Hawk’s mouth flattened into a grim line. He remembered the instant when Angel had thrown herself at him, protecting his face at the cost of her own flesh.
And then he had repaid her care by making her bleed again, hurting her even more.
“When was the last time you soaked this?” Hawk asked, his words like a whip.
Angel tightened to hear the harshness back in Hawk’s voice.
“I haven’t,” she said carefully, neutrally. “It’s rather hard to reach.”
Hawk swore softly, a single violent word.
“I’ll heat some water,” he said curtly.
Angel started to object, then realized it would do no good. She looked at the sun.
Plenty of time left for cod fishing, she reassured herself. A whole afternoon.
Maybe even a nap.
She hadn’t slept very well last night, with every sense alert to Hawk’s presence on the small boat. Not that a bigger boat would have been any better. At times, the knowledge that she and Hawk shared the same world was enough to unnerve Angel.
While Hawk heated the water, Angel spread the picnic quilt over the pad at the stern of the boat, where she had slept the night before. Carefully she stretched out on her stomach.
Though she wore only a bathing suit, she wasn’t cold. The sun was directly overhead, pouring warmth and light into the tiny, sheltered bay. The boat rocked very gently, rising with the subtle movements of the tide.
Random fingers of wind combed the trees, making them shiver and sigh, sounds that blended with the liquid murmur of water.
“Are you awake?” Hawk asked softly.
“Mmmmmm,” Angel said.
She turned her face toward Hawk, too relaxed to worry about making whole words into sentences.
Hawk looked at Angel with a hunger he could barely conceal. Her eyelashes made intriguing, fringed shadows that quivered across her clear skin. Sun had brought a delicate flush to her cheeks, and peace had softened her lips into full, sensual curves. The bathing suit was the exact color of her eyes in the sun, vivid blue-green, shining softly.
She had unclipped her hair and swept it aside. It shimmered white-gold in the sun, a fire burning across the dark quilt. Then there was the smooth curve of her shoulders, the tempting shadow valley of her spine, the contrast of her narrow waist against the surprisingly ripe swell of her hips, the graceful length of her legs emphasized by the French cut of her suit . . .
Every line of Angel’s body was so essentially feminine that Hawk had to look away from her for a moment in order to control the hunger that raged through him.
After a few moments, Hawk sat down next to Angel. He concentrated on wringing out the washcloth in the pan of gently steaming water. The sounds were liquid, sensual, like the sea and the sun and the random caress of the wind.
Hunger was an aching, insistent heat between Hawk’s thighs. Grimly he shaped the washcloth into a pad and placed it on the small, angry wound.
“Tell me if it’s too hot,” Hawk said.
Angel’s eyes closed until there was only a suggestion of blue-green glitter.
“Does it hurt?” Hawk asked softly, his voice gritty. Then, “I don’t want to hurt you again, Angel.”
Her breath came out slowly.
“It’s fine, Hawk.”
He let out a long breath. “Good. I’ll be back in a minute.”
When Hawk returned, he was wearing jeans over his swim trunks. He rinsed out the wash-cloth, renewing its heat. With the gentleness that was becoming second nature when he touched Angel, Hawk placed the pad over the wound.
“All right?” he asked quietly.
Angel nodded, sending ripples of light through her hair.
Sitting down again, Hawk looked at Angel with dark brooding eyes. Every time he rinsed out the washcloth, the twin wounds mocked him.
No one had ever gone out of the way to save Hawk from hurt before. Angel’s unselfishness was as shattering to him as her innocence.
And now he wanted her as he had never wanted a woman in his life. Yet even greater than his desire was his determination not to hurt her again. She had been hurt too much already, lost too much.
There were too many ghosts in her beautiful eyes.
“You should have let the hook go into me.”
Hawk didn’t realize that he had spoken his thought aloud until Angel’s eyes opened, blue-green, as deep as the sea.
“I couldn’t,” she said simply.
“Why not? Other people would have.”
Angel tried to answer, but in the end could only shrug.
“I just couldn’t. I knew what was happening. You didn’t. You had no way to protect yourself from something you couldn’t foresee.”
“That’s the nature of life,” Hawk said sardonically. Then, much more softly, “I wish I had known you a long time ago. Before—”
Abruptly his words stopped. He rinsed out the cloth again, replaced it very gently on her skin.
“Before what?” Angel asked.
She watched Hawk from beneath her long eyelashes, wondering what memories had drawn his face into cold predatory lines.
“Who was she, Hawk?”
“There was more than one.”
The sardonic voice and cold line of Hawk’s mouth were back, yet his hands were still gentle. Then his face changed, hardening into contempt.
“That’s not quite true,” he said clearly. “There was only one woman, really. The first one. She taught me everything a woman can teach a man.”
“Except love.”
“She didn’t have that in her.”
Angel closed her eyes against sudden tears. She could no longer bear to see his eyes narrowed against memories that brought only pain. The hunger and the yearning buried deep within him reached out to Angel with unnerving force.
Who was she?
What did she do that taught Hawk hatred rather than love?
When Angel opened her eyes, Hawk was gone.
Before she could call out, he emerged from the cabin with a basin of steaming water in his hands. He sat down again, then bent over Angel and touched the skin around her wounds with exquisite care.
She drew in a swift breath.
“Hurt?” Hawk asked, lifting his fingers.
Angel shook her head. She could think of no way to tell Hawk that it was pleasure rather than pain that had made her gasp.
The gentleness of his touch radiated through her, taking away pain as surely as hot water took the inflammation from her back. The washcloth touched her again, bringing a soothing, healing heat to her flesh. With a shivering breath, Angel relaxed and gave herself to the sensation of his unexpected tenderness.
Hawk saw as well as felt Angel give herself to his touch. The knowledge that he had brought her something besides pain eased the talons of need and regret digging into him.
Then the easing of his own tension taught him that there was more to his desire for Angel than simple sexual hunger.
He needed to know that he was capable of more than destruction and hurt. He needed to believe that being with Angel wouldn’t be another kind of wounding for her, a deeper, more destructive wounding that would ultimately poison her as he had been poisoned long ago.
Hawk couldn’t take back the past, wiping out his bitterness and all its consequences. He could try to explain what had happened, though, and then perhaps Angel would realize that he hadn’t meant to hurt her, not really.
Not the person who was Angel Lange.
Hawk had simply been doing what he had always done since he was eighteen, using women as casually and cruelly as he himself had been used.
But how can I explain that?
When Hawk finally spoke, his voice was as calm as the soft sounds of the water as he rinsed the washcloth.
“I was twelve when my father died,” Hawk said. “The tractor rolled on him, crushing him. I tried . . . but there was nothing I could do to help him.”
Angel’s hands curled slightly, fingernai
ls digging into the quilt. Hawk spoke of death so calmly, a fact like sunset, just one fact among the many facts of life.
“Grandma and I couldn’t handle the farm alone, but we couldn’t afford to hire a man,” Hawk said. “She had another grandchild. A true grandchild, as she always pointed out to me. Her daughter’s daughter.”
Silence. Then, “Jenna was eighteen when she came to live with us. She was strong, wild, and cold as a winter wind.”
Instinctively Angel knew that Jenna was the woman who had taught Hawk how to hate. It was there in his voice, ice and contempt.
“The three of us kept that farm alive,” Hawk said. “It was brutal work. Grandma died when I was fourteen. Jenna became my guardian.”
Hawk hesitated, comparing what he was about to tell Angel with her own teenage years, picnics on the beach and laughter. Innocence.
“Jenna seduced me the night of Grandma’s funeral.”
Angel couldn’t conceal the shock that went through her.
“You were only fourteen!” she said.
“I was man-sized and I’d been woman hungry for two years without knowing it. Jenna knew, though. She knew everything about men. She was a born whore. Cold-hearted screwing was her specialty.”
Angel made a small sound.
“I didn’t know what Jenna was then,” Hawk said, his voice rich with self-contempt. “My body was a man’s, but my judgment and emotions were those of a boy. I thought Jenna was the most perfect woman God ever made.”
Hawk’s near-silent, bitter laughter raked over Angel’s nerves. She bit back a protest at the pain he had endured.
The pain was still caught within.
“The truth was a bit different,” Hawk said. “The truth was that I was the biggest fool God ever made.”
Angel rose up on her elbows, twisting in order to see Hawk’s face.
“You were just a boy,” she said. “How could you expect yourself to know about a—a—”
“Bitch?” Hawk suggested sardonically. “Whore? Slut? I’ve called Jenna those names and worse. All of them were true, especially the worst ones.”
His eyes narrowed to glittering brown lines, but his voice was neutral when he spoke again.
“Jenna told me we needed money, so I took to racing boats, cars, whatever I could get my hands on. I had good reflexes and a kid’s belief in life everlasting. I won more than I lost.”
Breath held, Angel waited.
“I gave the money to Jenna,” Hawk said, “and she kept the bank from closing us down during the dry years. Then we had two good years, rain and sun in just the right amounts at just the right times.”
Hawk looked at Angel and realized that the washcloth had fallen from her back.
“Lie down,” he said quietly.
Angel hesitated. She wanted to see Hawk’s face while he talked.
Strong hands pressed gently on her shoulders.
She gave in, lying down again. But her eyes never left his face as he wrung out the wash-cloth in hot water. She hardly noticed when the cloth again rested on her back, held in place by the light pressure of Hawk’s hand.
“I kept on racing,” Hawk said. “The money was better than anything I could make working on the farm. Then Jenna came to me with a plan—sell the farm and buy a real car for me to race.”
Hawk’s voice was lazy, but cold contempt for himself and Jenna made every word distinct, cutting.
“I couldn’t believe my luck,” he said. “Not only was I screwing the hottest piece of tail in all of Texas, but she was willing to give me her half of the farm so that I could race in the big time. What more could any boy ask?”
Love, said Angel.
But she said it only to herself. She was learning why Hawk thought love such a bitter sham.
“So we went to the lawyer and signed the papers,” Hawk continued. “The money would come to me on my eighteenth birthday, the day Jenna stopped being my guardian. We were going to get married, buy a race car, and live happily ever after.”
Hawk said no more.
Angel tensed. She didn’t want to ask, knew she shouldn’t, she had no right . . . but she couldn’t stop herself.
“What happened?” Angel asked starkly.
22
At first Angel didn’t think that Hawk was going to answer. Then he shrugged and began speaking again. His voice was cold and remote.
And so was Hawk.
“I came back from a race the day of my eighteenth birthday, grinning like an idiot, a shiny plastic trophy in my hands,” Hawk said. “There was nobody in the house but a young woman. A stranger. She was pregnant, and as surprised to see me as I was to see her.”
When the silence became more difficult than words, Angel said, “I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I. Then she told me that her husband had bought the farm from Jenna, paid cash, owned every damn thing except the clothes on my back.”
The silence stretched so long that Angel was afraid Hawk wouldn’t speak anymore. Finally he did. His voice was flat, bland, as though the past no longer had the power to hurt him.
It hurt Angel, though. She kept thinking of the boy who had hoarded a Christmas candy cane and still treasured the sweet memory, a tangible symbol of someone caring for him, if only a little, and only once.
“Seems that I’d signed my half of the farm over to Jenna in that lawyer’s office,” Hawk said.
Contempt and amusement laced his voice and made his eyes as bleak as a winter sky.
“Seems that Jenna had been sleeping with that lawyer for a while,” Hawk said. “Seems that I was on my own. And Jenna? Well, Jenna was gone. Big city lights and men who didn’t have Texas dirt ground into the skin of their hands.”
“What did you do?” asked Angel after a moment.
Her voice was soft, almost afraid. The Hawk she knew today would have hunted Jenna down. Then Angel realized that the Hawk she knew today wouldn’t have been taken in by Jenna.
Hawk wouldn’t have cared enough to hunt anyone down.
“I raced cars,” Hawk said.
The clipped words told Angel more than she wanted to know. She saw a younger Hawk driving like a man possessed, not caring about living or dying or anything in between.
“I had women, too,” Hawk said. “As long as I was winning, anyway. Too many losses, a crash, and the women went away. Start winning again, and they came back like great, buzzing black flies.”
Angel closed her eyes at the contempt in Hawk’s voice, contempt for the women and for himself.
“You’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself,” she said when she trusted her voice.
“It took me a while to figure that out,” Hawk admitted. “At first, I was kind of disappointed by all the near misses.”
Angel shuddered.
“Then a funny thing happened,” Hawk said slowly. “Each time I nearly died, life became more valuable to me. By the time I was twenty-three, I knew that racing wasn’t a bright way for a grown man to make a living. It took me six months to come back from that crash, and another three years to make enough money to get out of the race game altogether.”
“What did you do?”
“Played the stock market. Bought and sold land. I had a flair for it. Like racing. And like racing, I didn’t really care whether I won or lost. The adrenaline was enough.”
“And now?” Angel whispered.
Hawk’s hand hesitated. Without touching her, he traced the smooth line of her spine and thought of all the women he’d taken and then left, the cold emptiness of the sky and his heart, the hunt and the kill and the taste of ashes.
“Now, adrenaline isn’t enough,” he said. “But it’s better than nothing.”
The bleak acceptance in Hawk’s voice was a talon sliding into Angel, pain searing through her. She closed her eyes for a moment, unable to bear looking at him without touching him, giving him a simple moment of human contact, human caring.
But she was still afraid of him, afraid of herself. Most of a
ll, she was afraid of the sensual hunger that rippled tightly through her when she remembered the initial beauty of their lovemaking.
She hadn’t forgotten how it ended, pain and contempt and fury.
Hawk lifted the cloth, touched Angel’s skin gently, and reached for the antibiotic salve. He had picked it up along with his jeans—the jeans he had pulled over his swimsuit, blurring the blunt outline of his desire.
He rubbed the balm into Angel’s skin so carefully that she hardly felt it.
“How does your back feel now?” he asked after a time.
“Better,” she said, sitting up. “Much less sore.”
Angel’s words reassured Hawk, but her voice was frayed and she refused to look at him.
“Angel?”
Silently she shook her head. Her hair fell over her face, veiling her tears before Hawk could see them. He had heard them in her voice, though.
Gently he smoothed back the bright fall of hair. Tears sparkled on her eyelashes.
“I’m sorry,” Hawk said, afraid to touch her, to wound her again. “I never meant to hurt you, Angel. Not you. I didn’t realize that you were different from the others.”
Angel’s eyes opened, releasing the glittering tears. Through them she saw the pain on Hawk’s face, the regret shadowing his eyes and making his voice hoarse.
“I know that now,” she whispered.
Slowly, Hawk gathered Angel into his arms, holding her lightly, murmuring words of comfort. Tears welled transparently, for she was helpless to stop them.
Hawk’s life had been so different from Angel’s. She knew now why he had become harsh, merciless, predatory, a man with neither softness nor love in him.
Yet he wanted love, needed it, longed for it with a fierceness that would have frightened Angel if it hadn’t been so like her own hunger. She touched his cheek with a hand that shook very slightly.
“It’s all right, Hawk. Now I understand what happened. You had never known love, and I had never known hate.”
“Angel . . . ” Hawk whispered.
Her lips curved in a sad smile.
“No wonder we misjudged each other so badly,” she said. “You thought I was pretending to love. That’s what you called me, wasn’t it? An actress?”