Pregnant and Incognito

by Pamela Browning

  “I thought falconry was a sport. Now I see it as both an art and a science with its own vocabulary,” she said.

  “It’s not only art and science, but there’s a lot of ritual involved,” Conn said.

  “It’s different from keeping a bird as a pet, isn’t it?’

  “You may have noticed that although I’m gentle with them, I don’t talk to them—or about them—as if they were pets. I believe that these birds are as close to the way they would live in the wild as possible. For one thing, they hunt much as they would if they were free. Hunting is their natural behavior. I don’t teach them, I only assist them to do what comes naturally.”

  “How did you first get involved with hawks?” She focused wide blue eyes on him, rendered even darker by the navy of her sweatshirt. A crisp white collar overlapped the sweatshirt’s neckline, and it looked like the collar of a man’s shirt. One of her father’s, perhaps.

  He pulled his eyes away, thinking that it was easy to forget that she was pregnant. “When I was in my early twenties and living on the West Coast, my friend Steve showed me what falconry was all about.”

  “Did you—” she began but stopped talking.

  He cast a sidelong glance at her. She was biting her lower lip, a sure sign that she was thinking over what she’d been about to say.

  “Go ahead,” he told her.

  “I was curious about whether you felt the same way I do the first time you saw them fly.”

  He was amused. “I hardly know how you felt,” he pointed out, grinning at her.

  She flushed slightly. “Exhilarated. Amazed. And completely unable to recall anything so thrilling.”

  He laughed. “That’s exactly how I felt.”

  Dana didn’t ask any more questions after that but appeared thoughtful and contemplative. Her silence gave him a chance to recall what he meant to do for her. When he headed toward his house instead of down the road to hers, she looked over at him blankly.

  “I’m going to drop the hawks off, pick up my tool kit. No reason not to repair that step right away.”

  “But—”

  “No buts.”

  She settled back into the seat and stared out the window. He told her not to get out of the truck when they reached his place, but she did, anyway. She helped him by moving the equipment out of the truck while he saw to the hawks, putting them in their cages and closing the cage doors securely.

  When he was ready to leave, she hung back, peering through the mesh of the cages at the hawks. “Come on,” he said, trying not to let impatience seep into his tone.

  “I was thinking that they are freer than they seem,” she said. Her eyes searched his, and the strange thing was that he knew exactly what she meant. But he wasn’t used to sharing his feelings, not even about the birds.

  He tossed a scrap piece of board into the back of the hawk wagon. “If we hurry, I can finish up that step before lunchtime,” he said. She got into the truck and watched his hand as he reached for the ignition key and turned it. The truck roared to life, and he slammed it into gear.

  “Thanks for taking me this morning,” she ventured. “I mean, you didn’t have to. I loved it, I really did.”

  This would have been the time to ask her to go with him tomorrow morning, but something stopped him. He mumbled something more or less gracious and discovered to his surprise that his palms were damp. Why? She was making him nervous. He asked himself why he should be unhinged by her presence, but again he didn’t know.

  Surreptitiously he wiped his damp hands on his pants legs, hoping she wouldn’t notice. A glance at her profile told him that she wasn’t looking, and in that moment he thought he knew who it was in his past that Dana Cantrell resembled. Francesca Sorisi, that’s who it was, a girl he’d been crazy about in the fourth grade. Francesca had ignored him completely, and then the next year, when they were eleven and had become friends, she’d moved away. He hadn’t thought about Francesca in years, but Dana had the same sweet curve to her lips and the same determined chin.

  They drew up in front of Dana’s house, and she went inside while he repaired the stair. It didn’t take much. All he had to do was tear off the old board and put on the new one, a simple task. When she came to the door, she handed him a glass of water.

  He hammered in the final nail and stood up. She had brushed her hair back behind her ears, and she was smiling. He took the water and drained the glass, not realizing until the glass was empty that he’d halfway been hoping she’d ask him to come in. But she didn’t.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you. For taking me to Shale Flats and for fixing my step.”

  “No thanks necessary.” He stood with one foot on the new board, looking up at her.

  Perhaps it was just as well that she hadn’t invited him inside. If he stayed, he might get more involved than was appropriate. And anyway, with a pregnant woman, even one with no man in evidence, what was appropriate?

  She was still standing on the porch when he drove away, and he thought, but couldn’t be sure, that she waved before he disappeared around the curve in the road.

  DANA INSPECTED THE NEW step before she went back in the house. She’d wanted to invite Conn to stay for lunch, but all she had to eat was a couple of cartons of low-fat yogurt. She sat down at the kitchen table and thumbed through a catalog of baby items while she ate. But for the first time since she’d found out she was pregnant, she couldn’t summon any interest in cribs and blankets, baby monitors or little playsuits. All she could think about was going back to Shale Flats.

  Conn hadn’t mentioned that she could go with him again, but she’d been hoping he’d offer. Now that he’d left, perhaps she wouldn’t have another chance to ask him if she would be welcome on another morning.

  She’d loved watching him fly the hawks, his confidence as he tossed them into the air, his athletic grace as he swung the lure. And the birds—Dana was sure she’d never get enough of watching them as they circled and dipped, as they winged upward on streams of air, as they so precisely homed in on the lure and dived for it. When Aliah had come swooping toward her, she’d caught a glimpse of those luminous golden eyes, had felt caught up in the drama of the attack. It was something for which she had not been prepared, that sense of participation.

  Perhaps that was why she was drawn to experience falconry in more depth than she had today. She felt cut loose from everything about her former life, and in a sense she was. Her career had been all-encompassing, and her work had dictated what she did in her off hours, whether it was attending network soirees with Philip or meeting his society-maven mother, Myrtis, and her friends for lunch. It was important to be with the right people, to do the right things to advance her career.

  Not that she missed all of that. She’d been weary of it for a long time. But here there was nothing to take its place unless you could count reading dog-eared books from the Cougar Creek library and working on counted cross-stitch.

  The yogurt wasn’t enough to satisfy her appetite, but it really didn’t matter. All she could think of was that she wanted to fly Aliah again. And maybe Roderic and Fairleigh, Nickel and Muscatel. What were the others’ names? Oh yes, Rosalie and Suli.

  Roderic and Aliah, Fairleigh and Nickel, Muscatel, Rosalie and Suli.

  The birds’ names became a kind of litany, and she recited it out loud as she rinsed off her spoon and glass in the sink. Somehow she’d convince Conn that he should take her along with him to Shale Flats again.

  It gave her something to look forward to, and she needed that. She needed it a lot.

  CONN DROVE INTO TOWN that afternoon for what had become his weekly mail pickup. Cougar Creek, with its row of shabby buildings hunkered along one dusty main thoroughfare, would never show up on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. He passed LaVaughn’s Shear Delite, a hair salon, and Finnegan’s Hardware, where you could buy anything from a butter churn to a cricket bit, and the Cougar Creek Dry Goods, established in 18
97 and still, Conn wagered, carrying some of the same dusty merchandise stocked on opening day.

  The post office was a tiny building on Main Street with mailboxes built right into the outside wall. Waiting for him were several bills, a circular from the local hardware store and two letters, one from the administrator of a nursing home in California and the other from Martin Storrs, his former managing editor.

  He chucked the circular, stuck the bills in his back pocket and tossed the letters through the open window of his truck. He read the one from the nursing home as soon as he got home.

  It informed him that his mother was now fifth on the waiting list for Catalina-Pacific House, the elite nursing facility that he’d been hoping would accept her ever since she’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The administrator wanted to know if he still wanted the space.

  Conn threw the letter down on the kitchen table and went to stare out the window at the sun setting on the other side of the hills.

  Hell, yes! He wanted to take his mother out of the mediocre home where she’d been for the past several years and install her at Catalina-Pacific where she would have outstanding care. Gladys McTavish deserved the best of everything after raising him alone. She’d been abandoned at a young age by a husband whose whereabouts no one knew. She had worked hard in a textile mill all her life, and Conn owed her everything. He started to pick up the phone to call and tell them that his mother would be there as soon as the space became available, but then he remembered that he didn’t have a phone.

  The reason he didn’t have one was that he didn’t want people like Martin calling him, needling him, wheedling him to do things he didn’t want to do.

  Which reminded him that he hadn’t read Martin’s letter yet.

  He picked it up and slit the envelope, reluctantly removing the National Probe letterhead and walking back to the window where the light was better for reading. The postmark was over a week old, and the letter was handwritten, which was a nice personal touch.

  Conn,

  Hey, buddy! I hope all is well in your Arizona retreat.

  Actually, Conn, I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. You’re the best reporter I ever had on my team, and I want you back at the Probe.

  Why not let bygones be bygones? I’ll be waiting to hear from you. You’d better call me—if you don’t, I might take it into my old gray head to trek out there to talk to you in person!

  Best regards,

  Martin

  Conn wasn’t surprised at the conciliatory tone of the letter. After all, he and Martin had been friends for a long time, even predating Conn’s hiring at the National Probe. But he was amazed that Martin would be audacious enough to suggest that he return after the big brouhaha that had precipitated his firing, an episode that even now embarrassed him. He’d been so hot under the collar that he’d upended a trash can on Martin’s desk to make his point. He hadn’t realized that the remains of thirty-six hot wings could get that moldy in only a week, which was how often they emptied the office garbage at the Probe offices.

  Conn had no intention of returning to the Probe. It would be a cold day in hell before that happened. A very cold day indeed.

  DANA WAS ON HER WAY down the produce aisle at the Cougar Market when she spotted Conn out of the corner of her eye. He was hefting a six-pack of beer and studying a row of packaged chicken in the poultry section. It was unfortunate that he was so good-looking, so heartstoppingly handsome, the kind of man she would notice no matter where she saw him. Not that she was all that aware of men at this point in her life—far from it. The episode with Philip had been enough to make her wary of men, and she had been guarded around Conn at first. Now she felt at ease with him, though.

  She found what she wanted at the near end of the meat cooler, a package of Italian sausage, and walked quietly up behind Conn. He seemed preoccupied.

  “Finding what you want?” she asked.

  “Well, no, I—” He turned, his face relaxing into an easy grin as he recognized her. “For a moment I thought you were the woman who works behind the meat counter.”

  “You look slightly lost.”

  “I heard they had quail on sale, but I guess they’re all gone. If I could buy them locally, I wouldn’t have to drive to Flagstaff when it’s time to replenish my stock.”

  “I suppose the hawks can eat their way through quite a few quail in a week,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He cast a last look at the chicken lined up in neat shiny cellophane-wrapped packages of thighs and breasts, leg quarters and wings. He shook his head. “Looks like I was too late.”

  Dana tried to think of something to say that would naturally lead the conversation toward what she wanted most—to go with him back to Shale Flats. But Conn seemed distant, distracted, his demeanor aloof. They started walking toward the checkout, where there was only one girl checking groceries.

  Conn secured the six-pack under one arm and reached for one of the tabloid newspapers on the rack. It was the National Probe, the one Dana hated most. The reporters and photographers of that particular publication had made her life miserable for many years, and she supposed if she really thought about it, the Probe was one of the main reasons that she’d ended up living alone in Cougar Creek, cut off from everyone and everything in her former life.

  “Are you thinking of buying that newspaper?” she asked, surprised. From the looks of the bookshelves in his cabin, she had thought Conn’s reading tastes ran to nonfiction and the classics.

  “Not really.” Conn leafed through the Probe casually, pausing to study the table of contents, stopping to peruse a picture of a well-known rock group. “It’s something to look at when I’m standing in the checkout line.” After a minute or two, he stuck the paper back in its slot and drew his wallet out of his back pocket.

  “I’d never buy a tabloid,” she said firmly. She couldn’t believe he would, either, but then, Conn McTavish had probably never been trashed by the media. She had, plenty.

  He gave her a funny look. “Would you mind telling me why you feel that way?”

  “Shoddy reporting. Bad reputation. Terrible writing. They pay sources for information, so how can any of it be accurate?” She clipped off the words sharply, hiding her distaste.

  “Aw, come on,” he said. “Why so uptight? What would life be without interesting little tidbits about Hillary and Chelsea? Gwyneth and whoever?”

  “Give me a break, Conn. You don’t read that stuff.” She hadn’t either at one time, but she could have given him an earful if she’d been inclined. There was the time that Tattletales Weekly had published a front-page photo of her kissing a well-known baseball star who liked to dress in women’s clothes; the trouble was that it was a picture of someone else’s body with her head pasted on it. Another time, the Probe had reported that she was an alcoholic, which was completely untrue. And then there was the article in Wild World Times that claimed that she had been abducted by an alien spacecraft and her brain embedded with a microchip that would enable her to overthrow the government of Canada. That one had been such a howler that she’d had the story framed and hung in her office at GBN.

  The man in front of her picked up his groceries and moved away, and she stepped forward to the cash register. It was then that she caught the expression on Conn’s face. He looked flushed and queasy and generally upset, which was certainly not in keeping with his earlier joshing. The checker said, “Will plastic bags be okay?” and whatever she might have said to Conn about tabloid newspapers or anything else was lost in the ensuing shuffle.

  Dana waited while Conn paid for the beer, then walked with him out of the store. Time to change the subject, she thought.

  “Conn, I was wondering,” she began.

  He seemed to pull himself back from thoughts that had taken him far away, and he looked down at her blankly as if he’d forgotten she was there. That made it doubly difficult to extend her invitation.

  “I bought all the makings for stuffed manicotti, and I thought you
might like to come over for dinner tonight.” She held her breath, unsure how this would sit with him. He didn’t seem to be in a great mood; on the contrary, he looked moody and depressed.

  “If you don’t want to come, that’s okay,” she added hastily when he didn’t pick up on her invitation right away. “I felt like doing something for you because you fixed my step.”

  “Well, you don’t have to do anything, but I’d like to come,” he said, staring down at her in that unfathomable way of his. “What time?”

  “Oh,” she said, thinking. “Six-thirtyish?”

  “That’s good. And, well, I know you’re not drinking, but would you mind if I brought a bottle of wine?”

  She smiled warmly. “Of course not. See you then?”

  “I’ll be there.” He managed a thin grin as she waved goodbye.

  What was wrong with Conn? She’d thought they were getting along well up there at Shale Flats, and he seemed to have warmed to her interest in the hawks.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have asked him to dinner. Like it or not, however, she was committed.

  CONN THOUGHT ABOUT DANA all the way back home.

  He didn’t want to think about her, but he couldn’t help it.

  First there was her dislike of tabloids, which hit him where it hurt. Dana was not the only person he’d known who distrusted the tabloid press. And for good reason some of the time, though Conn knew better than most that some of the tabloids were trying to clean up their act. The problem, he knew, was not so much with the tabloids themselves. If people wouldn’t buy tabloid newspapers, they would cease to exist. As it was, they fed the lowest-common-denominator segment of the public, readers who liked to see the press tear people apart. The editors of the National Probe knew that the public not only wanted the dirt on famous people, they wanted blood.

  There hadn’t been a chance in the checkout line to defend the Probe and other publications like it. He wasn’t even sure he’d wanted to. It would mean he would have to reveal too much about himself, and for now there was no point in doing that.