”

  “Save your best hug for me, Angel Eyes.”

  The faint hiss of static filled the cockpit.

  Suddenly Angel felt very much alone. The old nickname had brought back too much of the past with it. She loved Carlson in the same way that she loved Derry, but Carlson’s voice inevitably reminded her of love and death and loss. Of Grant.

  Yet Angel needed Carlson. His laughter and the memories that they shared created a bridge between the irretrievable past and the often lonely present.

  “I take it that was the salmon shaman,” said Hawk.

  His voice was smooth and cold. He was irritated by the transparency of Angel’s ploy in dangling her deep-voiced admirer in front of him.

  “The salmon shaman? Oh.” Angel smiled slightly. “Yes, that was Carlson. Did you hear the message?”

  Hawk’s mouth made a cynical downward curve.

  I heard it, all right.

  And in case I didn’t, you’re giving me a reply with that lonely, wistful look.

  Well, that’s one type of chase I won’t have any part of. If she wants to play one man off against the other, she’ll find herself without a game.

  When I hunt, I hunt alone.

  Hawk pushed away from the cockpit door, turning his back on Angel.

  “Take me back to Eagle Head,” he said curtly. “I have some calls to make.”

  9

  That was the first of many times when the demands of Hawk’s business interrupted Angel’s guided tour of Vancouver Island and the waters around Campbell River. Hawk had flown to Vancouver three times, where he had met with lawyers and signed papers.

  When he stayed in the Ramsey house, he was often on the phone. In ten days Angel had managed to get Hawk out fishing only twice. Each time phone calls had made them miss the tide.

  Not that it really mattered. The run of the silver salmon had not yet begun. Even the commercial fishermen were catching only a handful of fish for each day spent on the water.

  In the end, Angel settled for giving Hawk a slow-motion tour of rocky heads and tiny bays as she showed him how to troll for salmon. To her it was the least interesting method of catching salmon. The stiff rods required for trolling masked the energy and vibrancy of the fish.

  But trolling was the price of missing the tide changes, when the shifting balance of water and moon coaxed the salmon to feed closer to the surface.

  Angel was determined that there would be no more missed tides. Word had come through the fishing grapevine that the first true run of summer salmon was sliding silently down the Inside Passage. Yesterday the catch had been up at the north end of the passage.

  If the fish followed past patterns, one of Angel’s favorite stretches of coastline should be hosting the salmon for a while on their run south to the countless rivers that drained the mountainous land. By boat, it would take nearly six hours to get to Needle Bay, but Hawk had finally agreed that he could take time away from the phone for a five-day trip. In order to do so, though, he had worked steadily.

  Other than mealtimes Angel had seen very little of Hawk for three days.

  Angel had been busy too. The used kiln she had bought and shipped up from Seattle for her summer use had finally arrived. With it had come a surprise, a large crate full of carefully packed cullet—scrap glass—sent by her Seattle gallery owner. The note on top of the box said only: Incredible price. Glass factory collapsed. Larger pieces sent to your Seattle studio.

  The delivery men had just finished carting everything into the north wing of the Ramsey house. Under Derry’s amused eyes, Angel was attacking the crate with a crowbar. He was perfectly content to lounge in an overstuffed chair and watch her handle the brilliant, incredibly sharp pieces of glass.

  “Sure you don’t want me to do it?” Derry asked lazily.

  Angel smiled across the room at him and then went back to work.

  “You’d probably break every piece of glass in the crate,” she said.

  “You’re just going to make it all into little pieces anyway,” Derry pointed out in a reasonable, teasing voice.

  “But there’s method in my madness. In yours there’s just muscle.”

  The top came off to the accompaniment of high squeals from the nails used to secure the crate. Angel set aside the crowbar and pulled on a pair of thin, supple suede gloves. Scrap glass had edges sharper than any razor she had ever used.

  “Careful,” said Derry.

  Angel gave him a long-suffering look. He smiled and shrugged lightly.

  Neither of them noticed that Hawk had come to stand just outside the doorway of the studio, drawn by the sound of nails screaming against green wood.

  “That stuff’s lethal,” Derry persisted, eyeing the glass.

  “Only if you’re careless.”

  “And who bandaged your hand the last time you slipped up?” asked Derry in a dry voice.

  “I did,” Angel said without looking up from the glass. “You were carousing in Vancouver with your friends.”

  “Slander!”

  “Bald truth.”

  Angel set aside a mound of packing material and made a delighted sound.

  “Jess found me a batch of muff!” she crowed.

  Eagerly, but carefully, Angel drew out the layers of packing material and began to sort the biggest pieces of scrap glass into the rows of cubbyholes that lined one wall of her studio.

  Most of the cullet was muff, a special kind of glass that was treasured for its flaws rather than its perfection. A single sheet of muff had infinite variability in texture, thickness, and color. Muff added a depth to stained glass designs that never failed to excite Angel.

  “That piece looks like hell,” said Hawk.

  Startled, Angel turned and looked over her shoulder at Hawk, then back at the tray-sized piece of muff she was putting away. Its purples varied
from ultrapale to nearly black. Swirls, ripples, and bubbles randomly distorted the surface of the glass.

  Angel pivoted gracefully, holding the piece up to the light streaming through the north window. Instantly the glass was transformed into something alive, light pooling and sliding, every tint and tone of purple the eye could see, glass haunted with radiant shadows and flashing possibilities.

  “It’s magnificent,” Angel said, slowly lowering the glass.

  “It’s flawed,” said Hawk.

  “So is life. That’s the most complex part of its beauty.”

  Hawk went very still for a moment, held as much by Angel’s words as by the jeweled flash of color when she turned and carefully slid the unique glass into a cubbyhole that held other shades of purple. Though Hawk said nothing, he watched her with an intensity that made his narrowed eyes glitter like shards of clear brown crystal.

  Angel didn’t notice. She had just seen a shaft of unusual color in the crate.

  “What’s this?” she asked, working quickly.

  Packed in with the muff were several partial sheets of flashed glass. The dominant color of the two-layer glass was an amazingly clear, rich chestnut. Beneath the thin layer of luminous brown was a layer of bronze-toned glass. When the top layer of glass was etched with acid, the bronze would show through, giving depth and highlights to the brown.

  “Like sunlight on a hawk’s feathers,” murmured Angel.

  Or the gold lying beneath Hawk’s eyes.

  But Angel didn’t say that aloud, for she sensed Hawk walking toward her, closer with every second. A frisson of heat went through her, a tiny shiver of response that she couldn’t control.

  The more Angel was around Hawk, the more she was drawn to him. She didn’t know if it was the same for him. She could not read his silences.

  Hawk stepped forward, drawn by the beauty of the glass and the woman holding it. When he stopped, he was so close to Angel that he could feel her hair drift across his chest when she turned to look over her shoulder at him.

  “Is this glass more to your taste?” Angel asked.

  She stepped slightly away from Hawk as she held the transparent, deep brown glass up to the northern light.

  The glass blazed like a cinnamon diamond.

  Angel looked critically at the pattern of illumination and announced, “Flawless.”

  Hawk simply looked at Angel’s hair, shining with the same light that had transformed the glass. He was still consumed by the echoes of her earlier words about life and flaws and beauty.

  Then Hawk realized that he had softly wound a tendril of Angel’s hair around his finger and was bringing it toward his lips. Instantly he let go, angry at himself for revealing the obsession that Angel had become to him. He planned to purge himself of it, and her, on their five-day trip.

  Abruptly Hawk turned away from Angel and the light pouring incandescently through her hair.

  “I have a few more calls to make before we can leave,” he said curtly.

  Angel watched Hawk walk away, her eyes dark. She had sensed a vague stirring in her hair, the warmth of Hawk’s breath and his body, and then his withdrawal. She looked over at Derry and smiled crookedly.

  “I seem to annoy your Mr. Hawkins,” said Angel, her voice light. “All I have to do is breathe.”

  Derry, who had seen nothing but the broad line of Hawk’s back as he stood near Angel, shrugged and hoisted himself onto his crutches.

  “It’s just his manner, Angie. Nothing personal. And whatever business deal he’s working on is rough. He’s as busy as a one-legged soccer player.”

  “Ummm,” was all Angel said.

  Derry went to the door. “I’d better get back to the books. If you cut yourself, holler.”

  “Don’t trip over Mrs. Carey’s stuff. I left it in the hall.”

  “Hawk loaded the bags in his car. He thought they were for the trip.”

  Angel watched Derry leave, but her mind was on Hawk. Even after ten days the man was as much of an enigma to her as he had been when they first met.

  Most of the time Hawk was cool and abrasive, making her subtly uneasy with his intense, dark brown eyes, eyes that watched each movement she made, each breath. He would touch her casually, impersonally, as they moved about his powerboat or went sightseeing in his car. The touches were invariably gentle, a simple brush of fingertips over her wrist or palm or, once, her cheek.

  At first Angel had been startled by Hawk’s touch. She had retreated, watching him narrowly. He had done nothing, neither pursued her nor sought to make the next touch more intimate.

  In time, Angel had decided that Hawk’s touches were simply part of his complex nature, like his fierce eyes and unsmiling mouth. She no longer retreated when he touched her. She accepted him for what he was—if not a gentleman, at least a very controlled one.

  In the hours they had spent together Hawk had never really crowded Angel, never said or done anything out of line. And he was easy to be with, despite his moments of startling intensity. Long silences didn’t require chatter to cover the untamed murmur of wind and sea.

  Once, when they had been out on the water for several hours, relaxation had eased the harsh lines of Hawk’s face. Angel hadn’t been able to look away from him. She was fascinated by the change in him, as though peace had dissolved away his darker surface color, revealing the warmer color beneath.

  Yet sometimes Angel felt pursued.

  When she looked up and found Hawk watching her, her heart hesitated and then beat too quickly. He seemed to see right through her to the blood racing in her veins.

  Once, when he had touched her cheek with his hard fingertips, she had thought he was going to say something. Surely he had seen the rapid beat of her pulse beneath her throat.

  But he had said nothing, simply looked at her, and a feeling of longing had swept through her like sunlight through stained glass, transforming her. She found herself holding her breath, anticipating the next time his fingers would brush over her skin. Then she found herself watching him, wondering with strange urgency what it would take to make him smile.

  For Hawk had never smiled in the time they were together. Not once.

  Perhaps when he catches his first salmon, Angel thought. Perhaps then he will smile.

  No one can resist the flashing beauty of the fish, the thrilling power vibrating up through the rod, the moment of capture when the net explodes with rippling silver energy.

  The phone rang, startling Angel out of her thoughts.

  It didn’t ring a second time. Hawk had picked it up before she could do more than look at the extension in her studio.

  Angel glanced at the wall clock. Nine-thirty. A bit late for London. The call was probably from one of Hawk’s limited partners in the United States. Later in the day Hawk would usually talk to Tokyo, long calls that left him irritable, restless, liked a caged thing ready to lash out at whatever was within reach.

  But not today. Today they were going fishing if Angel had to grab Hawk and drag him to the boat.

  First, though, Angel had to take care of her own obligations. She glanced at the partially unloaded box.

  The glass can wait. Mrs. Carey can’t.

  Angel pulled off her gloves, grabbed her purse, and left the room at a half-run, eager to have everything done so that she could be out on the water. She stopped long enough to poke her head into Hawk’s suite of rooms.

  As she had expected, Hawk was on the phone. His head was resting against the back of the leather chair, his long legs sprawled across the beautiful Chinese rug. Tension and fatigue were clear on his face. Eyes closed, he was listening without speaking.

  Angel knocked lightly on the door frame. Hawk’s eyes opened. They were startlingly clear, as intense as focused sunlight.

  “Go ahead and talk,” Hawk said to Angel, his voice rough. “His damned secretary lost the last offer. They’re looking for it right now.”

  “Can I have your car keys for a minute?”

  Hawk l
ooked surprised, then reached into his slacks for his key ring. As he shifted, the slacks pulled tightly across his lower body, revealing every masculine line of him.

  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.