“Goodbye, Oscar,” Conn heard Dana say softly in such a heartfelt tone that he couldn’t help looking at her. He kept his eyes on her as she watched the bird sail out of sight. He wasn’t surprised to see tears in her eyes.
“Well, that’s all, folks,” she said, blinking them back. “It’s sad to see him go, but it’s also good to see Oscar flying without a problem. Good to have played a part in his rehab.”
Conn lifted the cage and started back toward the cabin. He didn’t talk. He didn’t know what to say. It seemed as if the only topics he could think of would encourage him to say something that might tip her off that he knew who she really was.
She walked beside the creek with her hands stuffed deep in her pockets. “This experience with Oscar has taught me that I like working with birds,” she said after a time. “I like getting them to trust me.”
“I could tell that when you flew Aliah,” he said, and then wished he hadn’t. Sure enough, she latched on to his mention of the peregrine falcon.
“I can’t wait to fly her again,” she said eagerly. “I’m recovered from the flu now, which is why I’m hoping that we can go to Shale Flats soon. Tomorrow morning, maybe?”
He took his time answering. “Not tomorrow. I’m leaving for L.A.”
He happened to glance down at her as he said it and was treated to the sight of her face falling in disappointment. He looked away quickly. He hated disappointing her. He realized that he cared entirely too much about this woman’s emotions, about what happened to her, about who she was. And that was very much a sore point that gnawed at the edges of his heart.
“How long will you be gone?” She sounded disheartened.
“I’m not sure yet.” He was going to leave his truck at the Conoco station so that Billy Wayne could replace the oil pan gasket, and he had made arrangements for the kid to drive him to the airport.
Dana trudged along beside him, her face devoid of expression. Suddenly Conn wished she’d say she didn’t want him to go. He wanted her to miss him, and although he knew that she wanted him physically, that wasn’t enough. He wished she would come right out and say that she liked his personality or that she cared what he thought about her. He wanted her to count him as more than a friend.
When they reached the cabin, they crunched through the fallen dry leaves to his truck, where he stowed the cage in back.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked.
He slammed the back of the hawk wagon closed and paused, hands balanced on his hips. He couldn’t go on talking to her when he really couldn’t talk to her, if that made any sense.
“Who’s asking?” he asked abruptly.
She tilted her head to one side. He figured she was trying to decide if he was joking.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, who’s asking if I want to come in? Dana Cantrell? Or Day Quinlan?” His eyes drilled into hers even as he hated himself for blurting it out.
He didn’t think he could bear the hurt and confusion that he could see his words engendered. A darting flash of fear flickered across her face and settled in her eyes. “You know about me,” she said warily.
He dug down into the pocket of his denim jacket and brought out her credit card. He held it up so that the hologram on it caught the sunlight. “You might want this back in case you need to do some shopping.”
Slowly her hand came up and took the card from him. She stared at her name until he thought she wasn’t going to comment. “You want to sit down on the porch for a few minutes?” she said at last, looking as if she couldn’t accept her own helplessness when confronted with the truth.
“Sure.” He might as well.
Dana walked over to the porch and lowered herself to the top step, and he did the same. She removed a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. After that, she lifted her face to the sun and closed her eyes. “I didn’t want the tabloids to find me,” she said. “They have a way of making my life hell.”
He gazed off into the distance where the golden leaves of an oak tree were turning brown and twisting in the wind. Several fell while he watched.
“So,” she continued, “before I came here, I took back the name I was born with, Dana Cantrell. I changed it when I went into television, and not too many people remembered it. I figured I’d be safe. The tabloids pay for information, you know. That’s why I couldn’t get too friendly with the Cougar Creek locals. You never know if they’ll turn you in for the notoriety it brings them or for the money or for a whole bunch of other reasons that people have for deliberately ruining other people’s lives.”
“So I’m the first one around here who knows?”
“As far as I can tell. I didn’t even tell my friends in Chicago where I am.”
“I thought you said you keep in touch with someone there.”
“I do. Or rather, I did. Not anymore. I never told Noelle my whereabouts.”
Dana didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, and anyway, he was trying to figure out what to do. What to say. Her fingers were systematically tearing the tissue to shreds.
“Dana,” he said musingly. He studied the side of her face, which was all he could see. “Or would you rather I call you Day?”
“Dana is my name now,” she said quietly, and he thought he caught a note of despair trying to seep out between the words.
“I need to tell you something,” he said, knowing that nothing between them would be the same once the words were out.
She lifted her eyes to his. He saw that she was puzzled, and he steeled himself. This was going to get worse, he knew. Much worse.
He drew a deep breath and steadied himself before going on. “Dana, I’m an investigative reporter. I used to work for Martin Storrs at the National Probe.”
Her eyes widened, and she paled visibly. For a moment she looked wobbly, almost as if she might fall off the step. He came close to whipping out a hand to steady her, but it was only a moment before she stiffened slightly and pulled back a few notches.
“I know this is a shock to you,” he began, but before the words were half out of his mouth, she had scrambled to her feet, had awkwardly grabbed the porch column for support, was putting as much distance between the two of them as she could.
“You bet it’s a shock,” she said, turning on him with barely contained fury. “How long have you known who I was? When did you find that credit card?”
“It fell out of my truck when I was in town a couple of days ago. You could have lost it the first day I met you for all I know.”
Her eyes flashed. “I’ve been paying cash everywhere. I haven’t used my card. I don’t know when I lost it. So did you invite Martin Storrs here to check me out? I didn’t even know who he was until just now when you mentioned his name in the same breath as the Probe.”
Her words cut into his heart like a cold, honed blade. He stood. “No, Dana, I swear I didn’t know you were Day Quinlan. I’m out of the loop as far as television goes, and Martin didn’t recognize you when we ran into each other at Susie’s diner. If he had, he would have mentioned it.”
“Martin offered you a job. I heard him say so when he called and left a message on your answering machine. Did you take it, Conn?” The naked pain in her eyes was eloquent, more eloquent than her words.
“The man fired me, and now he wants me to come back. But I haven’t said whether I would take the job or not.” He was sweating bullets under his flannel shirt.
“And you’re going to L.A. to talk to him, aren’t you? How much money will he pay you when you tell him you’ve found Day Quinlan? You need money. You told me so,” she accused. She was trembling from the force of her fury.
“That’s not why I’m going to L.A.,” he informed her hotly, chagrined that she would automatically think the worst of him. He supposed he could understand why she would be suspicious, considering her past, but didn’t his friendship mean anything to her?
Her face had gone as hard as a block of granite, and her fists were clenched at her sides. H
e had a sudden memory of how soft and sweet she had felt in his arms when they had slept all night in front of the fire. He made himself stop thinking about it.
“I won’t tell anyone. Dana, you have my word.”
Her outraged look and the fierce expression on her face told him how much she thought of that assertion. He was suddenly desperate for her to know that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her, not in a million years and not for any amount of money. His powerful feelings for her shook him to his core. He grabbed her wrist, aching for her to understand. “Listen to me,” he said urgently.
“I trusted you, Conn.” Her words stabbed him in the heart.
“Not enough to tell me the whole truth, apparently.”
She wrenched away with one final look of anguish, and without saying anything further, she turned and marched into the house.
Shaken to his depths by the enmity in her eyes, he didn’t try to follow her. Anyone else might find Dana’s attitude slightly paranoid, but he knew the lengths to which the Probe and its sister tabloids were prepared to go to get the goods on celebrities. He felt a heave of disgust for his own participation in such endeavors, and it settled into the pit of his stomach.
He would have pounded on the door and insisted that they talk, if he’d thought it would do any good. But Dana had made it abundantly clear how she felt about him and about the Probe, and he didn’t think there was any point in trying to change her mind. He felt as if he were made of very brittle glass, and if any more harsh words passed between them, he would shatter into a million pieces. All that was left for him to do, he figured, was to get in his truck and go home.
He didn’t look back, but he knew if he did, he’d see her face at the window, peeking out from behind the curtain as she watched him drive away.
Chapter Eleven
Dana had an appointment with her obstetrician in Flagstaff the next day, but it was all she could do to get out of bed in the morning. Sadness had settled over her like a heavy blanket; it threatened to smother her. She’d known all along it would be dangerous to fall in love with Conn. She just hadn’t known why.
She was still angry with him and still didn’t know if he had somehow, unwittingly or on purpose, managed to blow her cover. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of his connection with the National Probe. Should she believe him when he said he wasn’t going to sell her out? Could he keep his mouth closed around Cougar Creek? Or should she assume the worst and expect the tabloid press to descend on her at any moment? Somehow, regardless of their last exchange, despite the way she’d lashed out at him, she couldn’t imagine him betraying her.
Today she’d have to decide whether to leave here or to stay and take her chances. Leaving would mean that she’d most likely never see Conn again. Staying would mean putting herself and the baby at risk. It would be a difficult choice to make.
Finally, when she had pulled herself together enough to get dressed, she thought about the baby. Little Blaine or Rosemary was what this was all about. “We’ll get through this,” she told the baby. “Together.”
One step at a time, she reminded herself wearily. That was the best way. And the first step was to keep her doctor’s appointment.
The drive to Flagstaff went quickly because she was lost in thought. It was when she started down the off-ramp from the highway that she felt the contraction, and at the time, she didn’t think it was important. She felt it as a brief tightening across her abdomen, a stiffening of the muscle wall beneath the skin.
The first contraction was something to ignore, but the second one definitely was not. It’s not time yet! she reminded herself, trying not to panic. Uneasily she recalled stories she’d heard of women unexpectedly giving birth on airplanes, in bus stations, at work.
That was a frightening prospect. She told herself that she was almost at her doctor’s office, and once she reached there, she’d be fine.
The third contraction was much like the first two, and she couldn’t figure out if it was more intense or not. Probably not. But then she had another and another, and soon she lost count.
She found herself on an unfamiliar street and realized that she’d taken a wrong turn when she got off the interstate. She warned herself not to panic. Her doctor’s office was on Fillmore Avenue. All she had to do was find the street, and she’d regain her sense of direction.
She pulled into a convenient driveway and backed and turned while a group of small boys watched openmouthed.
“You lost, lady?” called one of them.
“Yes,” she said, adding to herself, In more ways than one.
She found Dr. Evans’s office only a few minutes later. For a moment she sat gripping the steering wheel, trying to pull herself together. Then she slowly got out of the car and went inside, trying not to think about the possibility that she might be going to have this baby now.
STILL TRYING to shake the cloud of melancholy that had hung over him since he’d left Cougar Creek, Conn went to see Jim Menoch the morning after he arrived in L.A. The editor of Nation’s Green was chubby, disheveled and jovial, and he was quick to ask after all of their mutual acquaintances. Conn had little patience with small talk when what he wanted to know was if Nation’s Green would publish his articles.
“I liked the Florida panther piece you faxed me,” Jim said finally, regarding Conn over the tops of his reading glasses. “I can pay you, oh, two hundred dollars for it.”
This seemed like a lowball offer. “Two hundred? Can’t you do better than that?”
“Conn, I can’t, and I’m sorry. We’re operating in the red every month, and we lost a major advertiser last week. The panther piece is great, but the fact is that we’re looking for less experienced writers who will accept a pittance to get published.”
“You and everyone else in this business,” Conn said. There had recently been major shakeouts after a lot of magazines were acquired by multimedia giants, and the Internet was siphoning off advertising money.
“Yeah, but it’s the reality,” Jim said easily. “If you can take two hundred for the piece, we’ve got a deal. If not, I can’t do a thing for you.” His hands moved outward in an expansive gesture of futility.
Conn leaned forward in his chair. “What do you think about the possibility of that article and some of my others that you’ve published in the past being collected into a book?”
Jim stared out the window. “It’s a viable idea,” he said finally. “We couldn’t publish it, though. We’re shutting down our book operation after the first of the year.”
Damn, Conn thought after he said goodbye to Jim and was on the way to the restaurant where he was to meet Martin for lunch. I guess I can eliminate freelancing as a source of any serious income.
It had only been a hope, and a small one at that. But he hated the idea that his prospects were narrowing.
SEYCHELLES was one of the finest restaurants in the city, a glitzy feed trough where the rich and famous went to see and be seen. When Conn got there, Martin had not arrived yet, so Conn asked to be seated at a table by a window. In five minutes or so he was surprised to see Bentley Howser come waltzing in. She was wearing a bright fuchsia suit, and on her way to the table, she blew a kiss to someone who looked a lot like Keanu Reeves.
Belatedly Conn realized that he should have been suspicious when his former boss suggested that they meet there; Seychelles with its lunchtime martinis and huge cuts of beef was no longer Martin’s kind of place. Probably the whole point of this lunch was for Bentley to lobby him to take over her job, he thought sourly.
“Conn!” Bentley crooned. She leaned down for an air kiss and continued to hold his hand even after she had sat down beside him.
“Martin will be late,” she said. “He had a meeting. So he sent little ole me to keep you company and give you our spiel.”
“Great,” Conn muttered, extracting his hand from hers.
“You’re not angry, are you, Conn? After all, I wanted to see you. It’s been too, too long.”
Conn was saved from having to reply by a waiter arriving with menus, and Conn dropped his gaze to the lines of print, all the while seething. His first impulse was to get up and walk out, but that would have hurt Bentley’s feelings, and he was fond of her.
He ordered a goat cheese, spinach and sun-dried tomato appetizer, very Californian. Bentley ordered something that looked like a couple of stewed capers on a sprig of radicchio, but then she was always watching her figure.
“So what is it that you do out there in Clutter Creek, Arizona?” Bentley asked.
“Eat dead people,” he said with a straight face, just to test her. He didn’t think she was paying any attention.
He had to give her credit. She didn’t blink. “Like the Donner party. Weren’t they holed up somewhere around there?”
“That wasn’t in Arizona,” he said with feigned patience. “And the name of the town where I live is Cougar Creek.”
Bentley waved this information away. “Cougar Creek, Clutter Creek, what difference does it make?”
“Quite a lot to the people who live there and love it.” He didn’t feel the need to explain that he was fast becoming one of them, especially after his experience on the freeway yesterday when he’d been stalled in traffic backed up for miles on his way in from the airport. He’d forgotten how wearing L.A. could be.
“And you fly those birds of yours quite a lot?”
He thought about his hawks, knowing from experience that it was hard to explain the hold they had on him. “Yes,” he said, cutting the word off short. For some reason a picture flashed across his mind: Dana as she flew Aliah and her eagerness and delight in the experience.
“If you move back to L.A., what will happen to them?” Bentley seemed genuinely concerned, which surprised him.
He pulled himself back from thoughts of Dana and started to say that he didn’t know, that it most likely wasn’t going to happen, but the waiter delivered the appetizer then.
Bentley took advantage of the momentary lull to lean across the table toward him. “Martin and I both hope you will take him up on the job offer. You must know that.”
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