As for Dana and her invitation to dinner, was she making a play for him? That was the signal he was getting, but she was six months pregnant or thereabouts, so it was an incongruous thought.
Maybe it was the hawks. Maybe that was her focus.
He’d been trying ever since the morning they went to Shale Flats to shake the image of her that he held in his mind—Dana gracefully swinging the lure for Aliah with a rare exuberance, her laughter ringing clear as glass chimes in the burnished blue air as Aliah stooped and soared. Sunbeams had danced in Dana’s hair, and the sweep of her gold-tipped lashes had cast shadows on her rosy cheeks. He had hardly been able to keep his eyes off her.
And that was crazy. He couldn’t be attracted to a woman who was so obviously pregnant. He had sworn off women, hadn’t he, after Lindsay? He didn’t want to get close enough to another woman to be involved. He didn’t want the pain of losing, that hurt, in his life ever again. So why was he letting this woman make inroads into his imagination? Maybe because she was pregnant, she wasn’t a threat.
He dressed carefully for dinner in khakis and a real shirt, not his usual T-shirt or jerkin. He wore loafers, not boots. And even so, he didn’t think he looked good enough. He even shaved anew, studying his reflection in the bathroom mirror. And cut himself because he wasn’t paying attention.
Before leaving the house, he selected a bottle of cabernet from his stock, remembered that she wouldn’t be drinking it and put it back. He decided on a bottle of Burgundy and put that back, too, finally settling on the cabernet after all. It troubled him that he was acting like an inexperienced kid, and he was anything but.
A thought struck him on the way to her place: he was like one of his hawks. He kept coming back to Dana because he was hungry. And not for food.
Chapter Four
Hungry or not, Conn thought the manicotti smelled wonderful; its hearty fragrance wafted all the way out to where he parked the truck. Conn bounded up the porch steps of the cabin, noting with satisfaction that the one he’d repaired didn’t even wobble. Dana was at the door before he could knock.
She pushed the door open and stood aside so he could enter. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he said. He saw through the door to the little kitchen that she had set the table with gleaming glassware and plates in bright colors, and that they sat on a flowered tablecloth. Suddenly he felt like a chump; he should have brought her fresh flowers. That would have meant another ride into town, or he could have picked them up after he left her at the grocery store, but he could have done it. As it was, he didn’t have anything to offer her except the cabernet, which she couldn’t even drink.
He handed the wine over to her, wondering if a light kiss on her cheek was called for, then decided that it wasn’t. She looked lovely, wearing a pink silky-looking oversize blouse and dark leggings tucked into laced-up boots. Not the heavy boots that she’d wear for hiking, but something more elegant. They were expensive, a soft leather. He knew expensive when he saw it. He’d lived and worked in L.A. long enough to get an overdose of high-maintenance women, and these boots of Dana’s were what he would have expected one of them to wear.
“Would you like to open the wine? I’m a real klutz with a corkscrew, or I’d do it myself.”
“I’ll be glad to,” he said before following her into the kitchen. Dana bent over and opened the oven door, and he caught a glimpse of the manicotti bubbling and browning around the edges. When she straightened, her face was flushed from the heat.
“The corkscrew is in the drawer to your left,” she said.
He found the corkscrew and inserted it into the wine cork. By the time he had the cork out, she had set a glass on the kitchen counter. “That’s for you when you’re ready to pour,” she said.
While she sprinkled croutons over the salad, he went and looked out the back door. “The creek widens behind your house,” he said. “I’ve been fishing here before.”
“Before?” she asked, looking puzzled.
“I used to visit Steve, my friend who lived here. We liked to fish sometimes.”
“Your friend—you said he’s sick?”
“Yes. I’ve bought his place from him.”
“So you don’t plan on being a temporary resident,” she said.
He shook his head. “Nope. I’m here for the long haul.”
“Any thoughts about returning to civilization?”
“Hardly any.”
“And where did you come from?”
“Los Angeles. Not my favorite place.”
“You didn’t grow up there, then.” A timer dinged, the simple wind-up kind, and she bent to take the manicotti out of the oven.
“I grew up in South Carolina. A native son of the South.”
She glanced over at him. “You don’t sound Southern. No accent,” she said.
He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I’ve lost it some-where along the way.” He spotted a gallon can of paint on one of the kitchen chairs. “Want me to move that?” he asked.
She glanced over her shoulder. “If you don’t mind. It can go in there.” She gestured with her eyes toward the open shelves at one end of the kitchen. He set the paint, a package of brushes and a roller next to a roller tray on the middle shelf.
“I wish you could have a glass of wine with me,” he said as he poured it.
“I have a glass of water. Bottled water,” she added. “I haven’t learned to like the local H20. Too many minerals.”
“That’s understandable.” He paused. “Well, anyway, salud.” He lifted his glass to her, and she lifted her glass of water, and they both drank. She felt a little embarrassed that she wasn’t drinking wine. She must seem unsophisticated to him. In a way this disturbed her, but in another way, it didn’t. She had led a life of glamour and excitement back in Chicago, had hung out with Philip and all his social-climbing friends, and in retrospect, she knew that she had never really been happy. There had always been the promise of happiness, the hope that after the February sweeps and resultant high ratings she’d feel good about herself, or that she’d be truly happy once she and Philip were engaged, or by the time she interviewed the sports star that no one else could snag, or even if she acquired a new gown from the latest trendy designer. But somehow once those things happened, she wasn’t any happier. And she hadn’t even noticed until recently that she’d been chasing rainbows down some murky road that always came to a dead end.
“Want me to put that on the table?” Conn asked, gesturing with his head toward the manicotti.
“Sure. I’ll get the bread and the salad.”
When they were seated on either side of the small table, Dana spread her napkin in her lap. She served both her salad bowl and his, and they each helped themselves to the manicotti. She noticed that Conn dug into his with gusto.
“This is delicious,” he said. “Really.”
She was pleased. Philip had hated what he called “peasant fare.” He’d insisted that she hire a cook recommended by his mother who specialized in French cuisine, his favorite. The cook, whose name was Jean-Marc, had effectively banished her from her own kitchen. Dana had missed puttering around, concocting improvements on standard recipes the way she’d done ever since she was a kid. Cooking had always been a refuge for her, a way to forget the day’s troubles. One of the best things about living alone and far away from Philip was being able to cook again.
“I like cooking,” she said, and she started to tell him how she had learned to cook. It had happened when her mother was laid up with a broken foot the winter she was ten. “I began with the simplest recipes, and Mother told me what to do while she sat in a kitchen chair and supervised.”
“Ten seems a little young.”
“Oh, I didn’t think so. By the end of that summer, I could cook a whole dinner, complete with apple cobbler for dessert, all by myself. My mother was lavish with her praise, even though I never cleaned up the messes to her satisfaction.” She laughed a little at the memory, recalling
how her father had proclaimed her mashed potatoes the best he’d ever eaten, in spite of the lumps.
“But I’m boring you,” she said. She got up to refill her water glass.
Conn said, “No, you’re not. I like to see someone who is enthusiastic. You sound like me when I first discovered falconry.”
This conversational turn was more to Dana’s liking. “I know you said your friend Steve introduced you to it,” she replied. “How did it happen?”
“He took me out with his hawks one day, like I did with you,” Conn told her.
Dana set her fork on the edge of her plate and leaned over the table. “I’d like to go again, Conn. To Shale Flats with you. If I wouldn’t be in the way, that is.”
He couldn’t turn her down. At one time he might have been able to, or at least if she had been any other woman. But now, gazing across the table at her, feeling well fed and comfortable, noting the avid interest in her eyes, he didn’t want to deny her the excitement of working with the hawks.
“You wouldn’t be in the way,” he said slowly, watching her carefully for her reaction.
“I could help you set up, whatever you’d like me to do.”
“That isn’t necessary,” he heard himself saying. She was gazing at him happily, excitedly, as if he had just given her the best present in the world. Well, perhaps it was. He recalled how eager he’d been to have Steve show him the ropes after the first time he’d gone with him to fly hawks. Nothing, but nothing, would have made him happier.
“So will we go tomorrow morning?”
“Not tomorrow,” he said before draining his wineglass. “I have to drive into town early.” He had to call the Catalina-Pacific administrator and let her know that he still wanted his mother to be admitted, and he needed to call Martin before Martin made good on his threat to show up here.
Dana looked disconcerted. “I thought you flew them every day.”
“I’ll be flying them the day after. You can go with me then.” He tore a bit of bread off the loaf and buttered it.
“I’m so glad you’re going to let me,” she said. In that moment she again reminded him of his lost love from fourth grade, Francesca Sorisi. Maybe the thing he had liked about Francesca wasn’t the way she looked, which reminded him of Dana, but her unbridled enthusiasm in all things. Dana’s enthusiasm was much like Francesca’s, at least in the case of flying the hawks.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said, cocking her head sideways in a way that he was learning was characteristic of her.
“Was I?” he said.
She shrugged lightly. “I thought so. Perhaps I was mistaken.”
“You remind me of somebody,” he said. He popped the rest of the bread in his mouth.
Dana stood up abruptly. If he wasn’t mistaken, the color had drained out of her face.
She fiddled with the timer on the kitchen counter. This didn’t make a whole lot of sense, since nothing was cooking anymore, especially since Dana then opened a cabinet door and shoved the timer inside. It made even less sense when he saw that the cabinet held a supply of canned goods, not utensils or devices like timers.
She didn’t ask him whom he thought she resembled. But seeing her confusion or embarrassment, or whatever it was, made him wonder what her reaction would be if he told her. It wasn’t that he thought there was any chance that Dana was Francesca Sorisi. He’d heard from someone years later that Francesca had moved permanently to Italy with her father after her parents divorced, and by this time she was presumably married to a nice Italian man and had several children.
“You remind me of my grade-school sweetheart,” he said, watching through narrowed eyes as Dana’s shoulders sagged in what he interpreted as relief.
“Is that so,” she murmured. When she turned back around, her face was composed, but two red spots of color had appeared above her cheekbones.
“Something about the mouth and chin,” he said. While he helped himself to more manicotti, he waited for her reaction.
“I see.” A pause while she let this sink in, and then she sat down across from him again.
“Aren’t you going to eat any more?”
“I’ve had enough. I try not to eat too much. None of this eating-for-two business for me.”
“Mmm,” he said. He let a few beats go by before asking, “When is your baby due, Dana?”
She sighed. “In December.”
“You plan to stay here until then?”
She looked away. “I’ll most likely leave earlier.”
Conn waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. So was she planning to leave in early December? November? When his plate was empty, she urged him to have more salad, but he couldn’t have eaten another bite if his life depended on it.
“This food was wonderful,” Conn told her. “A real treat.” It was true.
She refused to let him help her with the dishes. Instead she stacked them in the sink and said she would put them in the dishwasher in the morning.
“I think it’s cool enough for a fire tonight,” he said. “Want me to build one?”
“I haven’t had a fire in this fireplace yet. I don’t even know how to build a fire. It would be nice if you’d show me how to start one.”
He went out and got some logs from the woodpile behind the house and took his time building the fire. Dana watched him from the big green sprung-out easy chair on the other side of the room.
“I’ll know how to do it next time,” she said as he settled with his back against the couch.
“How is it that living in the frozen wastelands of the Midwest you never learned to build a fire in a fireplace?”
“We always had gas logs. My mother never liked fireplaces. They were messy and dirty, she said. She was a clean freak, and that’s probably why my dad loved this place so much. When he was here he could grub around and not shave for days and build fires in the fireplace to his heart’s content.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said. He had learned that he liked living alone, but now, in this unimpressive but comfortable room, there was a coziness that he hadn’t found in his house. Or maybe it wasn’t the room. Maybe it was feeling connected to another person. To Dana.
She was gazing into the crackling flames. “You know, my father never even had a telephone installed here. He didn’t want anyone to be able to contact him.”
He turned to look at her. Her face was gilded by firelight, her expression ruminative. “You should have a phone, Dana,” Conn said gently.
“I never seem to get around to ordering it. I suppose there’s a waiting list.”
“I could see about it. I need one, too.” He hadn’t thought so until today, when he’d received the letter from the administrator of Catalina-Pacific. In order to call the nursing facility, he’d have to use the phone in front of the Cougar Creek drugstore, where it was impossible to hold a private conversation. Ditto the call he planned to make to Martin Storrs. The idea of anyone who happened along hearing what he needed to say to these people was unappealing. He didn’t like the townspeople knowing his business.
“When I first came here, I thought my cellular phone would work fine,” Dana said. “Well, time for a reality check—I’m too far out of range here between the mesa and the hills.” Once she had been so attached to her cell phone that it had seemed like an extra appendage.
“How about if I drop by the local phone company’s office tomorrow and ask when they can install phones out here? I could report back to you. And I think you should have a phone in your car.”
“No car phone, please. It probably wouldn’t work any better than my cell phone. As for a phone for the house, sure, if you wouldn’t mind asking about it, that will be fine. I’ll be here all day. Painting the kitchen, if all goes well.”
He frowned at her. “Are you sure you should be doing that?”
“I think it’s okay. It’s latex paint, I’ll keep the windows open so there won’t be any noxious fumes, and if I get tired, I’ll stop and
pick up where I left off tomorrow.”
He rose to his feet. “Maybe I could help you,” he suggested. Her eyes were the darkest blue, all pupil and very little iris. He saw the fire’s twin reflections in their depths, and something more. Gratitude?
“That’s not necessary, Conn.” She placed her feet wide and levered herself upward. At one time he would have found such an awkward transition ungainly, but with Dana the maneuver took on a grace and charm all its own.
“If I’m able to help, I will. I think you should be more careful.”
“You worry too much,” she said. “Pregnancy is a perfectly normal state. People have babies all the time, and they work at ordinary jobs throughout their pregnancies, and they cook and clean and do all the things I do. I’m by no means unique.”
“You don’t have anyone around to look after you,” he pointed out. “If something goes wrong, there’s no one to call. And no way to call them.”
“Nothing will go wrong,” she said, and he detected a stubborn edge to her tone that reminded him of the day he’d found her on the trail trying to capture Demelza.
He thanked her again for the dinner, put on his jacket and walked to the door. She followed, and when he looked around for the last time, he thought how pretty she looked. He was sure she was unaware that she was so lovely with those wide blue eyes and that soft, reddish hair, and before he let himself out into the cool night air, he had the sudden impulse to kiss her on the lips.
But he didn’t know how she would react to such a gesture, which seemed too forward under the circumstances, and so he didn’t.
On the way home, through the dark night studded by a thousand stars shining down out of a clear sky, he wished he’d gone ahead and kissed her anyway.
He might as well stop deluding himself about why he hadn’t. It wasn’t that he was worried about her reaction. He’d never kissed a woman yet who had complained about it. His real concern was that kissing her would lead to a relationship, and he didn’t want her to find out the truth about him.
Pregnant and Incognito Page 7
