Pregnant and Incognito Read online

  She kicked off her shoes. Conn held her arm and eased her down on the bed, and she sat there looking at her bare feet. They had swollen with her pregnancy, and she realized glumly and irrelevantly that the toenails needed cutting.

  Her stomach surged. She clamped her hands over her diaphragm, willing it to stop heaving.

  “Dana? Are you all right?”

  She shook her head. Her stomach continued to churn, and she tasted bile at the back of her throat. She wanted to die of embarrassment; it would be too humiliating to vomit in front of Conn.

  His voice came to her as if from a long way away. “You look slightly green,” he said. “You’re not going to—”

  “I might,” she gasped. “I feel like I’m going to—”

  “Wait,” he said urgently and went running to the kitchen. He returned in record time with a small basin, which he thrust under her chin barely in time for her to upchuck in it.

  Never mind the fever; never mind her wrenching stomach. She wanted to die right there and then of embarrassment.

  Conn brought a cool washcloth and wiped her face, then a glass of water so she could rinse her mouth.

  “Okay?”

  She nodded, sure that nothing would ever be okay again. But she did feel slightly better now.

  “If you think you’re able, I’ll draw the curtain while you put on your nightgown. Or whatever it is that you sleep in.”

  “A nightgown,” she murmured. “It’s hanging on a hook in the closet.”

  He went and got it. She avoided his eyes, not wanting to see his revulsion.

  He pulled the curtain across the opening and went away, and she could hear him bringing in more logs from outside. She could see him, too, through the thin muslin curtain. It seemed like too much effort to shuck her clothes and pull on the gown, too much trouble. She’d rather watch Conn as he moved about, his outline blurred. He went into the kitchen, came out with a glass of water and stood sipping it as he stared into the fireplace.

  Poor Conn. This was more than he had bargained for when he’d stopped by, she was sure.

  “Dana? Everything okay?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” She unbuttoned her blouse and shrugged out of it, pulled off her slacks and slipped into her nightgown, a warm one with a high frilly collar and long sleeves. When Conn called to her, she was in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin.

  “You can open the curtain,” she said.

  Conn pulled it back and peered down at her. “Anything you need?” He looked bemused.

  She shook her head. “You probably don’t know much about taking care of a pregnant woman.”

  He looked away, then back. His expression had changed. “As it happens, I do. My mother had a problem pregnancy when I was small. My father ditched us, so I took care of her. I was only four years old.”

  Her lips rounded into an O.

  “So I’m not leaving you. I’ll bed down on the couch for the night. Don’t worry, I can find blankets if I need them. It’s warm over by the fire.” He started to pull the curtain across, but her hand stayed him.

  “All right. I’ll leave it open.” He smiled down at her for a brief moment and went to sit in the green chair, picking up a book and riffling through it.

  Dana curled up in a protective ball, her arms holding her swollen belly. The fire crackled and spit in the fireplace, and time stretched out so that Dana had no idea how much of it had passed.

  After a while Conn got up to feed another log into the blaze. Dana’s eyes had been closed, but she opened them when she heard the springs of the chair squeak, and she pillowed her cheek on her hands as she watched him move about. The firelight cast the planes of his face into shadow and picked out the blue-black highlights in his hair. He seemed quiet and reflective and oddly at ease in her house, although she thought he would probably rather be home. She wondered how the hawks were, if anything was new with them. She wondered if Conn had thought about her at all during the time that his house guest was in residence. She wondered…

  The next time she opened her eyes, Conn was staring at her from across the room. She shifted slightly in bed, felt the baby settle against her hipbone. Her throat still hurt, but the pain had dulled, probably because of the pills. Her stomach was only slightly queasy.

  “Dana?” Conn stood and walked slowly to the bed.

  “I’m okay,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. Her throat didn’t hurt as much if she whispered.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She didn’t want to explain about the baby and how sometimes its movement kept her awake at night, nor did she want to complain about her throat, since he already knew it hurt.

  “Can’t sleep,” she said.

  “Anything I can do?” His eyes were pools of deep concern.

  She shook her head. Without saying anything more, he went away and brought a damp cloth. He bathed her face and arms, and the cool water felt good on her hot skin.

  He left for a moment, came back. “When I was older, my mother sometimes liked me to read to her when she was sick,” he said. He paused. “I brought you a book about falconry.”

  He must have been reading her mind. After all, she’d asked Esther for such a book earlier in the week.

  “No, don’t talk,” he said comfortingly. “I’ll go ahead and start with chapter one.” He went back to the green chair and adjusted the reading lamp. She saw that he’d unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it out of his jeans, affording her a tantalizing view of a well-muscled torso. Lot of good that did her, she thought muzzily.

  As he opened the book, Dana shoved a pillow under her stomach and tried to get more comfortable. No one had read to her since she was a little girl, and she’d almost forgotten how her father had introduced her to the classics—Alice in Wonderland, Huckleberry Finn, Little Women. She’d sat on his lap, and he’d always liked her to give him butterfly kisses—flutter her eyelashes against his cheek—when he finished the chapter for the night. She smiled at the memory.

  Conn cleared his throat. “The Joy of Falconry,” he began, and his deep voice soothed her mind the way the honey in the tea had soothed her throat. He read with expression, his voice flowing around the syllables mellifluously, and she found the subject matter fascinating.

  If she hadn’t been sick, she would have treasured this moment.

  But before Conn reached chapter two, Dana was asleep.

  HE STOPPED READING out loud when he realized that she was sleeping. He stood, stretching out his muscles, thinking that he didn’t mind being here. He might have, once. He had resented her when he first met her.

  But now it was different. Her interest in his hobby had drawn him closer to her than he’d felt to anyone in a long time. And this bond, this attraction, was different from anything he’d felt before.

  Women? Oh, he’d known women. Rosalia of the laughing dark eyes and long-flowing hair, who had loved him but eloped with a pilot for Mexicana Airlines. Ginger, a public relations flack for a movie studio, whom he had loved but who never loved him back. Carolee, who had short blond curls and breasts that exactly fit his hands. Kristyl, latter-day flower child, who had absconded to Idaho with his best CDs. Terri, his college sweetheart, now blithely traversing the country presenting seminars on personal improvement and dropping him post cards from places like Dubuque and Kenosha. And Lindsay, lost to him forever—but he would never stop loving her.

  Except for Lindsay, he had never been touched to great depths by any of them. But now here was Dana, who had eyes as blue as the bottom of the ocean on a sunny day and who shared his interest in his hawks. And about whom he knew very little other than the fact that she was alone and pregnant with someone else’s child, not his.

  He decided to check on her. It was dark in the alcove, so he went back and turned up the brightness of the bulb in the reading lamp by the chair. When he came back, he saw that her face was even more flushed. Her breathing seemed shallow, her chest barely rising and falling with each breath. When he touched her forehead
, his fingertips felt seared by the heat, and he jerked them back abruptly. Bending over her in alarm, he touched her again. She was burning with fever.

  It was like his mother when she became sick while she was pregnant. His mother had fallen ill one night, and he hadn’t known what to do. After all, he had been only four.

  Apprehension clamped around his heart like a vise. “Dana! Dana?” He knew he’d better wake her up, take her temperature again.

  Her eyes opened groggily, seemed not to know him. Recognition flared after a moment or two, and she moaned.

  “Your fever seems higher. I’d better find out what your temperature is.” He went to get the thermometer and shook it down with a flick of the wrist. Not that he’d had all that much experience with these things, he thought uneasily.

  “Open your mouth like a little bird,” he instructed, and that elicited a slight smile. He slid the thermometer under her tongue, and she closed her mouth over it and shut her eyes.

  While he was waiting for the thermometer to register, he went to the bookcase and looked for a medical guide of some kind. Even a first-aid book might help. But there was nothing.

  When he checked the thermometer, he was stunned. Dana’s temperature had risen to almost 103. He might not know much about these things, but he knew that such a high fever was dangerous, and he had no idea of its repercussions for a pregnant woman.

  His mind raced. Here they were in the middle of nowhere, Dana was maybe seven months pregnant, and she was clearly very sick. The nearest hospital was many miles away. Outside, the wind howled.

  He glanced at his watch. It was three o’clock in the morning. In his mind, it made no sense to call Dana’s obstetrician in faraway Flagstaff. He’d have to tackle the answering service again before Dr. Evans would even return his call, and the obstetrician had, in effect, told him to take his business elsewhere, albeit in a kindly way. Conn knew a doctor in Cougar Creek, an elderly general practitioner who hung out at the Powwow Diner. Did he make house calls? That was anybody’s guess.

  Dana moaned, and he saw that she was trying to shift positions.

  “Dana, you have a really high fever. I’m going to call the local doctor and see if I can talk him into coming out to see you.”

  She opened her eyes, and she looked scared when she saw his face. He was sure his expression registered his doubt and fear. She tried to sit up, and he thought that if her throat was closing, if she were actually have trouble breathing, perhaps he should prop her up on pillows. He brought a couple of throw pillows from the couch and placed them behind her head, and she tried to smile. Her lips were cracked, her eyes sunken.

  “I think you’d better try to drink something,” he said. “Do you think you can?”

  Eyes closed again, she made a negligible motion with her head, and he didn’t know if it meant yes or no. He went into the kitchen and poured some of the leftover tea in a glass with ice cubes. He thought that a cold drink would be better than a hot one if he were going to try to bring that fever down.

  He raised the glass to her lips, and she managed several swallows, but swallowing was painful for her. More worried than ever, he went to look up the local doctor’s telephone number.

  The man’s name was Jeb Nofziger, and no one answered at either his home or office number. Conn ran a hand through his hair, trying to think, trying to remember what his mother used to do for a high fever. Once he had had some childhood illness—measles, he thought—that had struck suddenly with a very high fever, and his mother had given him three aspirin and sat him in a tub of tepid water to bring down the fever.

  Was that the right thing to do for Dana? He didn’t know. But he did remember that a person could go into convulsions if a fever got too high, and that would seem to be a serious complication indeed, especially if the patient were pregnant.

  He stood for a moment staring down at her. She lay with her eyes closed, her chest barely rising and falling with each breath. The mound of the baby rounded the bedcovers over her abdomen, and Dana’s fingers were interlaced protectively over it. A frightening sense of discovery welled up inside him as he stood there, a certain knowledge that he cared about this woman and what happened to her. From the first he had sensed a vulnerability in her, and even though she had tried to prove to him that she was capable of caring for herself, she could not manage alone in this circumstance. It was up to him to take care of her—and her unborn child.

  He knelt beside her. “Dana, I want you to take another acetaminophen. Do you understand? We need to bring this fever down.”

  She opened her eyes and looked directly into his. He thought for a second or so that she was going to object, but all she did was nod an almost imperceptible yes. He went and shook the pill out of the bottle. She opened her mouth, and he put it on her tongue. Her hand trembled as she raised the glass to her lips, but she managed to swallow. After she handed the glass back to him, she fell back against the pillows.

  Conn went into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub full force. The tub took a long time to fill, and he cursed the inefficiency of wells and water pumps in this place so far away from city conveniences. Finally, when the tub was full, he tested the water with his hand. It was too cold. He added some hot water to balance it. That would have to do.

  He returned to her bedside and took her hand in his. “Dana, I want you to listen to me. We have to get this fever down, the sooner the better. Do you understand?”

  She opened her eyes. In them he saw a bleak despair, and he saw that she understood how sick she was.

  “I’m going to have to get you into a lukewarm bath. To bring the fever down.”

  As his words sunk in, despair was overtaken by disbelief. She closed her eyes again as if to shut him from view, which wouldn’t do. It didn’t help that he wasn’t sure that he was doing the right thing. He didn’t know anyone he could phone at three in the morning to ask this question; also, the Cougar Creek doctor hadn’t called back.

  He threw back the covers. “Put your arms around my neck, Dana,” he told her. She twisted her head from side to side, and he didn’t know if she was trying to tell him that she didn’t want to get into the tub or didn’t want him to take her out of the bed.

  He wasn’t about to let anything she did stop him from helping her. He took both her hands in his, placed them around his neck. She made a noise, but he couldn’t tell whether it was meant to be protest or assent. He slid one arm under her shoulders and one beneath her legs. She was surprisingly light, even with the added weight of the baby. He tried not to look at the ripe curves of her breasts as they shifted under the thin white cotton nightgown she wore. He wasn’t supposed to be relating to her as a man to a woman, only as a human to another human in dire need.

  The bathroom was barely big enough for one person, much less two. He maneuvered her in through the door, and she opened her eyes wide.

  She started to speak, but he said, “Hush. Try to relax. This will probably work, and then I can get you back to your nice warm bed.” He sounded more confident than he felt.

  Dana had removed one arm from around his neck and was plucking at the nightgown. He couldn’t figure out if she meant to take it off or if she wanted him to leave it on, but he figured there was no time to waste with explaining either option. Instead of trying, he lowered her into the cool water. The nightgown billowed up, then settled down, clinging to her body as it became wet. Her breasts shone smooth and pink through the transparent cotton fabric, and so did her belly. If she was embarrassed at his scrutiny, she gave no sign.

  Keeping one arm around her shoulders, he dampened a washcloth and sponged her face. Her eyes were open now, still sunken, still glittering with the heat of the fever. To distract her, he started to tell her about the effort he had made to contact the local doctor.

  “It’s a guy named Jeb Nofziger, I’ve met him once or twice at the Powwow Diner. If he calls back, don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone in the tub. I can bring the phone in here, tell him ab
out your condition, and if you want you can speak to him.”

  Her eyes darted to him in alarm, and he knew she was telling him that her throat hurt too much to talk to anyone, even a doctor.

  “You don’t have to try to talk. I can convince the guy you’re pretty sick. And don’t worry—if I don’t hear from him tonight, then I’ll rustle him up in the morning. You’ll be okay, Dana. I’ll do everything I can to make sure of it.”

  She listened, bit her lip. Again that gesture, the weaving of her fingers across her swollen abdomen.

  “The baby will be fine, too.”

  She nodded. “Kicking,” she whispered, the words barely audible.

  His gaze slid down to her belly. The wet gown was stretched tightly across it, and he was amazed to see a tiny ripple of the skin under the transparent fabric.

  “See?” Dana asked him, and he nodded, dumbfounded.

  “Do…do they all do that?” he blurted.

  She attempted a thin smile and nodded yes.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, recovering a bit from the astonishment of actually seeing evidence of a little arm or leg that wasn’t actually born yet. “I didn’t mean to make you talk.”

  She shook her head, and if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a gleam of pride in her eyes. He took that to mean that Dana didn’t mind his asking stupid questions and that she didn’t mind him seeing what appeared to be something so intimate that only an expectant mother was ever privileged enough to see. And her doctor, of course, and the father of the child.

  If the father was around. He wished he knew the circumstances of Dana’s pregnancy, why there wasn’t a man in evidence. But this was not the time to pursue that line of thought.

  “Feeling any better?” he asked hopefully.

  Dana nodded yes.

  “Maybe the acetaminophen is working, and this bath, too,” he said.

  Her lips moved. “Maybe,” she mouthed without sound.