But as pleased as Derry was about his own future, when he mentioned leaving, Derry saw the quick flash of pain that Angel couldn’t wholly conceal.
“Hey,” Derry said quickly, “I’ll visit you in Seattle.”
He didn’t say anything about Hawk visiting her, because it never occurred to Derry that Hawk would not be in Seattle too.
Angel smiled and kissed Derry’s cheek.
“Summers and holidays,” she agreed.
But the instant Derry could no longer see her face, Angel’s mouth turned down in a sad curve.
“I think I’ll take my sketch pad and go up to Eagle Head,” Angel said. “If Hawk gets off the phone before five, give him directions to the old Smith homestead. The raspberries are ripe, and he’s never gone berrying.”
“He got his salmon, though.”
Angel smiled. Yes, Hawk had caught his dawn salmon, had known the thrilling, primal power of the fish as it leaped and tail-walked across the radiant sea. The look of awe and delight on Hawk’s face as he had felt the seething, silver life was something Angel would remember long after the pain of losing him had faded. If it ever faded.
She had never known anyone like Hawk. She could only guess what life would feel like when he was gone.
“I still don’t know why he turned that salmon loose,” Derry said.
“It was too beautiful to kill.”
“So were the other fish he caught, but we ate them anyway, and quarreled over the last scrap.”
“They weren’t the first salmon of dawn,” Angel said simply, remembering and loving Hawk until she thought she would break.
Derry hesitated, seeing the depth of emotion that transformed Angel.
“I may have dragged you out of that wreck,” Derry said softly, “but it’s Hawk who brought you alive. I’m so glad, Angie. There were times when I was afraid that I had condemned you to a lifetime of unhappiness.”
Angel hugged Derry a little fiercely, then grabbed her sketch pad and fled.
She thought of Derry’s words as she climbed the steep trail to the top of Eagle Head. The small chiming bells around her wrist and ankle kept her company with each step. She was still thinking about Derry’s words as she sat on the very edge of the summit, sketch pad forgotten in her lap.
Before her was the Inside Passage, the restless sea and ragged islands crowned with evergreens. Peak after peak fell away to the east, receding into a distance veiled with a blue so deep that it verged on black.
Both harsh and serene, the country called to her senses as nothing had – until Hawk. He was like the land itself, a paradox of stone and warmth, midnight and noon, the enigmatic distance of the horizon and the intimate textures of the air, the salt of the sea and the sweetness of berries heavy with the promise of harvest.
“You love this land, don’t you?”
Hawk’s quiet question didn’t startle Angel. Beneath her concentration on the view had been a growing awareness of Hawk’s presence, a subtle certainty like the knowledge of her own heartbeat deep inside her body.
“More than anything except you,” Angel said simply.
Then she realized that she had done exactly what she had been trying so hard to avoid. She had spoken of her love for Hawk. She didn’t want to hurt him with the very words that should give him pleasure.
“What time is it?” Angel asked, speaking quickly.
She didn’t want there to be any silence that might seem like a demand that Hawk speak to her of love. She didn’t expect that of him.
She never had, once she understood what his life had been like.
“It’s almost five,” Hawk said.
“Do you have time to go berrying?”
“I made time.”
Angel looked into Hawk’s dark eyes and saw the future coming down on her in a soundless rush.
It was there in Hawk’s eyes, in his voice, in the fact that he had made time to be with her.
“Angel – ” said Hawk tightly, seeing the shadows deepen in her eyes, knowing why.
Overhead an eagle called. The high, savagely beautiful whistle descended until there was nothing left but silence and empty sky.
“We’d better hurry,” she said “We haven’t much time.”
Angel came to her feet in a graceful surge. As she moved, silver bells cried and chimed.
The exquisite sounds went into Hawk like a thousand tiny knives. His arms came around Angel, lifting her off her feet. He held her with all his strength and kissed her as though the world was crumbling beneath their feet.
Time stopped until Hawk finally released Angel, allowing her to lead him down the rocky path. Neither of them spoke, content to share the other’s presence with simple touches, gentle smiles, swift looks, as though each feared the other had vanished between one heartbeat and the next.
The silence remained while they drove to the berry patch. It was at the end of an abandoned, rutted road. A long time ago there had been a farmhouse, neat fields, and the orderly rows of a home garden. Now the fields were nearly consumed by returning forest. All that remained were waist-high fieldstone fences where raspberry bushes strove and twined thickly, growing over stone and field alike.
An ancient, magnificent climbing rose mantled the ruined stone chimney, all that remained of the farmhouse. From this bush had come the crimson rose that bloomed deep within Angel’s mind, triumphant and serene. She had first seen the Smith homestead and the climbing rose as a child. She had been haunted by the rose ever since.
As though at a distance, Angel heard the car trunk close. Hawk was standing near the rosebush, waiting for her. He had empty pails in one hand, a picnic basket in the other, and a thick quilt over his shoulder.
Angel took a deep breath, letting the future slide away, taking all shadows with it. There was only this instant, Hawk waiting for her, smiling his heartbreaking, beautiful smile.
She walked toward Hawk, wrapped in the sweet chiming of bells. She looked at the picnic basket and smiled at Hawk in return, loving him for thinking of it.
“A picnic,” Angel said softly. “What a wonderful idea.”
“I have ulterior motives,” Hawk said, his voice deep. “As much as I like Derry, I want some time just with you.”
Angel’s smile slipped, then steadied. She understood how Hawk felt. They were alone only when they were on the boat or late at night when the house was all darkness. There hadn’t been enough time for just being together, sharing the silences and small touches that spoke so eloquently of their pleasure in each other.
Not enough time.
Deliberately, Angel tilted her face up to the old climbing rose. A single blossom remained, its petals soft and quivering, gathering the rich afternoon light into each luminous crimson curve.
She closed her eyes and wondered if the fragile rose knew that winter was closer with each sunset.
Hawk bent and kissed Angel’s lips gently. He sensed the sorrow in her, knew its cause, and was helpless to ease it.
The thought of how he was hurting Angel tore at Hawk, making him bleed in ways he had never imagined possible. He knew that the longer he spent with her, the greater the hurt would be each time she was brought up against his inability to love her as she should be loved.
Every day Hawk had promised himself that he would leave Angel, set her free, stop hurting her.
And every day he had awakened and seen an angel sheltered in the dark curve of his body. She would look at him, smiling, and he would know that he could not leave her.
Not yet.
He had to taste for a few more hours the miracle of her love.
