A Woman Without Lies

loved.

“And you were loved, weren’t you, Angel? Your parents, Grant, Derry, even Carlson. In their own way, they all loved you.”

“Yes,” whispered Angel. “And I loved them.”

“Love linking to love. A bright, magic, closed circle.”

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.

Chapter 18

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