Dana screamed, and Philip groaned. “If you don’t get back in that car of yours and disappear pronto, I’m calling the sheriff,” Conn said, his voice a menacing growl.
Grantham’s eyes closed, then opened again. He sprawled with his feet and arms going every which way, his mouth opening and closing as he gasped for air. He looked like nothing so much as a fish out of water. He put a hand to his face and stared at it dazedly when it came away covered with blood.
“Let’s get back inside. It’s cold out here,” Conn said to Dana. With a hand on her elbow, he guided her into the cabin.
After slamming the door between them and her uninvited guest, Dana lifted the curtain back and peered out into the darkness. Philip stumbled off the porch in the general direction of his car. She dropped the curtain and went to the wall heater, flipping the switch to On and standing in front of it while it heated up.
“At least you didn’t hurt him so much that he couldn’t walk,” Dana said into the silence.
“I didn’t want to hurt him at all. He aimed the first punch.”
Dana seemed distracted. “I suppose he’ll be all right going back into town. I wonder why we haven’t heard his car starting.”
“He’s probably still shaky on his feet. At least I left him in condition to drive.”
“But the snow.” She glanced out the window.
Conn shook his head in disgust. “He’s from Chicago and no doubt accustomed to driving in wintry weather. I’m not going to waste any time worrying about that slimeball. I’ll kill him if he ever comes near you again.”
They heard a car engine start. Conn went back to the window and watched as Grantham’s car drove slowly away, trailing a plume of white exhaust, its red taillights reflecting off the falling snow.
He was ready to move closer to Dana, preparatory to upping the emotional voltage of this little scene, but she shot him a curdling look. “So now that you’ve been to see Martin, should I expect a phalanx of reporters invading my property tomorrow morning? Complete with flashbulbs and TV cameras?”
He’d opened his mouth to reply indignantly when she held up a hand. “No, don’t. This has been quite a night for revelations. I’m not sure I can take any more.”
What he wanted more than anything was to see her love for him shining pure and lucent from her eyes. This wasn’t going as planned, to say the least, but he forced himself to remain calm. He had to make her understand that he would never do anything to hurt her. “Dana, I didn’t say anything to Martin or anyone else.”
Whether she believed him or not, he couldn’t tell. There was a tautness around her eyes that he’d never noticed before, and her lips were compressed into a grim line. He realized that despite her tough facade, tears were on the verge of spilling down her cheeks.
She started to turn away, but he was across the room in two strides. He captured her in his arms, pinning her to him.
“Conn, don’t,” she said, but he didn’t want to let her go.
“Are you all right?” he asked gently. “Grantham didn’t hurt you, did he?”
She took her time before shaking her head. “He didn’t hurt me.”
“Then why don’t we sit down and talk this over?” He started to propel her over to the couch, but she remained rooted where she stood. She gripped his arm with a strength that he hadn’t known she possessed, and her eyes were wide, surprised.
“Conn, wait. I…I think the baby’s coming.”
WATER. He knew you were supposed to boil water. First he lit a fire in the fireplace and then, telling himself that this would be a most inconvenient time to get the jitters, Conn went into the kitchen and put a big pot of water on the stove.
“Isn’t it too early? I didn’t think the baby was supposed to be here for another month,” he called to Dana.
“There’s some doubt about when I got pregnant. It could have been a whole month earlier than I thought, which means that my due date is coming up soon,” she answered, her voice sounding strained.
“Oh,” was all Conn could think of to say, because he didn’t understand the finer points of such things.
He was still running all possible options through his mind. At the moment, the snow and sleet were beating down too fast for them to leave the cabin, and the wind was howling relentlessly out of the mountains. What if Dana had been by herself when she’d gone into labor? It was too horrible to think about, and he knew that if there was one thing in his life that he wanted to get right, it was this. He hadn’t been there for Lindsay when she needed him, and he wanted to be here for Dana now. And his mother’s miscarriage all those years ago, when he’d been a little boy, lay heavy on his mind.
“Conn,” Dana said, “I think the snow has stopped.”
He rushed to the window. Sure enough it had. But for how long?
“Do you want to try to make it to the hospital in Flagstaff? I don’t know if the roads will be cleared yet. The snow was heavy along the highway.” He wasn’t eager to find himself alone in a snowstorm on a deserted road with a woman who was giving birth.
She looked up at him, her eyes huge in her face. She seemed desperately uncomfortable. A fine sheen of perspiration had broken out on her forehead. “Maybe we’d better.”
He let out a breath and rubbed his forehead. “Okay. Do you have a bag packed for the hospital?”
She pointed to two suitcases. “No, but the one on the left will do.”
“I’ll stow it in the car, then come back for you.”
“Toss me my jacket from the closet so I can put it on.”
Conn took her the jacket before going into the kitchen and turning off the burner under the water. “I’ll be right back,” he told her as he slid his arms into his own coat. She nodded, her forehead pleated with worry.
Taking the suitcase, he sprinted through the snow to her car, which was the vehicle he thought they should take in case she needed to get into the back seat and lie down. He opened the trunk preparatory to putting the suitcase in but noticed suddenly that the car’s back tires were flat. In fact, further examination showed him that its other two tires were in the same condition. He slammed the trunk and walked over to the hawk wagon. Its tires were also flat.
Damn Philip Grantham! He must have let the air out as his final revenge.
When he went back inside, Dana was sitting on the bed, wearing her jacket and looking forlorn.
“We can’t leave here,” Conn said, spitting out the words with a bite that he hadn’t intended.
She stared blankly. “Why not?”
He shucked his coat and hung it in the closet. “Grantham let the air out of all the tires, both on my truck and your car.”
“Oh, no!” For a moment Dana looked as if she were going to cry. He stood there for a second, trying to decide if it would be worthwhile to ask Billy Wayne to come out in his Jeep and get them. He had no idea how icy the roads were between here and town, though, and he didn’t know if the kid was a skilled driver or not. He decided against it, mostly because he didn’t want to be responsible for putting someone else’s life on the line.
Dana was struggling out of her jacket, and he went to help her. “Looks like it’s just you and me, babe,” he said.
She managed a bleak smile. “Looks that way.”
“I’d better call your doctor.”
“I’ll be in the bathroom,” she said. She got up and walked slowly there, leaning slightly backward to compensate for the weight of the baby. His heart went out to her. This couldn’t be easy.
When she came out, she asked what the doctor had said.
“I talked to his service, and they said he’d call back. Maybe this is a false alarm,” he suggested hopefully.
She sat back down on the bed and propped pillows behind her for support as she explained about her false labor a few days ago. “But I don’t think these are Braxton-Hicks contractions,” she said, her hands cradling her belly. “It’s different this time.” Her eyes sought his for reassurance.
&
nbsp; “It sure seems real to me,” he told her.
“I want to get up,” she said. “I want to walk.”
This took him by surprise. “Walk where?”
She motioned with her hands. “Around the cabin. Help me.”
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” he said doubtfully when she was on her feet. He kept tight hold of her arm with his other arm around her waist.
“It helps me,” she said. “I feel better doing this. Talk to me, Conn, please.”
“About what?” he asked, unprepared for this request.
“Anything to keep my mind off this. Your mother, for instance. You said you took care of her when she was pregnant.”
He didn’t want to talk about his mother’s doomed pregnancy. It seemed like a bad omen.
“I was only four. I don’t remember much about it.” But he did. She had collapsed on the floor of their little house, and he hadn’t known what to do. He had tried to wake her up, terrified and crying, and then he had run through the frosty grass to a neighbor’s house to summon help. That night his mother had lost the baby, which had been a boy. For a long time he hadn’t been able to shake the idea that it was all his fault, although he knew now it couldn’t have been. But he still didn’t want to tell Dana that the baby had died.
“How is your mother?”
Another thing he didn’t like to think about, but at least it was a safer topic. “I went to visit her. The nursing home she’s in now is crowded and not even clean. I’m going to switch her to another place as soon as…” He let the sentence trail off, thinking that this wasn’t the way to tell Dana that he was planning to return to the Probe.
She kept walking. He changed the subject. “I’ve written an article about the Florida panther. I thought maybe I could sell it to a friend of mine who edits a magazine.” He told her about Nation’s Green and how he had met Jim Menoch years ago at a fundraiser in New York.
“What kind of a fundraiser?”
“An ecology-awareness group. As it happened, I had just come back from canoeing in the Florida Everglades, and I’d talked with a naturalist there who has been tracking panthers for years.”
“I don’t know anything…anything about panthers,” she said with difficulty. He hated the idea of her being in pain, would have said anything to take her mind off it, so he told her about the Florida panther, about its habitat shrinking as more and more newcomers poured into Florida. He didn’t know how much she listened, and he wasn’t sure it was important if she did. All he knew was that he had to talk, had to keep her mind occupied. He ranged over a whole slew of topics—how he had bought Aliah, the time he had won the county spelling bee when he was a kid, his first job as a bus boy at the Clay Springs Country Club. He even touched briefly on Lindsay, a part of his life that he’d never discussed with anyone.
“So you loved her very much?” Dana asked.
“Yes, I did,” he said quietly.
Dana didn’t say anything more, but she seemed thoughtful. He continued to talk, finding that it was a catharsis of sorts. He didn’t intend to tell Dana about how important it had been to win a Pulitzer at one time, but he found himself telling her, anyway. He told her that he was casting around for new ways to earn money with his writing.
“Have you ever written anything for television?” she asked, proving that she was paying attention.
“It’s never occurred to me,” he said.
“Maybe you should give it some thought. My friend Tricia produces documentaries. Nature programs.”
“It’s an idea,” he said, considering it.
“Oh,” she said, gripping his arm. “That really hurt.”
“Is there anything I can do? Anything you need?” He felt frantic at the thought that this was so painful for her.
“I think I want to lie down now. The doctor hasn’t called back. Why not? It seems like we’re always waiting to hear from a doctor around here, aren’t we?” Her smile looked forced.
As if on cue the phone rang.
While Conn was talking to the doctor, Dana lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. She concentrated on enduring the ongoing contractions by picturing the baby. It would be a beautiful child with fluffy reddish-gold hair and gray eyes that would eventually turn cornflower blue. It would look exactly like her and nothing like Philip. It would be intelligent, alert, sweet, and dear, she thought as she gritted her teeth against the waves of the next contraction.
Conn put down the phone and came to stand beside the bed. She thought he looked concerned, but overlying that was an air of calm determination. “I don’t think you’re going to want to hear this,” he said slowly.
She waited until the contraction had passed. “Bad news?” she asked, reminding herself to remain centered.
“This snowstorm’s a killer. It’s predicted to dump at least a foot of snow in the next several hours, so I don’t know when we’ll get out of here. The doctor says I can deliver the baby if I have to.”
Outside the wind shrieked around the edges of the cabin, rattling the windows and shaking the door. Conn deliver her baby? Not be at the hospital? All along she had planned to leave here before her time came. She couldn’t believe it had come down to this.
“I can try to hold off until morning,” Dana said desperately.
“No way, Dana. Your pains are only a few minutes apart.” All at once she noted how frazzled he appeared, and Dana felt a rush of sympathy for him as she took in his rumpled hair, the knot of concern on his brow, the way he left her side to pace back and forth across the floor. She felt a surge of gratitude that he was there for her, and for once she didn’t mind depending on him.
It was in that moment that she admitted to herself that she needed Conn. A few months ago she’d thought she could handle everything about this pregnancy by herself. She’d left her home, her friends, her work—all because she was determined not to want or need anyone after Philip. She had come away scarred and bruised from that relationship, afraid to love or trust or be beholden to anyone. But this man, Conn, had proved that no matter what happened, he would hang in there. How could she have thought that he would hand her over to the Probe? In her heart she knew now that he’d been telling the truth when he said that he hadn’t told Martin who she was.
She wanted to tell him that she believed him, that she was humbled by his caring for her, but the next contraction hurt so much that it was all she could do not to cry out. She felt a fierce buzzing in her ears before it ended, and when it did, Conn was kneeling beside the bed, clasping both her hands in his.
“You know, it’s easier with birds. They just lay eggs and then they hatch,” he said, trying to joke, but she wasn’t in the mood for humor.
She felt like such a fool for putting them both in this position. She had mishandled this all along, but overriding her sense of anguish over her own stupidity was her body’s imperative. She was going to have this baby, and she was going to have it soon. “Conn, I…I don’t think this is going to take long. I feel like I want to push,” she said urgently.
“According to what I told the doctor and what he said about it, you can go right ahead.”
“Conn, if anything happens—” She clutched his hand.
“Nothing is going to happen. I’m going to take care of you, Dana. Your baby will be fine.”
“I didn’t expect you to be part of this,” she said.
“That’s the way it has turned out, my dearest, and if I have to deliver your baby, that’s what I’ll do.”
She turned her head and stared at him, at his eyes filled with concern and caring and something else, too. The only evidence of the strain he was under was the artery beating at his temple. Had he called her his dearest or had she imagined it?
“Push all you want, and when the baby comes I will love it as much as I love you,” Conn went on, and she told herself that he was still talking to fill time.
Or was it more than that? He had said he would love the baby. He had said that he loved he
r. She hadn’t mistaken that.
“And then we will get married,” he said.
She started to say, “Married?” but the word only ended in a ragged moan. And then she was in no shape to say anything at all because she had to push, had to help her baby be born.
Time was irrelevant, and all she was aware of was the incredible amount of strength that she had to muster to help Conn, she wanted to help him, she wanted to love him, and she did love him, but she couldn’t tell him because she had to do this first. Nothing in her life had ever been so painful, and she thought she heard herself scream, but then she was sure she hadn’t because she would never do such a thing, not when Conn was working so hard to help her. He kept saying, “Breathe, Dana,” and once she snapped at him, “What do you think I’m doing, anyway?” and was immediately ashamed of herself, though she knew she couldn’t help yelling at him because the pain was awful.
Then the world retreated into a warm misty haze, and she thought she was walking outside in the snow because everything looked so white. But she couldn’t be outside because she was warm, and Conn was there talking about something, she wasn’t sure what. She didn’t want to know, so she told herself she would sleep, just for a minute, and when the baby’s cries woke her, she couldn’t figure out why.
“It’s a girl, Dana! A beautiful, healthy girl!” Conn sounded exultant, and she wondered how he could be so happy when it had hurt her so much. Then he placed the baby at her breast, and her arms went around it, and with awe she gazed down into Rosemary’s face. She had always known what Rosemary would look like, and it was no surprise that she looked exactly the way Dana had imagined her, plump cheeks and all.
“Rosemary,” she whispered gratefully, and then Conn was folding his arms around her, holding her, kissing her. She would have laughed in delight if she’d had the strength.
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