Devil’s Claw

“She wasn’t even going to tell me,” Terry Gregovich was saying. “I could tell all last week that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. I thought we’d get a chance to talk about it over the weekend, but then I had to work all day Sunday. Yesterday morning, I called her here at work. I told her I knew something was up, and if she wouldn’t meet me to tell me what it was, that I’d come here to her office and I wouldn’t leave until I knew where I stood.” He paused. “I was afraid there was somebody else and that she wanted to break up with me.

“So I told her I was picking up some burgers at the Arctic Circle and that she should meet me down at Vista Park. It was while we were there that she finally broke down and told me what was up. I asked her if she knew for sure. She said no, she only thought so. That’s when I told her, we can’t go around making decisions in the dark and that we had to have her tested so we’d know what was what. She didn’t want to go to a doctor here in town or in Sierra Vista because she was afraid someone would talk. And she didn’t want to get one of those pregnancy test kits from the drugstore for the same reason. So yesterday afternoon, I turned off my pager and we drove up to Tucson-to Pla

“And?” Joa

Kristin looked up through teary eyes and nodded. “It’s true,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”

“So what are you going to do?” Joa

“It’s not how I wanted it to work out, Sheriff Brady,” Terry answered. “It’s not how either one of us wanted it. But I love Kristin, and she loves me, and both of us want this baby. So if you have to fire one of us, go ahead. You can have my resignation right now. If I go up to Tucson I can probably find another job that will pay as well or better than this one. If I’m going to be a husband and a father in the next little while, you’d better believe I’m going to take those responsibilities seriously.”

Having said that, he reached out for Kristin’s hand and held it tenderly, cradled between both of his.

“So what’s the plan then?” Joa

“I suppose,” Kristin said. “I don’t want to. Mother’s going to kill me. And then we’ll get married. I know my mother always wanted me to have a nice, big church wedding. So did I, but I guess we can’t do that now.”

“But we can, Kristin,” Terry objected. “Don’t you see? We can still have just the kind of wedding you want. There’s no law that says you can’t have a nice wedding and wear a long white dress if that’s what you want to do. We don’t have to go ru

Joa

“But how?” Kristin asked tremulously. “Terry and I both work. Weddings take a lot of pla

“If your mother won’t help us, mine will,” Terry said. “I know we can do it. It’ll work out, hon. I know it will. Don’t cry, please. We’ll be fine.”

Listening to him, he sounded so confident, so sure of himself, that Terry almost had Joa

“Is that what you want, Kristin?” Joa

“Yes,” she whispered, “but how…”

“Do you attend church regularly?”

“I used to,” Kristin said, sniffling. “My parents go to Cornerstone out in Sierra Vista. I tried it a few times, but I didn’t like it.”

Cornerstone in Sierra Vista was a nondenominational megachurch made up of disaffected evangelicals from many denominations who had coalesced into a separate church of their own. Cornerstone’s fiery pastor had been in the news for first blocking and then physically assaulting an elderly man who, along with his wife, had parked in the church parking lot while attending a weekday luncheon at a nearby senior center. The assault charges were eventually dropped but the incident had left both church and pastor with an unfortunate reputation in the community.

Even Maria

Joa

He shrugged. “The last time I went to church I think I was about seven years old.”

“So you’re telling me that you’d both like to have a church wedding but neither one of you has a specific church in mind. Is that right?”

Terry Gregovich nodded. “That’s about it,” he said.

Joa

Joa

“Does that mean you’re not going to fire us?” Terry asked.

Joa

“Absolutely. You can count on me, Sheriff Brady,” the deputy replied.

“And if you want to take time off together,” Joa

The young woman nodded eagerly.

“Okay, then,” Joa

“Right.”

Kristin and Terry stood up together. So did Spike. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you,” Joa

Kristin Marsten caught her breath. “Sheriff Brady, you mean the same thing happened to you?”

“It happens to a lot of people, Kristin, and I’m here to tell you it’s not the end of the world. Talk to your parents about it. They just might surprise you.”

Nodding and holding hands, Kristin and Terry left Joa