didn’t know what had upset her. All he knew was that he wanted to soothe the marks away with the tip of his tongue.
Like the memory of mint, the impulse surprised Hawk. He realized that he wanted to comfort rather than seduce Angel. He wanted to see her smile because he had brought pleasure to her. He wanted -
Mrs. Carey opened the door. Her gray head barely came to Hawk’s breastbone. She adjusted her glasses as she looked up at the tall, dark man who stood so unexpectedly on her doorstep.
“Good morning, Mrs. Carey,” Angel said, her voice soft, still shaken by Hawk’s sad memories. “I’d like you to meet Miles Hawkins. Hawk, this is Mrs. Carey.”
“Mr. Hawkins,” said the old woman, nodding her head.
“Call me Hawk. Everyone else in Canada does.”
He slanted a sideways look at Angel. Then he shifted the quilt-wrapped stained glass panel to his other arm as he took the old woman’s cool, dry hand in his.
“A pleasure, Mrs. Carey.”
The old woman’s shrewd black eyes measured the man in front of her. Then she nodded once, abruptly.
“Not many men could carry that nickname. You can. Come in, Hawk.” Then, dryly, “You too, Angie. Tea’s brewing.”
A big orange tomcat wove in and out of Mrs. Carey’s walker with breathtaking disregard for safety as she led the way to the kitchen. Finally Angel could stand the suspense no longer. She bent down and lifted the heavy cat into her arms.
“Tiger, you have no sense,” she scolded softly.
She rubbed the cat with her chin as she followed Mrs. Carey into the kitchen. The tom watched Angel with wise orange eyes, touched his nose to hers, and flowed out of her arms. Angel didn’t try to keep the cat. Mrs. Carey was sitting down now, no longer in danger of becoming tangled in her cat’s furry little feet.
“Pour for me, would you?” Mrs. Carey asked. “I must have slept on my hands wrong last night. They’re kind of slow waking up this morning.”
Angel looked quickly at Mrs. Carey. “Have you called Dr. McKay?”
The old woman laughed dryly.
“I’m seventy-nine, Angie. I’ve earned a few slow mornings, don’t you think?”
“I’m driving Derry over to see Dr. McKay later this morning,” said Angel. “I’ll pick you up and – ”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Carey interrupted firmly. “Pour the tea, Angie. There’s nothing the doctor can do for me that a cup of tea can’t do better. Sit down, Hawk. You can put whatever you’re carrying on the counter.”
Angie poured tea and passed the plate of shortbread biscuits around.
“About the doctor,” she began firmly. “I think – ”
“I remember a time a few years ago,” Mrs. Carey said, interrupting with equal firmness. “Derry came flying over here with his knickers in a twist because he found you asleep on your studio floor. Seems you’d been working too long, or something. Dr. McKay went to the house, thumped and poked and listened, and you never woke up. He told Derry nothing was wrong with you that a lot of sleep wouldn’t cure.”
“Yes, but – ”
Mrs. Carey put her teacup down with a firm motion that cut off Angel’s words.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with me that being young again wouldn’t cure,” Mrs. Carey said. “The day the doctor can turn back time is the day I’ll call him and tell him I feel tired in the morning.”
Angel sighed and gave up.
The phone rang.
“I’ll get it,” Angel said, moving quickly toward the living room.
Mrs. Carey followed much more slowly.
Angel answered the phone, exchanged a few words with the person on the line, and then gave the phone to Mrs. Carey. The instant Angel walked back into the kitchen, she felt the intensity of Hawk’s stare.
“Do you do that often?” he asked, watching her.
“Answer the phone?” Angel asked, sitting down.
“Work yourself into exhaustion.”
Angel shrugged, trying to dismiss the subject.
“No,” she said calmly.
“Just when you’re upset?” Hawk asked, his voice too soft for Mrs. Carey to hear.
Angel sipped her tea.
“How long has it been?” said Hawk.
“Since what?”
“Since you worked until you couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, until your body just shut down and dumped you on the floor.”
For a moment Angel thought of refusing to answer. Then she realized that it didn’t matter. Hawk would just ask Derry.
And then there was the fact she
“It was more than three years ago,” Angel said, sipping her tea. “It was the night Carlson finally convinced me that the man I loved was dead and I was alive and there wasn’t one damn thing I could do about it except crawl into the grave and die with him.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Carlson wouldn’t let me.”
Angel’s eyes darkened, remembering Carlson’s cruelty. But it had been cruelty with purpose, cruelty that forced her to accept that she was alive and Grant was not.
Carlson had paid, too, more than she knew at the time. Angel hadn’t forgiven him for a year, hadn’t spoken to him, had refused even to look at him or the letters he sent. She hadn’t known then that Carlson loved her as a man loved a woman.
By the time she understood, it was too late. Carlson was inextricably bound up in her mind with Grant’s life and death. She could no more be Carlson’s lover than she could be Derry’s.
“Carlson loved you,” Hawk said flatly.
“Yes. Even before Grant did. But I never loved him, not that way.”
“Because he’s Indian?”
Angel smiled sadly. “Because he wasn’t Grant.”
“But after Grant was dead?” Hawk persisted.
With a weary gesture, Angel pushed tendrils of hair out of her eyes.
“Carlson still wasn’t Grant,” she said simply. “I couldn’t forgive him for that. I couldn’t forgive Derry. I couldn’t forgive any man.”
Angel saw another question form on Hawk’s lips. Abruptly she knew that whatever she had hoped to do to Hawk, she was being hurt worse by her words than he was. Memories punished her, memories she hadn’t allowed herself to review for years.
“No more, Hawk, please,” Angel said, her voice low, ragged. “Or do you enjoy torturing me with the past?”
Hawk closed his eyes, shutting out the confusion and anger in Angel’s face.
“No,” he said very softly.
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because I have to know about you.” His eyes opened clear and calm, as deep as night. “I have to.”
“I’ve never known a woman who loved anything but herself.”
Hawk’s quiet words destroyed Angel’s protests. If her pain could teach Hawk something, she wouldn’t fight each question, each answer. She had learned so much from Derry’s pain, and from Carlson’s. She couldn’t refuse another person an equal chance to learn.
In the sudden silence, the sound of Mrs. Carey’s walker squeaking down the hall toward them was very loud.
“That was Karen,” Mrs. Carey said. “She told me that the raspberries on the old homestead are coming on thick
