Elizabeth Lowell: A Woman Without Lies

Why the hell does she look so aloof, so untouched? Hawk asked himself bitterly. She’s just like every other woman – emptiness and lies.

In silence Hawk watched Angel’s coolness and reserve, and remembered her softness and sighs. He decided then that he was going to have her.

And when he was finished, he would strip her of her bright facade.

I’ll be sure Derry knows that his sweet Angie is no angel. Derry is much too young to cope with a woman like this. Derry would be hurt as I once was hurt.

But unlike me, Derry is too soft to survive that kind of lesson.

Hawk had no softness in him.

He had known about women like Angel since the night of his eighteenth birthday – women who took and took and took, giving only the casual use of their bodies in return.

Hawk didn’t mind that. Not anymore. He had become a taker too. Once Angel got used to the idea that he saw through her, they would get along just fine.

Users, both of them. Using each other.

Angel looked out the window but all she really saw was the image of Hawk as she had first seen him in the dark bar – lonely, aloof, untamed. If he hadn’t been gentle with her for those few instants, she would have decided that he was merely cruel, and avoided him.

Yet Angel’s first impression of Hawk’s loneliness had been oddly reinforced by his comforting touch. She knew that loneliness could give a person both a capacity for cruelty and, eventually, a capacity for empathy.

Empathy took longer to develop than cruelty, however. First, you had to heal.

Once Angel had raged at Derry for dragging her out of the wreck, for forcing her to live when the man she loved had died. Derry had been appalled. Then he had wept and she had held him, hating herself for hurting him, hating herself for being alive, hating everything except Derry. He was as alone as she, yet he wasn’t cruel.

That realization had been the turning point in Angel’s long climb out of agony and despair. From that instant she had cherished Derry.

In time she had even thanked him for dragging her out of the wreckage of her past into an uncertain future.

Angel wondered what Hawk’s turning point would be. Then she considered his strength and harshness and wondered if there was anything powerful enough to penetrate the ruthless shell that surrounded him as deeply as sky surrounded a hunting hawk.

Or perhaps, like a hawk, he preferred the lonely, icy reaches of the sky to anything human.

Yet Hawk had been so warm for just a moment, so close.

The motion of the limousine changed as it turned toward Vancouver harbor. Angel swayed slightly, caught herself, and recognized her surroundings. Island Taxi’s bright sign poked above the calm water. Just beyond the sign a pontoon plane floated.

Angel turned quickly to Hawk.

He was watching her.

She sensed that he had been watching her the whole time. With a shock, she noticed that he had a mustache, a smooth band of midnight just above his hard mouth, black hair shifting and gleaming subtly as he moved his head.

She hadn’t noticed the mustache before, not with those hard, dark eyes watching her.

“Hawk – Mr. Hawkins – ”

“Hawk,” he said, watching for her reaction as he spoke. “Call me Hawk, Angel. It will help both of us to remember what we really are.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I’m a hawk and you’re an angel.”

He laughed briefly, a sound without humor or warmth.

“Well,” he added, “that’s half the truth, anyway. One of us is just what he seems.”

“Are we flying to Vancouver Island?” asked Angel, irritated with the enigmatic conversation.

“Don’t tell me an angel is afraid to fly?” he asked softly.

“No more than a hawk,” she retorted. Angel frowned. Hawk had a devastating effect on her temper. She took a slow breath, then another, until she felt calm again.

“My car is at the gallery,” Angel said. “I’d planned to take the ferry over to see Derry.”

Hawk pulled a small leather-bound book and a gold pen from his pocket. He handed both to her.

“Write down the gallery’s address, the car’s license number, and a description of the car,” he said. “You’ll have it by tomorrow.”

Angel hesitated, then gave in.

The pen was warm to Angel’s touch, radiating the heat of the man who sat so close. She wrote quickly, feeling as though the pen were burning her skin.

Hawk took the keys she pulled out of her purse, the book, and the pen. For a moment his fingertips caressed the smooth length of the gold metal.

Angel knew that Hawk was feeling her heat as surely as she had felt his. The knowledge shortened her breath.

Then Hawk looked quickly at her, catching the sensual knowledge in her eyes. The corner of his mouth tilted sardonically.

He replaced the pen in his pocket. The sound of paper tearing was very loud in the silence as he removed the page Angel had written on. He handed the paper and the car keys to the chauffeur.

“When – when did Derry hurt himself?” asked Angel, hating the breathless quality of her voice, yet unable to change it.

“Two days ago. I didn’t know about it until he got out of surgery.”

“Surgery!”

Instantly Angel forgot about everything, including her reaction to Hawk.

“But you said he just broke his leg!” she cried, turning on Hawk.

Hawk saw the fear darkening Angel’s eyes again.

Hell of an actress, he thought sardonically. Able to control her body on command. The best actresses are always like that. While they’re playing the part, they believe. Change the scenes and the lines, and they believe in that part, too, and the next and the next.

Beautiful, shallow creatures living on lies.

Once Hawk had believed the soft words and softer kisses. Then he had learned to see through the shimmering, sensuous light to the darkness beneath.

“He broke his ankle, to be precise,” Hawk said in a clipped voice. “Clean through. The surgery was to put in a pin until everything grew together again.”

“Oh, my God,” Angel said hoarsely, fighting nausea. “I should have been with him! To come out of anesthesia alone, in pain and confusion, no one there to touch you, comfort you… ”

Hawk’s intense brown eyes narrowed, searching Angel’s face. He knew what it was to wake up in a hospital, disoriented and in pain, the horrible moments until memory came and told you what had happened.

It surprised him that Angel, too, seemed to know how it felt.

“You sound like you’ve been there,” said Hawk.

For a moment Angel didn’t answer.

Then, softly, “I have.”

Before Hawk could ask another question, Angel turned on him, her voice cold and controlled.

“Is there anything else you haven’t told me about Derry?” she asked.

“He refuses the painkillers.”

“Why?”

“He says that pain has a purpose.”

Angel closed her eyes, remembering the months after the wreck when she had thrown away her painkillers and her cane and forced herself to walk again. Derry had wept with her, supporting her for those first few steps.

Then she had made him leave, telling him that it was all right, that pain had a purpose. It told her that she was alive.

Hawk started to ask another question when the limousine eased to a stop in the Island Taxi parking lot.

Automatically Angel groped for the door handle, not wanting to face the curiosity in Hawk’s eyes. Before the chauffeur could get out to open Angel’s door, Hawk was out and standing beside the car, extending his hand to Angel across the seat.

She hesitated, then put her hand in his. The male heat and power of him shocked her, but it was too late to retreat.