Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

couldn’t live without one.”
    He nodded, seeming to approve the sentiment. “Someday I’d like to have a house with one of these in the yard.”
    For a moment we stood smiling at each other. More than once that morning I’d almost called and told him not to come. I couldn’t shake off the things Mother had said to me the night before; her words trailed through my head like smoke, poisonous and smothering. I couldn’t find the lightness of spirit to play flirtatious games with Luke. But now that he was here, all slicked up and making the same general impression as a gust of fresh air, I was ridiculously happy I’d let him come.
    He nodded at the plate of rabbit meat. “Lunch?”
    I laughed. “For the hawk. Let’s go down and see him.”
    The back lawn sloped away from the house, with Mother’s perennial beds on either side and her roses in the sunny center. Tulips and late daffodils dotted the borders with pink and red and yellow. The rosebushes bristled with thorns and tiny new leaves.
    Luke turned and walked backward for a few steps, looking up at the house, then around at the trees that ringed the yard. “How much belongs to your mother?”
    “An acre and a half,” I said. “All the trees on either side, and down to the stream in back. We’ve got our own private little woods.”
    “Sure beats apartment living. Now I see why you don’t want to leave home.”
    I let that go without an answer, unwilling to start a discussion of my living arrangements.
    At the bottom of the yard, we followed a path through a shield of evergreen shrubs and came into a streamside clearing. The four large rehab cages, which I’d built myself with lumber and chicken wire, were mounted on platforms four feet off the ground.
    Luke peered into the cages. His thick sandy hair had been neatly combed back but now drifted across his forehead again, and the inevitability of it made me smile.
    At the moment the only animal I had besides the hawk was a small raccoon with a serious bite wound on her flank. She slept out of sight in a nest box. Sunlight striped one side of the hawk’s cage, but the bird perched on a pine branch at the shaded end. He cocked his head, keen dark eyes focused on the dish of meat.
    I unlatched the feeding door at the bottom of the cage and slid the dish in, next to the wide shallow pan I’d filled earlier with fresh water. When I stepped back, the hawk crab-walked along the branch, talons scraping bark, and emerged into the sun. He swiveled his head to eye the food, then us.
    “Hey, handsome,” I said to the bird, “show us what a good job I did on your wing.”
    To my astonishment he lifted both wings, and in slow motion unfolded them, spread them wide. I caught my breath, waiting to see if he’d fully extend the injured one. He did.
    For a moment he posed in the sunshine, displaying his reddish brown underwings and chest and his dramatic black and white barred flight feathers.
    “Wow,” Luke said. “Talk about having a way with animals. Does he do everything you ask him to?”
    “I wish. I took the binding off a week ago and I’ve been waiting ever since to see him open that wing. You know, I don’t think he wants company. He won’t eat while we’re watching. Let’s go have our own lunch.”
    Luke straightened his jacket and brushed the hair off his forehead. “Okay. Do I look neat enough to meet your family?”
    I suppressed a smile. “Actually, they’re not here. They’re both at a professional conference downtown.”
    His eyes went wide. Then the corners of his mouth tugged upward as he realized I’d invited him knowing we’d be alone. “Well, then,” he said, “if we’re not keeping anybody waiting, how about taking me on a walk in your woods? I haven’t spent any time outdoors in so long, I’ve got a raging case of cabin fever.”
    “You should ease up on those sixteen-hour work days.”
    “All I need is a good reason.”
    When we turned I felt his hand on my back, a light touch, the briefest contact. Behind us, I heard the silky whisper of feathers and the thump of the hawk’s feet on the cage floor.
    The path along the stream bank was dense and cushiony with generations of fallen leaves, and so narrow that our bodies couldn’t stay separated as we walked. Our arms brushed, our hands touched. Above us a fuzz of new green colored the massive oaks and maples.
    “I put myself through a drill getting ready to meet your mother,” Luke said. “I had a lot of small