A Woman Without Lies

hurling him into unwanted pleasure.

“Damn you!” Hawk snarled, shuddering, raging against the release that was taking him whether he willed it to or not. “Damn you to hell!”

With a final shudder Hawk rolled aside, freeing Angel. He fought to control himself again, to absorb the terrible knowledge that Angel had not lied to him about being inexperienced. He didn’t understand what had happened. He didn’t understand her.

And Hawk must understand or his world would be utterly destroyed.

Again.

Chapter 14

Angel lay without moving, feeling Hawk’s condemnation sink into her more deeply than steel talons. A tangle of emotions swept over her – frustration, bafflement, pain, and finally anger, a fury so deep that it frightened her.

She had felt rage like this before. It had almost burned out all that was human in her.

Silently Angel fought for self-control, fought not to scream, fought not to curse a life that seemed to hold out the hope of happiness only to take it away, leaving her broken and struggling to survive.

“Why?” Angel asked, not hearing her own anguish, not even hearing the single word that had pierced her control.

“That’s my line!” Hawk retorted.

His voice was as savage as his eyes. He grabbed Angel’s shoulders, forcing her to look at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.

“I tried,” said Angel numbly, speaking without thinking, reduced to reflex and pain. “And then I thought you already knew.”

“How in Christ’s name would I know?” Hawk’s hands bit into her shoulders. “I thought you were sleeping with Derry and Carlson. You sure as hell didn’t respond like a virgin. You were as hot as anyone I’ve ever crawled into bed with.”

“Sleeping with Derry? Sleeping with Carlson?” Angel repeated the words without comprehending them. “But I told you. Derry’s like my brother and Carlson is a friend.”

“Women lie all the time.”

Silence came, silence and knowledge sinking into Angel, talons turning in her soul, tearing her apart.

“You think I’m a liar and a slut,” she whispered.

Angel shuddered as the knowledge went through her, breaking her as the automobile accident had once broken her.

Then the habits of self-control learned at such cost closed around Angel, holding her emotions suspended, sealing them away. She would deal with them later, when she had the strength. Right now it was enough that she didn’t unravel into hysteria.

The car wreck had been beyond her control.

This wasn’t.

I’m alive, physically whole, Angel told herself numbly. I made a mistake, a terrible, irretrievable mistake.

I’m not strong enough to reach through Hawk’s cruelty to the hurt and hunger and human needs beneath.

Assuming that he has such needs.

“You proved that you were half right, didn’t you?” Angel asked, her voice quiet, as empty as her eyes watching Hawk.

The change in Angel made Hawk deeply uneasy. He had expected hysterics, cursing, screaming, sweet lies and pleading, all the usual tricks of women.

He had expected anything but the eerie, porcelain calm of Angel’s face and the bleakness of her eyes.

“What does that mean?” asked Hawk warily, loosening his grip on Angel’s shoulders.

She slid off the bed, gathering her clothes as she went.

“It means that I feel like a slut,” she said calmly.

Abruptly Hawk gave vent to the rage that had flared when he realized that Angel had sold her virginity to a man who didn’t want it.

“What do you expect when you sleep with a man for pay?” he demanded.

Without a word Angel started out of the cabin. Hawk grabbed her wrist.

“Cut the act, Angel baby,” he said. “You want your quarter of the land sale and decided to ensure it in the oldest possible way. Your choice. If you had asked, I’d have told you that it was useless. Nothing’s going to make me buy Eagle Head but the land itself.”

“I don’t want Eagle Head sold,” Angel said distinctly, her voice without emotion or depth. “Derry does.”

She met Hawk’s eyes. There was nothing in her look but a color that was too dark to be called green.

“I owe Derry more than a man like you could understand,” Angel said calmly. “When Eagle Head is sold, the money will go to Derry. All of it. But you can’t believe that, can you? Your choice, Hawk.”

Angel looked down at the hand holding her wrist. When she spoke, her voice was calm, empty, final.

“Let go of me.”

Hawk stared at Angel for a moment before he released her. When she left, shutting the cockpit door behind her, he found himself wanting to follow her, hold her, take the emptiness from her eyes and her voice.

He realized in that instant that he wanted to believe her, wanted to believe that there had been no hidden reason for her to smile at him, talk to him, be with him, burn for him.

Then Hawk cursed himself more savagely than he had cursed anything in a long time.

I learned all there was to know about women on my eighteenth birthday. The lesson has been reinforced many times since then. Surely I’m not stupid enough to need a complete refresher course at the age of thirty-five.

The fact that Angel didn’t lie about her virginity doesn’t mean that the rest of her is pure truth.

Hawk rolled over, reaching for his clothes, and saw Angel’s blood still bright on his body. Emotion tore through him in the instant before he controlled it, hating himself for even that fraction of weakness.

Virginity meant nothing. All women began that way. It had just taken Angel longer than most to decide on her price.

And what was it? What was her price?

The questions sank into him like hooks, digging into him with each heartbeat, scoring him each time he tried to turn away.

If not money, what? What did Angel say about Derry? Something about owing…

The words came back in a rush: I owe Derry more than a man like you could understand.

Her virginity, for instance? Hawk asked himself savagely. A small swap for a big land sale?

Hawk’s mouth lifted in a small, cold curl. Angel underestimated him if she thought he didn’t understand. He understood very well. She was the same as the others. Nothing new after all.

And if the thought made him a little sick and very angry, that was his problem. He was old enough to know better. Old enough not to be taken in by a sweet-faced actress with sad green eyes.

The shaken pieces of Hawk’s certainty settled back into place, reassuring him.

Then the sound of the engines coming to life surprised Hawk all over again. He finished dressing quickly. Then he opened the cockpit door, stepped out, and confronted Angel.

“A little late for fishing, isn’t it?” Hawk asked sardonically, gesturing toward the stars visible through the portholes.

“Yes.”