this year.”
“Yum,” Angel said, licking her lips.
The old woman smiled.
“I can’t pick them,” Mrs. Carey said, “but I can still make jam.”
“We’ll be glad to pick as many berries as you want,” Hawk said before Angel could speak.
“A hawk in a raspberry patch.” Mrs. Carey laughed with a sound like fallen leaves rustling. “Thank you. That was worth getting up for.”
The corner of Hawk’s mouth lifted slightly. He looked at Angel, then at the kitchen counter where the stained glass panel lay, then back at Angel. She nodded. He stood in a lithe motion and went over to the counter.
“This,” Hawk said as he lifted the quilt-wrapped panel, “is worth living a hundred years for.”
He went to the window that overlooked the breakfast table. Sun poured through, bathing the table in warmth. Shielding the panel from Mrs. Carey’s view, Hawk unwrapped the quilt. Then he stepped aside quickly, holding the panel to the light.
Glass blazed, filling the kitchen with colors.
Mrs. Carey leaned against her walker’s support and looked at the glass transforming her kitchen into a fantasy of dancing colors.
“That is the prettiest thing I have ever seen,” she said slowly. “Just look at those colors. Why, I’d swear that you could eat that jelly.”
Angel smiled widely, enjoying Mrs. Carey’s pleasure.
“I’m glad you like it,” Angel said. “It’s yours.”
The old woman turned and looked at Angel.
“It’s too much, Angie. I can’t take it. Why, you must have spent a lot of time – ”
“I’ve eaten your jam all my life, Mrs. Carey,” Angel interrupted gently. “You’ve spent years in the kitchen cooking for other people. Please. I want you to have the panel. I made it just for you.”
Tears sparkled in Mrs. Carey’s eyes. She pulled a lavender-scented handkerchief from the pocket of her house dress and dabbed at her eyes. Then she held her hand out to Angel.
Angel stood and hugged Mrs. Carey gently. When Angel stepped away, she saw Hawk watching, his eyes as intense as the sunlight pouring into the kitchen. It was as though he was memorizing each instant of affection, each nuance of giving and receiving between the two women.
“Where would you like this hung?” Hawk asked, switching his attention to Mrs. Carey.
“Right there, where I’ll see it every morning. When you’re my age, you need something to look forward to when you get out of bed.”
“You need that at any age,” Hawk said, glancing quickly at Angel.
While Hawk hung the panel so that it would take full advantage of the sunlight, Angel and Mrs. Carey worked on a list of what she would need for the upcoming canning season. By the time they were finished, so was Hawk. He took the list from Angel and skimmed it swiftly.
“Will you want these right away?” Hawk asked.
“Oh, no. Not for a week or more.”
“Good. Angel is going to take me fishing for a few days. Our last trip was… delayed.”
Angel wanted to object, but knew she couldn’t. When she had agreed to take up guide duties again, she had known that those duties would probably include the fishing trip.
Two days ago the thought hadn’t frightened her.
But it did now, for now when she looked at Hawk she saw more than his harsh, predatory features. She saw the shadow of a boy who had carried a green ribbon in his pocket until there was nothing left but a few bright threads.
It was an unusually quiet Angel who followed Hawk out to the car. She hadn’t thought to be vulnerable to him again, not like this, feeling his pain as though it was her own.
“I’ll stock the boat while you take Derry to the doctor,” Hawk said, watching Angel’s profile.
She nodded without looking at him.
“Do you have any calls to make before we leave?” Angel asked.
“No. The second part of the deal is launched. There will be one more crunch before it either all comes together or falls into a million pieces.”
The indifference in Hawk’s voice intrigued Angel.
“You sound like you don’t care,” she said.
“One way I’m rich. One way I’m not.” Hawk shrugged. “I’ve made and lost several fortunes since I quit racing cars. Either way, the adrenaline flows. Money is just a way of keeping score.”
Angel thought about Hawk’s words while she drove home. She was still thinking about them while she waited for Derry to be finished at the doctor’s office. Even when she and Hawk walked down the wharf to his boat, she was still turning his words over and over in her mind, like pieces of glass that she couldn’t quite fit into the overall design.
There was a wind blowing out of the north. Hawk’s black hair lifted and rippled thickly. The motion of his hair and the light sliding through it were distinctly uncivilized.
Angel glanced at Hawk’s profile, then quickly away. It was his watch she needed to see, not the untamed gleam of his eyes.
She frowned as she read the face of the watch. North winds usually blew up trouble. She had hoped to fish the tide turn at Indian Head, nearly three-quarters of the way up to Needle Bay, their destination.
But if a good blow was coming up, they would be lucky to make Needle Bay by dark. If the wind came too hard, they would have to shelter somewhere else along they way. Despite the protection of mountains and islands, the Inside Passage was treacherous to small craft in a storm.
Angel took the boat out of the marina as quickly as the law allowed. Without a backward look, she left Campbell River behind, ignoring the boats bobbing on Frenchman’s Pool and the log rafts floating along the shore.
The wind stayed constant, just hard enough to make some whitecaps and set up a distinct chop. She turned up the volume on the radio, listening to fishermen coming down from the north. From what she heard, the wind was no worse up there than it was here. Reassured, she settled in for the long ride.
After a few hours, Hawk gave up his exposed position in one of the boat’s padded stern seats. At first he had stayed out of the cabin deliberately, not wanting to make Angel nervous with his presence. Finally the sustained roar of the engines, the tangled white ribbon of the wake, the mountains rising green and gray from the sea, had all combined to relax him.
The wind and spray, however, were getting to the point that Hawk would be first chilled, then wet, unless he moved into the cabin.
Angel looked up, sensing Hawk’s presence.
“Getting rough out there?”she asked.
“A little.”
Hawk looked through the windshield and over the bow. In a gap between islands, solid ranks of whitecaps marched across the blue-black surface of the sea.
“Not as rough as it’s going to get, from the looks of that,” he said.
“That should be the worst of it,” agreed Angel, measuring the amount of rough water to cross. “We’ll duck into the narrow channel between those two islands and cut over to another route north. It will take longer, but it’s more protected.”
Hawk braced himself along the padded bench seat that ran around three sides of the table that was behind the cockpit. Without talking, he watched Angel handle the powerful boat. The stretch of wind-whipped water surrounded them, shook them playfully, pummeled the sleek white hull, then let the boat slide into the lee of an island where gulls wheeledand cried.
“Look,” said Hawk.
He touched Angel’s arm and pointed to her right, fifty yards away, along the sheer face of a cliff. Gulls were diving from the rocks into a seething ball of herring. Protected from the wind, the sea was green and slick, showing each bubble, each darting silver body.
Angel checked the angle of the sun, measured it against the amount of water yet to travel, and shook her
