Pregnant and Incognito

by Pamela Browning

  Conn had no idea how long she should stay in the tub. Half an hour? More? He sponged her face again, and she gripped his arm. It wasn’t a strong grip by any means, but to him it meant that she had some strength left.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.

  “Oh, I know—you’d like me to push your hair back.” She nodded yes, and he brushed her hair off her hot face. Her skin didn’t seem as hot as before, though. He thought the bath was working.

  He lifted water with the hand that wasn’t supporting her back and sluiced it over her arms. He kept talking, not knowing what to say or how to say it.

  “When you get well, we’ll go fly the hawks again. Would you like that?”

  Her eyes opened, communicated their interest without really smiling.

  “We’ll drive to Shale Flats early in the morning, and I’ll start you out by letting you fly Demelza. You know, the kestrel that you found on the trail? She wasn’t hurt that day at all, you know. Maybe a little frightened and confused by something. She flew away that day, flew away from me. My fault. I should have tied her to my wrist faster when I took her out of the cage.”

  Dana reached for the washcloth, wiped her own face.

  “I think the book I brought last night will teach you a lot about falconry. When you’re well enough to read it, I mean. And—”

  He didn’t know how long he went on talking. He chattered aimlessly, covering a range of topics until Dana put a finger to her lips. She didn’t want him to talk anymore? He knew he’d been babbling, and maybe she was too sick to listen.

  “I feel better now,” she whispered. “Can you take my temperature?”

  He reached for the thermometer, which he had left on the sink, and popped it into her mouth. When he removed it, he saw that her temperature had fallen to a hundred degrees.

  “That’s better,” he said with satisfaction. “Only a hundred. What do you say we get you out of here?”

  She nodded vigorously, and he reached over and pulled the plug up for the drain. “Hold on to me,” he told her as the water began to swirl away, and she put one wet arm around his neck as he eased her to her feet in the tub.

  But what to do with her now? She was standing there in a nightgown heavy with water, and the fabric was so fine and thin that it left nothing about her body a mystery. He could see it all—high, round breasts; swollen belly; underpants that did little to hide the nest of curls beneath.

  “You can’t wear that gown back to bed,” he pointed out, hoping for some guidance here.

  “Dry one. In the dresser,” she whispered.

  “I don’t want to leave you. I can’t have you falling and hitting your head or…or something.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “Legs are steady. I’ll hold on.” She grasped the towel holder over the tub for support.

  He didn’t like the idea of leaving her for even a few moments, but he knew it was necessary for her to get out of the wet gown. He draped a large towel around her and then went and opened every drawer in the dresser before he found a stack of gowns and pajamas in the bottom one. He chose one—it was pink flannel—and hurried back into the bathroom.

  She was grimly hanging on to the towel bar, dripping water into the draining tub. She looked like a drowned rat—a drowned pregnant rat—but it was clear that she was a real trouper.

  “Now how are we going to do this?” he asked her. His own take on this situation was Modesty Be Damned, but he didn’t know how she would feel about that.

  “Help me,” she said.

  He only needed her to ask once. He unbuttoned the neck of the gown she wore, discovered that it had a long concealed zipper in front, and, keeping his eyes averted, he peeled the wet fabric away from her body until it puddled around her feet in the now-empty tub. He handed her a dry towel and waited until she had dried herself as best she could, and then he held the pink flannel gown up and shimmied it over her head, pulling it down to cover the rest of her. If she was embarrassed, she didn’t let him know.

  And the odd thing was, he wasn’t embarrassed, either. He had thought he would find her misshapen body ugly or repulsive, but it wasn’t at all. It struck him as a fine thing that women had the capability to carry a child within for the months it took to grow big enough to survive outside the womb, and it seemed like something miraculous to him, now that he was aware of how the body accommodated the changes of pregnancy. He had once thought that pregnant women were awkward and ungainly. But now he realized that carrying a child was one of the most graceful things, one of the most exalted things, a woman could do.

  He helped her out of the tub and kept a tight hold on her while, with her slow gait, she made her way back to the bed. When she was tucked under the covers, her eyes held his for a long moment. “Thank you, Conn,” she whispered, and gratitude shone from her eyes.

  “You’re welcome,” he told her. “Now hush, and try to sleep.”

  She smiled through cracked lips. Bemused, wondering how he had become so nurturing, he found some petroleum jelly in an old jar in the bathroom cabinet and spread some of it on her lips with his finger. He had an idea that those lips would be soft and pliable when kissed. Before he had a chance to consider the ramifications of this discovery, she smiled, and he said, “Want me to leave the curtain open again?”

  She nodded.

  The idea of kissing her took root and grew in his overly fertile imagination. It might not be such a great idea to kiss her on the lips while she felt so sick. Still, he found himself wanting to lean over and kiss her chastely on the forehead, as if she were a little girl.

  But he didn’t. Because he was overly aware that Dana was no little girl. She was a mature woman. And she had stolen her way into a heart that he’d closed to all comers some time ago.

  Chapter Seven

  “Flu,” said Jeb Nofziger. “I’ve seen a lot of it in the past two weeks. When the weather gets cooler, people get sick. You can count on it.”

  Dana perched on the doctor’s examining table, and Conn had settled uncomfortably on a hard plastic chair in the corner, dwarfing it with his large frame.

  “Plenty of liquids, here’s a prescription. I’ll let you know what the lab says about your strep test.” Dr. Nofziger scooted on his wheeled stool to a desk where he scribbled a few lines on a prescription pad, tore it off and handed it to Dana.

  “How about you? Got any symptoms?” He peered at Conn over the tops of his half-lens reading glasses.

  “Nope,” Conn said. “I hardly ever get the flu.”

  “Lucky guy. You ever figure out how other people could avoid getting sick, you could make a million dollars. Say, young lady, do you have someone who can stay with you? I don’t like your being all the way out at the Cantrell place alone while you’re pregnant.”

  “I’ll be there,” Conn said quickly.

  The doctor blinked lashless blue eyes. “Oh. Good thing, that. Okay, any other problems, you call me. Got that?”

  Both Dana and Conn nodded. Dr. Nofziger stood and headed for the door, his wispy stoop-shouldered figure made even more negligible by the huge white lab coat he wore. He half turned and waggled a finger. “Plenty of liquids. Don’t forget. Can’t get dehydrated.” With that he was gone, the lab coat flapping behind him.

  Dana and Conn stared at each other in the harsh fluorescent light.

  “You don’t have to—” she whispered. She was going to tell him he wouldn’t have to stay with her, but he didn’t want to hear it.

  “Don’t be silly. You need someone on the premises until you’re feeling better. Let’s get going. I want to stop at the drugstore and pick up this stuff right away.” He reached over and appropriated the prescription form.

  “I—”

  He grinned at her and placed a finger over her lips. “It hurts to talk, remember? Come on, let me help you down.”

  Dana thought that she would be forever in this man’s debt for the way he had taken care of her
last night. What if she had fainted while she was all alone? What would have been the effect on the baby of a high fever that she hadn’t been able to break? She didn’t want to think about it.

  While Conn went into the drugstore, she sat in the car watching the traffic as it meandered along Main Street. The pace was so slow here that she had to laugh when people acted as if they were pushed for time. They knew nothing about being pushed for time if they hadn’t been backed up on the notorious traffic tie-up near Chicago known as the Hillside Strangler, where traffic from three major thoroughfares had to squeeze onto I-290. She’d been stuck there more times than she could count.

  When she went back home—

  But would she? Suddenly Chicago was the last place she wanted to be. Since walking off her show, she’d assumed that she would eventually return and pick up the threads she had dropped, but now, having experienced the ease and simplicity of life in a small town, was that what she really wanted?

  Conn chose that moment to swing out the door of the drugstore, and as she watched him sauntering across the street, she thought what a kind man he had turned out to be. This surprised her, and she hadn’t known it until last night. But he was.

  He slid into the truck. “Everything all right?” She nodded, her throat still so sore that she didn’t want to talk.

  “This medicine should fix you up. By the way, how are we doing for food at your place?”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “Enough to last a week?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, if we run out of things to eat, there’s plenty of stuff in my refrigerator. I stocked up while Martin was here.”

  As Conn headed the pickup onto the highway, Dana leaned her head against the back of the seat, and Conn turned up the radio. When they passed the road that would have taken them to Shale Flats, he glanced over at her.

  “We’ll go there as soon as you’re well enough,” he promised.

  She wanted to tell him she was looking forward to it, but her throat hurt too much. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift.

  She opened them again when she heard the crunch and pop of gravel beneath the truck’s wheels. They were at her cabin, and it suddenly sank in that Conn intended to stay there with her until she could manage by herself. If she became sick to her stomach, he would be there to see. If she looked like hell, he’d be there to see that, too. Last night he’d seen her looking even worse than hell, and naked to boot.

  But she didn’t have anyone else.

  “Here we are,” Conn said as he switched off the ignition.

  She hated herself for feeling weak. For being weak.

  And the smile she gave him was weak, too.

  She’d better work hard at getting well. She needed Conn, but only as long as she was sick. After that, she’d go back to not needing anyone.

  “I’VE TAKEN CARE of sick birds before,” Conn assured Dana three days later as he poked through the food in her refrigerator. The pickings were slim. “One difference, though. Even a sick bird eats more than you do.” He tried to glare at her and failed entirely.

  Ensconced on the couch, wrapped in a quilt, Dana grinned. “I told you this morning I’m feeling better.”

  He’d been relieved to hear this claim, but he remained concerned about her. Still, the pallor of the last few days had been replaced by her normal color, and she claimed that her throat didn’t hurt nearly as much after dosings with the medicine from the doctor. Her fever was down, and though she had developed a cough, the circles under her eyes were fading.

  “It’s time for you to get off this invalid food and eat a decent dinner, but I think I’d better make a quick run over to my place and dig a couple of steaks out of the freezer,” he told her.

  “I don’t—”

  “Yes, you do. Steaks, baked potatoes with sour cream, and you’ve got a can of green beans in your cupboard.” He recited the menu in hopes of tantalizing her. “Anyway, I’m supposed to meet a kid named Billy Wayne Sprockett at my place in half an hour or so. He’s interested in the hawks.”

  She perked up at this. “He’s Esther’s nephew. Esther is the misguided person who got me into cross-stitching. You know, the librarian?”

  “Well, Billy Wayne drove Martin out to my house when he first arrived in town, and one day when Martin and I were at the barber shop, Billy Wayne walked in and said that he’d like to see the falcons.” At one time Conn would have gruffly told Billy Wayne that the falcons weren’t for gawking, but something about the kid had impressed him. It hadn’t been the two-tone hair.

  “Probably a lot of people are interested in the birds. I get the idea that you may be the talk of Cougar Creek.”

  He scoffed at this. “If that’s true, it’s probably because they don’t have anything else to talk about.” He shut the refrigerator door. “I’ll be back in a while,” he said.

  “Maybe I’ll pick up where I left off on my cross-stitch,” Dana said. She reached down beside the couch for her needlework bag, but where it should have been, she groped empty air. “Oh, Conn, I think I left my cross-stitch in my car. Would you—well, would you mind bringing it in before you go?”

  “No need to act so apologetic.” Conn shrugged into his jacket. “Is your car locked?”

  “The key’s in my purse. In the outside pocket.”

  He went to get the key, and as he reached into the outside compartment of her purse, he dislodged a bit of paper. It fell to the floor, and he picked it up. It was only a scrap, the corner of an envelope containing what appeared to be a return address. He couldn’t help but read it.

  “Philip E. Grantham,” it read. The address was in Chicago.

  “Conn? Are you finding my keys?”

  He jangled them in her direction as he stuffed the bit of envelope into his jacket pocket. “Anything else you need from your car?”

  “No, Conn. And thanks.”

  He took her the needlework bag and left soon after, still puzzling over the scrap of paper. All his investigative instincts surged to the fore. Not that he wanted to stick his nose into all the intimate details of her life, it certainly wasn’t that. He simply wanted to know more about her. Their relationship had undergone a subtle change since he’d helped her through her bout with the flu, and he was becoming more fascinated by her every day.

  Why did she know Philip Grantham? What was he to her? A relative? A business acquaintance?

  Or—and this was probably a long shot—the father of Dana’s child?

  For some reason he didn’t like to think about the man who had fathered her baby. He wasn’t able to stop at the fact of the guy’s fatherhood; his mind was fertile ground for imaginings about what they’d had to do for Dana to get pregnant in the first place. It was disturbing to picture Dana making love with anyone, to think about someone else sliding close to her in bed and curving his fingers around her breasts. Or breathing in the sweet perfumed scent of her hair or—

  Stop it, McTavish, he warned himself sternly. Stop it right now. It’s none of your business what Dana Cantrell does with anyone. None at all.

  When he pulled into his own driveway, he wanted to feel a rush of pleasure at being home, but he didn’t. He turned his key in the lock and pushed open the front door, realizing that the place seemed empty, lonesome. The only sign of life there was the answering machine he’d unearthed and hooked up to the new phone. The message light was winking at him, and he checked his messages. There were two.

  The first one was from the administrator of Catalina-Pacific. “You haven’t let us know if your mother is going to be transferred here,” said the slightly accusatory voice. “There are many other people on our waiting list, so if you don’t intend for your mother to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to be part of our Catalina-Pacific family, please let us know.”

  He grimaced and hit the playback button again. The second message was from Martin.

  “I meant what I said about wanting you back at the Probe,” Martin said, his
hearty voice sounding tinny on tape. “I had a great time visiting. Maybe I’ll come back to Hicksville for a visit soon, and my door in L.A. is always open to you. Keep in touch.”

  Keep in touch? Well, maybe. If he couldn’t figure out a way to increase his income, he might need to reconsider Martin’s offer.

  Conn shut off the machine and went to the freezer to get the frozen steaks that he was planning to take back to Dana’s. Which he would no longer be able to afford if he put his mother in Catalina-Pacific. Anyway, he’d thought he’d have a couple more weeks to make up his mind, a couple more weeks to figure out where he was going to get the money that would make his mother’s move possible.

  While he was considering this, it occurred to him that the steaks would taste best if cooked on a charcoal grill, and he didn’t know if Dana had one. He went to the phone and dialed her number.

  It was busy. He hadn’t expected that, but it was no big deal. He located a small hibachi that Steve had left in the shed years ago. It was portable, and if Dana didn’t already have a charcoal grill, he’d suggest that she keep it.

  On the spur of the moment, because the packing box that contained it was also in the shed, he unpacked his computer. He was pretty sure he knew where to find the floppy disks containing those nature articles he’d written, too. He might have time to find them before Billy Wayne of the exuberant hair showed up to see the hawks.

  AFTER PRICKING HER FINGER again, Dana threw the counted cross-stitch sampler across the room in annoyance. It was the first day since the onset of the flu that she’d felt like doing anything, and now here was this stupid needlework and she couldn’t concentrate on it.

  She wished Conn would come back from his meeting with Billy Wayne. She wished she could convince him that she was well enough to go somewhere, anywhere. She wished—

  But every time she wished she wasn’t pregnant, she felt as if she should bite her tongue. Not be pregnant? She couldn’t imagine it. The trouble was that when Conn looked at her in a certain way, when their gaze held for a fraction too long, when she wanted an excuse to reach out and cup her hand at the nape of his neck—then she couldn’t help but imagine what life would be like if she weren’t with child.