Pregnant and Incognito

by Pamela Browning

“Like ships,” Dana said.

  “Exactly.”

  He began to transfer the birds to the truck while Dana watched. She was full of questions, wanting to know in rapid-fire order how he fed them, when he flew them, if they flew every day.

  Conn answered her questions patiently. He’d thought her interest would fall away once she’d seen the birds, but apparently it had only stirred her desire for more knowledge. When he had loaded the birds into the truck, she climbed into the cab before he could open the door for her.

  The rainbow had faded, and the sky was clear above the mesa. Dana didn’t comment on the loss of the rainbow; she seemed quiet, remote.

  Which was fine. Hadn’t he been thinking that he didn’t want to get too friendly? That he’d rather not encourage her? Yet when he glanced over at her profile, he felt regretful that he couldn’t make more of an effort. He thought that she might have depths that he would never fathom, and for some reason this disturbed him.

  She turned to him when he eased the truck down the rutted road leading to the Cantrell place. “You can stop here,” she said. “I’d like to walk the rest of the way for exercise.”

  He braked to a stop. Better that she walk here than around the mesa, which was so far from her cabin.

  She opened the door, then hesitated. “The hawks,” she said suddenly. “It’s sad in a way. That they are captive, I mean, instead of flying free.”

  “We are all captive in some way,” he said. He kept his face impassive.

  She stared at him across the space between them. “I suppose so,” she said thoughtfully. She slid out and slammed the door. “Thanks,” she said through the open window. “You’ve been most hospitable.”

  From where he sat, he couldn’t see her shape. He could only see her from the shoulders up, and he realized that she had a lovely face. A perfect oval, the nose straight, nostrils slightly flared, a creamy porcelain complexion. A pretty woman.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and she smiled a little self-consciously before turning and walking away. He waited until she rounded a curve in the road before he backed the truck around and headed for the highway into town.

  He didn’t think a woman in Dana’s condition should be living out here in the wilderness. But he’d told her that, and it had only made her angry.

  Oh, well, what did it matter? It wasn’t as if he ever intended to see her again.

  AFTER CONN DROPPED HER OFF, Dana went inside the cabin and planned what she would do to fill up her day. She’d always thought that she would enjoy having nothing to do for weeks on end, but she was learning that it wasn’t easy to keep from being bored.

  It was hard to remember, sometimes, that she was no longer the person she had once been. For years she’d been known as Day Quinlan, not Dana. Dana was the name she had shed when she started making her mark as a television newswoman, then an anchor. She’d chosen the name Day because it reminded her that her career was a new day in her life, and the name reminded her of the name her parents had given her at birth.

  Day Quinlan had been on top of the world at age thirty-two. She had served as honorary chairman of Chicago’s Heart Ball two years in a row. As the host of Day Time, she’d spoken knowledgeably about the television business to a stellar gathering of TV commentators in Dallas; traveled to the health-and-fitness spa, Maine Chance, twice a year to shed pounds for the camera so that her figure would retain its svelte allure; flown on the network’s company jet on a regular basis. She had headed up a personal staff of twenty-four, not counting security, and lived in a luxury penthouse overlooking Lake Michigan.

  That was when she was Day Quinlan. She was Dana now. She was still thirty-two, but almost everything else in her life had changed. And she was bored out of her mind living out here in the boondocks.

  The library in town helped, though it wasn’t much more than a hole-in-the-wall storefront place run by Esther Timms, an overly plump woman who sat at the lone table and drank coffee most of the day while reading one book after another. Dana had occasionally joined her for a cup of coffee, and it was at Esther’s suggestion that Dana had recently taken up counted cross-stitch. If she didn’t go blind doing it, Dana would eventually complete a set of two samplers to hang in the baby’s room. And of course there was always cleaning. Today, she decided, she would scrub down the tile around the tub in the bathroom. The tile was thick with lime deposits from the water here, which was abundant with minerals.

  The physical labor had a cathartic effect, and she threw herself gladly into the task. But what Conn had said kept playing through her mind: that we are all captives. It was so true.

  Once she had been a captive of her own fame. She had thought she was escaping by running away. But now she was as surely a prisoner as she had been before—a captive of her unusual circumstance.

  It was something she had in common with Conn’s hawks, and because of it she had a special empathy for them. One thing for sure, though—Conn was much more interested in those birds than he was in her.

  WHEN CONN RETURNED to his house from Shale Flats, he felt at loose ends. For the first time since he’d lived here, he actually wished that he had some company.

  That woman, Dana. Had she spoiled this for him? Coming into his house, flashing bright looks at him, making him realize that he missed the companionship of other human beings? He had been fine, just he and the hawks, doing what he loved to do, accountable to no one. And now—as of this morning—he felt melancholy. Empty. Alone.

  He threw himself down on the couch and tried to read the magazine he’d picked up at the drugstore yesterday. He knew one of the writers, and critiquing his friend’s article was a good mental exercise. He had brought his laptop computer to this place, but he’d never gotten around to unpacking it. He’d left every other apparatus of his profession in his apartment in Los Angeles. Maybe what was wrong was that he missed his work, his writing.

  He tossed the magazine on the table, and as he stood up, a glint of gold caught his eye. He bent over and picked up a bracelet, a heavy and elaborate solid gold chain with a charm in the shape of a heart dangling from it. The charm was initialed D. Q., and underneath were engraved the words, Thanks for caring.

  D. Q.? Her name was Dana Cantrell. Or so she’d said. Well, it was none of his business. Anyway, the initials may not have stood for her name. They could represent a motto, like Don’t Quit, or a place, like Docker’s Quay. Or Dingbat Quotient, for all he knew.

  Conn pocketed the bracelet. He’d have to take it to her. He hadn’t planned to ride into Cougar Creek this afternoon, but if he craved company, why not sample lunch at the diner and hang with the locals for a while? He could stop by the Cantrell place on his way back from town.

  It wasn’t that he wanted to see Dana, he told himself, especially not so soon. But she might miss the bracelet, and he wouldn’t want her to think she’d lost it out on the trail. He was only doing what needed to be done. He was saving her the trouble of searching for the bracelet on the trail when he didn’t think she should be out walking at all.

  THAT AFTERNOON Conn pulled up in front of the Cantrell cabin and stopped the truck. When he’d dropped Dana off this morning, they hadn’t been in view of the place, sheltered as it was behind a clump of cottonwoods, and now that he saw it, he was shocked. This was where Dana lived? The cabin looked even worse than it had the last time he’d been here, which had been some years ago when he and Steve had gone fishing in the creek.

  The weathered wooden structure seemed to lean sideways toward a gully that was normally dry, but today, after last night’s storm, it churned with muddy water that spilled into the nearby creek. Several shingles were missing from the cabin’s roof, and one of the porch steps lacked a board. The windows were shining, however, and the porch was swept clear of leaves and debris from the storm.

  Dana materialized at the screen door. He wouldn’t have recognized her through the sagging mesh if it hadn’t been for her shape.

  He slid out of the truck and hai
led her. “I found something at my place that belongs to you,” he said. He scooped a bag of jelly doughnuts off the seat; he’d almost forgotten that he’d picked them up at Susie’s Powwow Diner in town.

  She came outside, and he held up the bracelet. “It was on the floor in front of the couch.”

  “It was good of you to bring it over,” she said. As he moved closer, he noticed that Dana’s eyes were the darkest blue he’d ever seen, and they shone with the brilliance of star sapphires. In that moment he thought she reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t think who it was. He stepped up onto the porch, skipping the broken stair.

  “You really should get that fixed,” he said, referring to the step. He dropped the bracelet into her hand.

  She tried to fasten it around her wrist, but her injured hand made it difficult. He watched her struggle for a few moments.

  “Here, let me help,” he said. He gave her the bag of doughnuts, and she wordlessly handed him the bracelet and held out her wrist, avoiding his eyes.

  This seemed utterly personal, too much so, indulging in the little intimacy of helping a woman with her jewelry. Her skin beneath his fingertips felt warm, and as he fastened the bracelet’s clasp, he couldn’t help but feel her pulse racing. It jittered beneath his fingertips like the fragile heart of a bird. He shot her a surprised glance, unsure what this meant.

  When he had finished with the bracelet, he dropped her hand and saw with bemusement that a blush had started in the hollow of her throat and was working its way upward. He had the thought that her fast pulse could be due to her pregnancy, but he just as quickly realized that it couldn’t be. Pregnant women didn’t develop racing pulses for no reason at all. He would have had to be a total numbskull not to recognize this for what it was—sexual attraction.

  Had he been giving off vibes in that direction? He didn’t think so. But he did find her attractive, not to mention disconcerting with those big blue eyes of hers, the depths of which seemed boundless.

  She opened the bag and inhaled the aroma. “Mmm, fresh doughnuts. This is a treat.”

  “Susie at the diner claims they’re a new batch, hot off the truck.”

  Dana shot a glance up at him out of the corners of her eyes. “Won’t you come in for a cup of tea?” she said, but she offered as though she didn’t expect him to take her up on it.

  Tea. He didn’t drink tea. He considered it a drink for wusses. He almost suggested coffee, but he thought such a request might embarrass her if she didn’t have any. Still, surprisingly enough, he wanted to stay.

  She was looking at him expectantly, the blush having receded to two dusky spots of color high on her cheekbones.

  “Sure,” he said as easily as if he drank tea all the time. It had taken him less than the space of a heartbeat to decide.

  He followed Dana inside, expecting the interior of the cabin to be dim. But the space was filled with sunlight due to large windows in the back overlooking the creek. The ceiling was high, giving a further impression of light and space. There was a separate kitchen and a sleeping alcove that could be curtained off from the main room by use of a sprightly patterned curtain.

  She said “Come on in here,” and Conn trailed her into the kitchen. It was small but neat with surprisingly modern conveniences, such as a dishwasher and a microwave oven. There was a newly painted kitchen table with four chairs, and it didn’t escape his attention that the windows were freshly scrubbed and that the place mats on the table looked new.

  “Looks like you’ve been working around here,” he said as she turned on the burner under the teakettle.

  “The place needed sprucing up,” she said. She put a hand to the small of her back in that poignant gesture that pregnant women have, and he wondered how far along she was. Five months? Six months? He had no idea.

  “Are you sure you should be working around here?” he asked, eyeing the canisters on top of the wall-hung cabinet. At five-four or so, he knew she wasn’t tall enough to reach them without standing on a ladder or a chair. He didn’t see a step stool around.

  “You mean because I’m pregnant?” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  She poured hot water over tea bags in a teapot, her hands moving dexterously. “There isn’t anyone else to do it.”

  He warned himself not to get impatient with her. “Don’t take chances. If you need someone to climb on a ladder for you, I’ll be glad to.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. He hadn’t noticed before, but they were pale and arched as delicately as a sparrow’s wing. “I won’t. Need anyone, I mean.”

  He sat down at the kitchen table and watched as she assembled sugar and lemon, two cups and spoons. She moved gracefully despite her bulk, and he allowed himself to imagine how she’d look in a nonpregnant state. She was delicately boned, and he had an idea that her pregnancy had allowed her to put on weight. Not that she was fat—far from it. Nicely rounded was how he would put it.

  And although the curve of her hips was hidden beneath the folds of the man’s flannel shirt she wore, the line of her breasts was revealed by the softly clinging fabric. He knew that the size of pregnant women’s breasts increased soon after conception, and he found himself wondering if her breasts had been anywhere nearly that big before her pregnancy. His mind produced a vision of large, dark, slightly pouty areolae. He was glad when she slid the cup of tea across the table at him so that he could concentrate on putting in sugar and stirring. He didn’t want to speculate about this woman’s breasts. He was on a self-imposed hiatus from women.

  She sat down across the table from him and offered him a doughnut from the bag. He took one, although he almost never ate sweets. He liked the way she bit into hers with gusto, but daintily. She licked the sugar from her lips, completely unaware that there was anything arousing about the pink tip of her tongue.

  “Back to this nonsense about not needing anyone,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t mind if he backtracked to their previous conversation. “Why is that?”

  She looked disconcerted. “I don’t, that’s all.”

  “Your family must be concerned about your living out here all by yourself.” He was intrigued by her insistence that she didn’t need anyone during a time in her life when most women reached out to others—mothers, sisters, girlfriends.

  “I don’t have a family, no relatives at all.” She clamped her lips together after she said it.

  He could identify. “Neither do I. Well, I have an aunt somewhere from my father’s side of the family, but she never stayed in touch after my dad left, and since she married and changed her name, I’ve never tried to find her. But you, being pregnant,” and he stopped to clear his throat. “You must have friends. Siblings. Someone.”

  “No one.” She had withdrawn behind a curtain of privacy, and she seemed determined not to let him see behind it.

  Possible scenarios chased through his mind. A husband who left her? One that she’d left? Why?

  “So what do you do on holidays?”

  She shrugged and didn’t answer. “And other than your aunt, you have no family, either, you say.” She was looking at him across the table, clear-eyed and straightforward.

  “Well, there’s my mother, but for all practical purposes, she’s lost to me. She has Alzheimer’s disease and lives in a nursing home in California.” Maybe by opening up to her he could convince her to open up to him.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Dana said, and he sensed that this wasn’t just something she said, that she really meant it. This touched him, although he couldn’t have said why.

  “I’ve had a long time to get used to it.” He didn’t add that he hadn’t, not really. His mother had sacrificed for him when he was growing up, and they’d been very close. He couldn’t accept that she’d never be well again, would never be able to give him her approval, would never understand that it was her principles and her scruples that he had chosen to live by when asked to do the unthinkable by his boss.

  “I suppose that when that happens to
a parent, it doesn’t get any easier no matter how much time has passed.”

  “True. Anyway, I go to visit her now and then, but it doesn’t matter if I do or not. She doesn’t know me.”

  “It sounds like you don’t like going there.”

  He shifted uneasily in his seat. “I’ve put my mom on a waiting list for a premier care facility nearby, and I’ll feel a lot better about her situation when I’ve moved her there.”

  Dana curved her hands around her cup. Behind her the window opened on a clump of willow trees, and from somewhere he heard the chatter of a blue jay. For the first time he noticed the skimpy bouquet of wildflowers she’d stuck in a jelly glass on the table. Her wish to beautify her surroundings was something that he found oddly touching.

  She spoke carefully, giving him the impression that she didn’t often talk about personal things. “My mother and I had our differences, but my life would have been better if she hadn’t died when I was so young. She was griefstricken after we lost my father, and I’ve always thought that the stress of adjusting to life without Daddy hastened her death. She died less than a year after he did. A massive coronary from out of the blue.”

  “That must have been hard on you,” he replied.

  “It was awful. I sold the family farm, since I knew I couldn’t run the place alone, and moved to Chicago,” she said.

  “Why Chicago?”

  “A job offer. Advertising,” she said quickly.

  He narrowed his eyes. He knew immediately that this wasn’t a true statement.

  When Conn had been a working journalist, he had learned of a way to find out if the subject of an interview was telling the truth. The key was to note the subject’s eye movements. Everyone had a pattern—when they were telling the truth, they might look upward to the left or the right. Conn learned to establish a pattern with an interviewee by asking him casual questions about things that Conn already knew to be true—where the subject was born, his position in his company, things like that. He noted the interviewee’s eye movements when answering such questions, and if, during the interview, the subject gave himself away by flicking his eyes in a different direction from the established pattern, Conn would know the person was lying.