A Woman Without Lies Part 25

aI would have sworn I was the one being teased,a Hawk said, his voice deep and rich with hidden laughter. Then Angelas hand moved inside his pocket and his breath caught.

aMy s.h.i.+rt pocket, Angel.a She smiled with an innocence that was belied by the dancing light of her eyes. Slowly, very slowly, she removed her hands from Hawkas pockets.

The insect repellent was indeed in the breast pocket of Hawkas cotton flannel s.h.i.+rt. She applied the pungent lotion to his exposed skin and to her own. Then she put the small squeeze bottle backa"in his front jeans pocket.

aThe repellent only works against insects,a Hawk pointed out.

aThatas a relief,a Angel said, smiling with an invitation that made his eyes gleam.

Then Angel turned and ran toward the raspberry brambles, making the silver bells at her ankle and wrist s.h.i.+ver with music.

For a moment Hawk stood and watched her graceful flight, aching with a hunger that went much deeper than the temporary urgency of desire. Then he began to run, moving lightly despite his burden.

Angel was soon lost to sight in the twists and turns of the bramble patch, but the sweet silver cries of the bells called to Hawk, telling him that she was close.

He caught up to Angel in a clearing where the raspberries had not yet grown. The air was thick with the delicate perfume of ripening fruit. Leaves s.h.i.+mmered and stirred lazily beneath a caressing wind. Canes laden with fruit arched richly against the cobalt sky, and the serrated green foliage quivered with golden sunlight.

aDerry was right,a Hawk said, turning to Angel. aYou know every beautiful place on the island. Or maybe itas simply that you bring beauty to every place you are.a aIt must be you,a Angel said, her voice husky. aI donat remember the homestead being like this before.a She took the buckets from his hand and waited while he spread the quilt and put the picnic basket in the shade. When he came back to her, she silently held out a bucket to him. Then she laced her fingers through Hawkas as she led him toward the bushes heavy with fruit.

aBerrying is a cross between clamming and crabbing,a Angel said. aLike crabs, raspberry bushes will get you if youare careless.a aNo free lunch?a suggested Hawk dryly.

aNo free lunch,a Angel agreed. aThe first rule of berrying is that if the fruit were easy to pick, something would have picked it already.a Hawk smiled slightly. aAny other rules?a aDonat eat more than one berry for every one you put in the bucket. Otherwise youall get sick.a aLearned that the hard way, didnat you?a Hawk guessed.

aIs there any other way to learn?a Angel showed Hawk how to choose the best fruit, ripe without being mushy, tart without being green. They picked side by side, sharing a companionable silence.

aIs this one ripe?a Hawk asked finally, holding out a berry to Angel.

aOnly one way to be sure.a Angel opened her mouth expectantly. Smiling, Hawk fed her the berry. She made a clicking sound with her tongue.

aA bit tart,a she said.

Angel looked at a cl.u.s.ter of raspberries hanging from a nearby cane. Picking the most perfect berry, she turned back to Hawk.

aTry this one,a she offered.

Hawk sucked the raspberry from Angelas fingertips, licking her skin as he did. He closed his eyes and made a sound of pleasure.

aIt tastes like you,a he murmured. aIncredible.a Hawk opened his mouth again in silent request. Angel popped in another berry. He opened his mouth again, and then again, until she laughed and stood on tiptoe, kissing him.

The taste of Hawk and raspberries swept over Angelas senses. Suddenly she clung to him, kissing him as wildly as he had kissed her on Eagle Head. When the embrace finally ended, they both were breathing raggedly.

aHow many more berries does Mrs. Carey need?a asked Hawk, his eyes a clear brown fire.

aBuckets and buckets.a Hawk swore softly.

aThen wead better get to it,a he said, reluctantly stepping back from Angel.

They returned to picking, working quickly, watching each other with secret, sidelong glances. They filled their buckets, emptied them into a larger container, and returned to picking.

aYouare eating more than youare putting in the bucket,a Angel said after a time.

Hawk turned toward her. His mouth was stained with the rich juice of the fruit he had been sneaking like a child.

aBut if I get sick,a he said, aIall have something better than a hot water bottle to curl up with.a Smiling, Hawk and Angel both returned to picking. Then Angel found an extraordinary raspberry. Full, richly colored, all but bursting with sweetness, the berry glowed like a jewel in her palm. She set down her bucket and ran to Hawk.

aThis is the most perfect raspberry Iave ever seen,a Angel said, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. aOpen up.a Hawk looked at the transparent red juice staining Angelas lips rather than at the berry.

aYou found it,a he said. aIt should be for you.a aItas got your name on it.a The corners of Hawkas mouth curled up gently. He looked at the bright, unblemished berry.

aI donat see my name,a he said.

aThe light must be wrong for you,a Angel said, letting the raspberry roll down and nestle in her palm. aSee? Right there. Your name.a Hawk looked, but he saw only the love implicit in Angelas gift. Slowly he bent his head. He licked the berry from her palm, then kissed the spot where the fruit had rested.

The ache Hawk felt slicing through him had nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with the angel who watched him with love in her eyes.

Hawk wanted to ask where Angelas softness and strength had come from, to delicately touch every secret of her past and future, to know if he could ever love as she did, sweetness and fire and courage in equal measure. Yet even as he opened his mouth, he knew he couldnat ask that of her.

So Hawk asked the only question he could, and Angel heard the other question beneath it, the one he couldnat ask.

aAre these wild raspberries?a Hawk asked, looking at the thicket that all but surrounded him.

aNo. Theyare like a house cat that has gone feral,a Angel said. aBred and created by man, for man, and then abandoned to live alone. Most things that are treated like that wither and die. Some things survive . . . and in the right season the strongest of the survivors bear a sweet, wild fruit that is the most beautiful thing on earth. Like you, Hawk.a Hawk let the bucket of raspberries slip from his hand. He picked up Angel in a single, swift movement, and then he held her tightly, saying all that he could, her name a song on his lips until his mouth found hers in a kiss that left both of them shaking.

He carried her to the quilt and undressed her as though it were the first time, his hands exquisitely gentle, his mouth a sweet fire consuming her. When she could bear no more he came to her, filling her mind and her body, loving her in the only way he could.

It was the same later that night, a beauty that destroyed and created Angel, death and rebirth in the arms of the man she loved. She touched Hawk equally, fire and hunger, the promise of her mouth both hot and sweet, innocent and knowing, wors.h.i.+pping his body until he pulled her around him and was burned to his soul by an angelas ecstatic fire.

Long after Angel fell asleep in his arms, Hawk lay awake, watching the patterns of moonlight and darkness beyond Angelas windows. Then he slowly eased away from her, holding his breath for fear that she would wake.

If she awakened, Hawk wouldnat have the strength to leave her. He would stay and stay, drinking from the well of her love, giving nothing in return.

If I stay, Iall destroy her.

For long, long minutes, Hawk stood beside the bed and watched his angel sleep. He bent down, aching to touch her, but did not. His hand hesitated over the pillow next to her head.

Then Hawk turned and walked soundlessly out of the house, into the night.

Sunlight woke Angel, sunlight spilling in golden magnificence across her pillow. She murmured sleepily and reached for Hawk. Her hand touched emptiness. She sat up quickly, looking around. And then she froze.

Resting on Hawkas pillow was a small candy cane wrapped with a s.h.i.+ny green ribbon.

Angel put her head in her hands and wept, knowing that Hawk had gone.

26.

Derry looked at Angelas wan face and determined smile.

aI donat have to leave for Harvard right away,a he said. aIall wait until Hawk wraps up whatever he had to do and comes back.a aDonat be silly.a Angelas voice was calm, but her eyes too dark in a face that was too pale, her skin almost transparent.

aAre you sure?a Derry asked.

aYes.a Angel said no more. There was no reason to disturb Derryas a.s.sumption that Hawk had left her only long enough to put his business in order. Derry had enough to worry about with moving thousands of miles and learning to walk on his leg again. He didnat need to add Angel to his list of problems.

Nor was there any reason for Derry to stay with her. Not really. She needed to be alone, but she didnat think Derry would understand that.

aDo you need any help packing the last of your things?a she asked.

aNo. Matt, Dave, and I got it done while you were out berrying yesterday. Hawk told me not to worry about the furniture or anything. Said to leave everything just as it is.a Emotion seethed through Angel, fighting against the serenity that she had finally imposed over her grief.

It was only yesterday that she and Hawk had been together, feeding berries to one another, laughing, staining their hands and mouths with the bursting summer sweetness of ripe fruit until pa.s.sion flared and they kissed each other deeply and tasted a wilder, sweeter fruit.

aAll I have left here is the suitcase that Iam taking on the plane,a added Derry, aand itas already packed.a A horn sounded out front. One of Derryas friends who was also going to the mainland had come to take him to the ferry. The horn sounded again.

Angel looked at the clock in her studio. She bent down and picked up the small suitcase Derry had set by the door.

aYouad better hurry,a she said.

aAngiea"a Angel turned and walked into Derryas arms. For a long time they hugged each other.

aI love you, Derry,a Angel said, her eyes bright with tears. aIall always be here if you need me.a aI donat feel right about leaving you,a Derry muttered, concern showing in his voice. aI know how much youare missing Hawk.a Angel looked up and saw Derryas love for her.

aGet out of here before I cry all over the s.h.i.+rt I just ironed for you,a she said softly, giving him a smile that trembled.

Derry smiled in return. He handed Angel a piece of paper.

aIall be at that number by eleven oa clock tonight. Call me, okay? Iam going to be homesick as h.e.l.l.a Derry kissed Angel quickly, grabbed his suitcase, and walked down the hall, limping slightly.

Angel watched him from the window until she could see nothing but her own tears. Then she went down to the beach and walked until darkness came and she could see nothing at all.

She had not known how much she loved Hawk until she felt the pain of his loss. It was like breathing shattered gla.s.s, each instant a new lesson in agony.

After dark, Angel paced through the empty house until it was time to call Derry. Then she went to her studio, turned on every light, and began to sketch. As the dark hours melted into dawn she drew and discarded design after design, seeking one that would summarize her pain and love, and in doing so, forge new beauty from the painful shards of the past.

By dawn Angel had found her design.

She worked all day, submerging herself in the demands of her creation. She enlarged the proportions of the sketch until it would fill a panel six feet tall and four feet wide, as wide as the window in her bedroom.

She traced the working drawing onto heavy paper, using a black marker as wide as the lead bead holding the gla.s.s would be. Then she pinned the working drawing to the wall and numbered each segment of paper according to the color she had chosen for it.

Choosing the gla.s.s consumed many more hours. Every piece had to blend with and enhance the bronze and brown flashed gla.s.s Angel had chosen for the major figure. She tried several shades of gold m.u.f.f gla.s.s before she found one that she liked.

Satisfied, she went to her bedroom, propped the m.u.f.f against the floor-to-ceiling window there, and watched light pour through it. She turned the gla.s.s several times.

Suddenly Angel stood absolutely still. The hair on her arms stirred in primal response as she looked into the extraordinary flawed gla.s.s . . . and saw the suggestion of a womanas awakening smile.

Quickly Angel marked out the area to be cut. Though she never cut gla.s.s piecemeal, this time she did. She pinned the pattern to the light table and cut out the golden cloud that had first emerged on her sketch pad.

As soon as the cloud was cut, Angel broke another rule and continued working out of sequence. She took a fine brush and filled in the vision she had seen in the gla.s.s. The shadow of a smile, the suggestion of eyes slowly opening, a few elegant strokes to evoke hair rippling in the wind, and it was done.

Angel turned on the kiln and went back to choosing gla.s.s. She worked for hours until she realized that there was only one choice. Since the accident, she had refused to use clear gla.s.s, for to see its shards glittering was to see again wreckage and death.

Yet there was no other backdrop possible for the summation Angel had chosen to set in gla.s.sa"daggers of beveled crystal gla.s.s radiating outward from the focal point of the picture, a hawkas extended talon as the bird of prey swooped down out of an empty sky.

Hours slipped into days as Angel worked. She ate when the demands of her stomach became too insistent to ignore and slept only when her eyes refused to focus on her work.

She dreaded those times, the night closing around her, her heart as empty as the echoing rooms of the house. She began wearing her silver jewelry all the time, letting the tiny cries of the bells speak for her, filling the silent void.

The hawk itself took several days, for each bronzed highlight was brought out by acid eating into different levels of the brown and bronze flashed gla.s.s. Etching was a long, patience-stretching process, but Angel immersed herself in its demands eagerly. When she worked she was totally absorbed, unable to think or feel beyond the instant in which she lived.

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

Angel began to a.s.semble the pieces. She took the polished mahogany frame she had chosen to set the gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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, gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 wasnat 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 gla.s.s and the night beyond.

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

She looked at the bed that she hadnat 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 Hawkas bleak past, the single sweet thing he had known of childhood.

Despite the exhaustion that made Angel tremble, Angel couldnat 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 hadnat. Shards of gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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.