Read Online A Woman Without Lies by Elizabeth Lowell - Free Book Online

broad-shouldered man rowing steadily and another man straining against the coiled rod.
    “What happened to their engine?” Hawk asked.
    “The boat is from the Tyee Club. No engines allowed.”
    “Why?”
    “The whole idea is to hunt the salmon as the first Englishmen did—wooden oars and wooden lures, nothing but your human strength and the power of the salmon.”
    Hawk watched with sharpened attention. The small boat was going nowhere, pinned in place by a tug-of-war between man and salmon.
    “People come from all over the world just to try to catch a thirty-pound salmon from a rowboat,” Angel said. “If they succeed, they become members of the Tyee Club.”
    “Are you a member?” asked Hawk softly.
    “Yes.”
    “Who rowed for you? Derry ?”
    The question sliced through Angel, leaving memories welling in its wake like blood from a fresh wound.
    Grant had rowed for her. They had laughed and exulted together, making a pact to smoke the salmon and serve it at their wedding reception.
    Ten days later Grant was dead.
    “On weekend mornings,” Angel said, her voice husky, ignoring Hawk’s question, “Frenchman’s Pool is so crowded you can almost walk from boat to boat across it.”
    Hawk had missed neither the instant of anguish written on Angel’s features nor the unanswered question.
    “I’d like to try my hand at rowboat fishing,” he said. “Is the man who rowed for you still available?”
    “No.” Angel’s voice was soft, final.
    “Why?”
    “I’m not strong enough to row for more than an hour against a strong current,” Angel said, ignoring this question as she had the other one. “That’s not long enough to give you a fair chance of a fish. Carlson would row you if I asked him to. Carlson is strong enough to row for days against any tide.”
    “Carlson?”
    “A friend,” Angel said softly. “A very old friend.”
    The corner of Hawk’s mouth lifted. He wondered how many other very old friends Angel had up and down the strait.
    Angel looked toward Hawk again.
    “Would you like me to ask Carlson to row for you?” she asked.
    “I’ll think about it.”
    Hawk turned away from Angel.
    The smooth shift of Hawk’s muscles beneath her fingers made Angel realize that her hand was still pressed against his upper arm. She lifted her fingers quickly.
    “Do you want to wait while they land that fish?” asked Hawk, adjusting the boat’s throttles.
    “No. It could be hours. Salmon are very strong. Unless you want to wait?”
    “I’d rather get out of this crowd and teach you how to handle the boat. Which direction?”
    “North,” Angel said succinctly. “The farther you go, the less people there are.”
    “Sounds like my kind of direction.”
    Hawk sat in the cockpit and gunned the engines, letting them lift the boat’s gleaming white prow above the waves.
    As the boat picked up speed, Angel braced herself against the cockpit seat and stared through the windshield to the sea ahead. She looked at the water in front of the boat with intent, narrowed eyes.
    “Have you been warned about deadheads?” Angel asked.
    “What are they?” asked Hawk, answering her question and asking one of his own.
    “Logs that have broken loose from a towing raft. When they get waterlogged, they bob up and down just below the surface until they finally sink.”
    Hawk immediately cut back on the throttles.
    “Sounds lethal,” he said.
    “Sometimes. Most often you just get a cold dunking and a bashed boat.”
    A powerboat came up on their left, passing them in a brilliant cloud of spray.
    “Looks like no one told him about deadheads either,” Hawk said.
    “You get used to them, like wind storms and fifteen knot currents. Comes with the territory.”
    “Like car wrecks.” Angel flinched in the instant before she controlled herself.
    “Yes,” she said. “Like car wrecks. We keep driving anyway.”
    Hawk saw Angel’s ghost reappear, pain written for a second across the smooth skin of her face. Then