Pregnant and Incognito

by Pamela Browning

  “I’d better help him,” Dana said.

  “Can one of you stop by the library tomorrow and let me know how the owl’s doing?”

  “We both have phones now.”

  “Oh, good. I’ll jot down the numbers.” Esther pulled a pad of paper out of her car’s glove compartment and scribbled on it while Dana dictated Conn’s number, then hers.

  As Esther’s car pulled away, Conn told Dana to go inside and get a pair of leather gloves while he went around back with the box containing the owl. Dana was happy to let herself into the comparative warmth of the house. A fire had been set in the fireplace, ready for Conn’s homecoming, she supposed. Magazines were strewn here and there, and the place had a comfortable lived-in look.

  Poor Conn—no sooner had his houseguest left than he had been saddled with her. No wonder he was ready to return home.

  Conn opened the back door and stuck his head in. “Can’t you find the gloves?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look.”

  “They’re in a bag next to the wood box. Make sure they fit.”

  The phone began to ring.

  “Are you going to answer that?” she asked.

  “No, I’ll return the call later. I have to get back to our fine feathered friend. He’s making a mighty fuss inside that box.” Conn ducked out the back door again, and Dana went to get the gloves. They were of heavy leather, the kind Conn wore when he handled the falcons.

  The answering machine picked up the call as she was shoving the bag back into place. She recognized the caller’s voice immediately. “Conn? Conn, it’s Martin. Where have you been lately, my pal? I’ve got somebody else here who is lobbying for this job, so you need to let me know if you’re interested. Call me.”

  Martin hung up, and Dana stood staring at the machine’s blinking light for a moment. Conn hadn’t mentioned that Martin had offered him a job.

  “Dana?”

  Dana roused herself to action and let herself out the back door to join Conn in the shed adjoining the mews.

  He looked up. He was pulling on his own heavy leather gloves. “The gloves are for protection,” he said as he flexed his fingers. “These guys can be vicious when they’re hurt. Esther decided not to stay?”

  “She had other things to do.”

  Conn shook his head. “There’s an old Southern saying that fits her. Back in Clay Springs, we’d say that her tongue’s hung in the middle so it can rattle at both ends.”

  Dana laughed. “She’s a sweet person, but I know what you mean. I think she’s just lonely.”

  A thrashing ensued from the box, which was still closed. The bird inside let out a harsh cry of protest at its plight.

  “Anything I can do?” Dana asked.

  “Close the door to the outside in case our little patient takes it into his head to fly the coop.”

  Dana complied while Conn opened the box. Dana moved closer and leaned over to peer inside. Beady eyes blinked up at them quizzically out of a heart-shaped face, and small ear tufts stuck out from the owl’s head, giving it a slightly comical appearance.

  “It’s a screech owl, full-grown,” Conn said. He reached in the box and picked the owl up, but not without a brief scuffle. “Put the gloves on. I’ll want you to help me hold him.” Dana did as Conn asked while he stroked the bird soothingly, murmuring to it in a low tone. The owl glared at Conn apprehensively, once breaking the gaze to dig his beak into the leather glove. Then it let out a series of raucous cries.

  “This fellow can’t be hurt too seriously, or he wouldn’t be so feisty,” Conn said. He set the bird on a small platform, motioning Dana closer with his chin. “Come and hold him steady.”

  Dana advanced slowly so as not to scare the owl, and as Conn eased away, she cupped her hands around the bird’s body. “That’s right,” he said approvingly as she maneuvered for a better grip. “Hold his wings close to his body so he can’t struggle and injure himself even more.”

  Even through the thick gloves, Dana felt the bird’s heart beating. Conn ran a gentle exploratory finger down the owl’s chest and back. When the bird didn’t object to this treatment, Conn spread its wings and felt the bones carefully. The owl tried to get away when he touched a certain spot, but Dana tightened her grip.

  “Do you have any idea what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “His wing doesn’t seem to be broken, only swollen. I think he may have been hit by a car. A glancing blow off a windshield, perhaps, which can leave a nasty bruise. A car can be the worst enemy of a bird of prey.”

  At that point, the owl grabbed Conn’s gloved thumb with its beak. “Hey, stop it,” he said, but he laughed. After a moment, the owl released him and sat glowering at both of them.

  Dana was relieved that the bird’s injuries weren’t worse.

  “I can manage him now,” Conn said. “Go have a seat on that box in the corner if you like.”

  Dana sat down on the box and wrapped her arms around herself for warmth, watching Conn intently as he handled the bird.

  “Cold?” Conn asked sharply.

  “Not exactly.” The sweater under her jacket was warm, and she’d worn a long-sleeved shirt beneath it.

  “You can go in the house if you like. No sense in courting a relapse.”

  The empty house held no appeal for her, and it was much more interesting to watch Conn. She liked the way he handled the bird, his movements sure and economical. He knew what he was doing, and the bird seemed to sense it. It no longer struggled; it seemed to trust him.

  Conn set the owl on a scale and weighed it. Then he gave it some water. “Birds that have been injured are often hungry and thirsty. Sometimes they haven’t been able to hunt for days. This little guy seems pretty much okay, but I’ll keep him under observation for a while.” He opened the door of a cage and set the owl inside.

  Dana watched as Conn took some meat from the refrigerator and cut it into pieces for the owl. He put the food into the cage. After a suspicious look at Conn, the owl sidled over to the meat. Without even a moment’s pause he began to tear at the pieces.

  Dana laughed in delight at this sign of normalcy in what they had thought was a seriously injured bird. “I think he needs a name,” she said.

  Conn shook his head. “I don’t want to get attached to this bird. The goal is to release him back into the wild, which is why we don’t want him to get too accustomed to humans. He needs to retain his normal healthy fear of us in order to survive out there.”

  Dana considered this and decided Conn was right. “I’m going to call him Oscar anyway. I won’t get attached to him. But he needs a name.”

  Conn regarded her with amusement. “All right. But why Oscar?”

  “I had a dog once named Oscar.” She didn’t remember much about the dog, since her mother had banished him from the house the first time he’d tracked in mud when he was a puppy. Later, over her tears and objections, claiming that she didn’t want to keep cleaning up after him, Grace Cantrell had given the dog away. “I don’t like pets. They’re too messy,” her mother had said. Dana had mourned Oscar for a long time, and she vowed that if she ever got another dog, his name would be Oscar. Living in the city as she had all her adult life, she’d never felt comfortable about getting a pet of any kind.

  But this owl, this bird that was not to be a pet—well, Oscar seemed like a fitting name for him.

  They watched while the bird finished eating, and then Conn picked the cage up and set it in a darkened closet. “I want him to settle down and rest,” Conn said. He turned on the faucet at the small sink and began to wash up.

  “Mind if I take a look at the other birds?” Dana asked.

  He dried his hands. “Of course not. You can come here to see them any time you like.”

  She liked the idea of being able to visit the hawks. They went out into the cage area, and the first one she saw was Demelza, the kestrel.

  “I can’t wait to fly her,” she said. Demelza blinked at her, but she didn’t seem scar
ed. “Maybe she knows who I am.”

  “Probably,” Conn said.

  Dana moved up closer to the mesh. “Soon,” she told Demelza. “Soon, I hope.”

  They moved on to Roderic’s cage, and Aliah’s, and Suli’s. Maybe it was because she was with the falconer, but they seemed to accept her. She recognized a trustful intelligence on their part; it shone from their eyes. It struck her that it wasn’t so different from the expression in the eyes of audience members or interviewees when they realized that they had nothing to fear from her after she had taken the time to put them at ease.

  “How about a hot drink?” Conn asked when they had made the rounds of all the cages. “Martin bought a whole gallon of cider while he was here, and there’s some left.”

  She smiled up at him. “Great idea.”

  Dana followed Conn into the house and watched while he tossed a few cinnamon sticks into a pan before adding the cider. “I’m not too sure what I’m doing here,” he said. “This is how Martin prepared this stuff. He’s given up coffee and tea, says he’s into juicing and tofu big-time. I might as well warn you that I have no idea how this is going to taste.”

  When he’d heated it on the stove, he poured the cider into a mug and handed it to her. She took an experimental sip. “It’s good,” she told him.

  Conn, who had watched carefully for her reaction, grinned. “I’ll have to take your word for it. I’m sticking with the tried and true.” He poured himself a glass of wine and took her hand to lead her into the living area.

  Dana sat down and sipped the cider while Conn lit the fire. “So you and Billy Wayne are still going to Shale Flats tomorrow?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I think he’s got the bug.”

  “For falconry?”

  “Looks like it.” Conn stood up as the fire began to blaze and came over to the couch. She scooted over to make room for him, at ease with him in his house in a way she hadn’t been the first time she came here.

  “You know, Conn, if you need someone to take care of the hawks while you’re gone, I’ll be happy to help you out.”

  “You? While you’re pregnant? I wouldn’t think of asking.”

  She stared at him steadily. “You’ve got to get over thinking I’m this delicate little petunia who can’t even—”

  “Who is getting over the flu. Who shouldn’t have to deal with a bunch of screaming hawks.”

  “They don’t scream,” she said hotly. “Not a peep out of them tonight.”

  “I fed them earlier, so they aren’t hungry at present,” he retorted. He got up and rearranged the logs to produce more heat.

  “Conn, you’ve been a big help to me. I’d like to help you too. Anyway, when are you going to California next?”

  Conn considered this. “Pretty soon, I suppose. I need to check on my mother. I need to get her out of that place she’s in, get her into Catalina-Pacific. And I also need to figure out where I’m going to get the money to swing it.”

  “Is the new place expensive?”

  “Very. I didn’t expect to have financial problems, but buying this place cost more than I thought, and my tech stocks took a dive.” He didn’t want to talk about this now, didn’t want to worry about Gladys at the moment.

  When he turned back around, Dana was swirling the liquid in the bottom of her cup. “This was good, but I guess I’d better go home. It’s getting late.” She spoke regretfully, and he thought of their kiss earlier before Esther had shown up with the owl.

  He reached out to take her cup, but at that moment, Dana lurched to her feet, and he didn’t have enough warning to move out of the way, which, come to think of it, would have only tripped him up on the legs of the coffee table. They stared at each other eyeball to eyeball, almost nose to nose.

  Almost lips to lips.

  Dana tottered, looked as if she might fall backward onto the couch. He quickly reached for her and—

  And slid his arms around her. It seemed so natural to hold her that way, so right to be looking down into her eyes, which widened perceptibly. Her lips parted, and he knew in that moment that she wanted him to kiss her again. Kiss her now or forever hold his peace, he thought, or he could kiss her now and—

  Hold her forever?

  The thought came to him out of the blue, struck him like a bolt of lightning. His lips descended inexorably toward hers, and she gripped his arms. And he would have kissed her, too. Except that the phone chose that inopportune moment to ring.

  Disappointment registered in her eyes, and Conn said, “I can ignore that. The answering machine will pick up.” It was the second interruption in a night that had seemed to hold such promise.

  “Martin Storrs is the person who called earlier. Maybe he’s calling back.” She uttered the words breathlessly. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. He was sure of it now, as sure of her as he was of himself.

  But it occurred to him that Martin was likely to mention the National Probe, and he didn’t want Dana to know that he had ever worked there. It would scotch any budding romance, he was sure. So when Dana reached out and picked up the phone, handing it to him without comment, he pushed away thoughts about how soft Dana’s lips would feel and barked out a hello. He kept hungry eyes on Dana as she brushed past him and headed into the kitchen area.

  “Hey, Conn,” said Billy Wayne’s affable voice in his ear. “Did my aunt Esther bring you the owl?”

  Conn raked a hand through his hair, wishing now that he’d let the answering machine pick up. “Uh-huh,” Conn said.

  “I found the owl over near the bluffs when I was running my dogs there after I left your place today. The dogs might have got him, but I saw what they were barking at before it was too late.”

  “Great, Billy Wayne.” Dana turned around and raised her eyebrows quizzically. He raised one shoulder and let it fall in answer. After an answering small shrug accompanied by a thin smile, she turned away to rinse her mug out in the sink.

  “Well, is the owl all right?”

  “I think he’s bruised from a dust-up with a passing car, but other than that, he seems fine.”

  “That’s cool, man. Sounds like he’ll be okay. I’ll see you up at Shale Flats in the morning, right?”

  “Sure. I’ll be there.”

  Conn hung up, and Dana came around the end of the couch. Their previous mood—moods, if you counted the one that Esther had interrupted—had disappeared, only to be replaced with resignation. He might as well face it. This just wasn’t their night.

  “Come on,” Conn said. “I’ll drive you home.”

  Dana faced him squarely. “I don’t want to go home,” she said.

  “You—what?” He must not have heard her correctly.

  “Well, I don’t want to go home yet, anyway.”

  “It’s late.”

  “I know. Couldn’t we sit by the fire for a while and relax? You’ve been working frantically with the owl.”

  He had forgotten that she was getting over the flu. The fact was emphasized when she tried but failed to suppress a cough. He shouldn’t have let her come with him tonight. He should take her home and make sure she got to bed right away.

  To bed.

  While he was holding that thought, she sank down on the floor, her back against the couch.

  “That doesn’t look comfortable,” was all he could think of to say.

  “It’s going to be,” she said. She pulled a couple of couch pillows down and stuffed one of them under her knees. The other one she slid behind the small of her back. She patted the floor beside her.

  After only a moment’s hesitation he sat down and stretched his feet toward the fire.

  “Do you think we need to check on Oscar?” she asked.

  “Not at the moment. I’ll call the Raptor Center over in Toluran tomorrow and find out if there’s anything else we need to do.” He used the “we” unconsciously, not realizing until after he said it that he had naturally included Dana. “I mean, that I need to do. I didn’t mean to involve you.
”

  She turned her head and focused wide eyes on him. “I want to be included. It was so gratifying when I felt Oscar quiet under my touch. I didn’t expect to have such a calming effect.”

  “You were good with him.”

  “It was the first time I’d ever held a wounded animal between the palms of my hands. I could feel his little heart pumping against my fingers, and it was—well, it was incredible to know that I was responsible, or partly so, for his life.”

  For some reason Conn recalled Dana’s abdomen rippling with the movement of her baby and what he’d felt when he’d observed it. It had been a sight so moving, so beautiful, that it too had called forth emotions that impressed upon him the preciousness and importance of life.

  Conn laced his fingers through hers, suddenly serious. “You’re going to make a wonderful mother, Dana,” he said.

  She blinked at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “The nurturing side of you was very much in evidence as we worked with Oscar,” he told her.

  “A baby is different.”

  “Of course, but the feelings are the same. Protectiveness, and a willingness to do whatever it takes. You have those qualities, you know.”

  “So do you.”

  He squeezed her hand and let his gaze fall upon the fire. It was a considerable blaze, and along with the wine, it had warmed him through and through. A glance at Dana revealed that she was quiet and pensive, lost in her thoughts.

  When she saw him watching her, she smiled. “I’ve been thinking about a friend of mine. Tricia doesn’t have a fireplace in her Chicago condo, so she bought a video of a fireplace, complete with all the crackling and sputtering of wood burning. It plays for about thirty minutes, and then it rewinds. I saw it one time and thought it was silly. But then, my mother would have loved it.” She laughed.

  He laughed too. “I prefer the genuine article.”

  “So do I.”

  “On the other hand, if I had a television, I’d order one of those videos just to see what it was like.”

  “Why don’t you have a TV?” she asked.

  “People who get caught up in them experience vicarious pleasures. I’d rather be out there somewhere living them.”