âMama, thereâs a boy waving.â
Jo Beth waved back excitedly, and Marlee noticed a man standing at the end of the runway.
She throttled back, unable to take her eyes off him. It flashed through Marleeâs mind that from a distance the raven-haired, broad-shouldered man reminded her of Cole, her husband, before heâd taken ill and his fine body had wasted away. Suddenly her hands shook and the plane dipped.
She quickly regained control, but landed with an irritating hop â a beginnerâs mistake that unnerved her as she powered down. Ripping off her headset, Marlee leaped from the cockpit and shook out her hair, only to discover as she watched the taciturn Wylie Ames that he watched her, too.
Marlee hurried around the planeâs nose to assist Jo Beth. For some reason, Marlee disliked the fact that Ames was too far away for her to tell the colour of his eyes. Ace-of-spades black would be her guess â to go with the scowl he wore.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
wrote her first book in 1989. She moved to the Superromance line a few years later and has published over twenty-five novels to date. Roz has been a finalist for the prestigious RITA>® Award and also for the Holt Medallion and the Golden Quill award, among others. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband, Denny. They have two daughters.
Dear Reader,
I read an article in a rural newspaper about the areaâs inclusion in a much-needed and longed-for volunteer life-flight organisation. The article discussed the vital role these groups play in helping with critical-care patients living in remote regions of the United States.
Intrigued, I began to look up and gather information on the many groups of volunteer pilots that exist across this vast country.
If my fictional flight group, Angel Fleet, bears any resemblance to a real mercy-flight corps, itâs purely accidental. The services they provide, of course, are similar, but my characters are totally of my own making.
Since my books are first and foremost love stories, I wanted to integrate my charactersâ work with a story about how they meet and fall in love.
The first of these two linked books is The Single Dadâs Guarded Heart. Itâs about renewal and finding love a second time around.
Best always,
Roz Denny Fox
I love to hear from readers.
Roz Denny Fox e-mail [email protected] PO Box 17480-101 Tucson, AZ 85731, USA.
CHAPTER ONE
MARLEE STEIN TOPPED a ridge, leaving behind Whitepine, Montana, the town closest to where sheâd been born and raised. She rolled down the driverâs window, breathing in the autumn scent of the piney wilderness, and felt herself relax. Until then, she hadnât been aware of how tense sheâd gotten on the long drive from San Diego.
Who was she kidding? Sheâd been riddled with tension for the past five years.
But now, on this lonely stretch of highway with nothing but fall sunlight sprinkling pine-needle patterns across her windshield, she began to shed the stress that had become so crushing.
Sheâd realized that the sense of heaviness and regret might always be with her. It was barely a year since sheâd lost Cole to the ravages of lymphatic cancer. Too young. His life snuffed out at thirty-six. There was so much they hadnât done. One of the many things theyâd talked about but never got around to was visiting this beautiful country Marlee loved.
Theyâd been introduced by mutual friends. Had dated for a whirlwind thirty days, married on base in a fever pitch driven by the demands of their jobsâshe, a navy helicopter pilot on the verge of shipping out; he an officer with an eye to one day commanding his own ship. It seemed a lifetime ago, those scant six years theyâd shared. Or not shared, since much of it had been spent apart. Butâ¦so many dreams, all left in tatters. Widowed at thirty-four, Marlee was running home to hide.
No, to rebuild a shattered lifeâaccording to her twin brother, anyway.
Mick Callen, her twin, knew about rebuilding a life. A pilot, too, heâd been shot down over Afghanistanâwhat was itâfour years ago? Mick had come home to Whitepine and forged a new life. On almost a weekly basis during the past awful year, heâd insisted that Marlee could do the same. She wanted to believe him.
Averting her eyes from the ribbon of highway, she glanced in the rearview mirror of her packed-to-the-ceiling Ford Excursion. Jo Beth slept on. Without doubt, her daughter was the most precious part of her too-brief marriage.
Maybe their lives could get back on track. Mick thought so, or he wouldnât have badgered his twin to join the family airfreight business, Cloud Chasers, originally started by their grandfather, Jack Callen. Everybody called him Pappy. Heâd taught her and Mick to fly anything with wings, and theyâd developed a love affair with flying.
It seemed unreal that theyâd both come full circle. Fate, maybe? In the days immediately following Coleâs death, Marlee had thought about the circle of life, but Whitepine was the last place sheâd envisioned herself ending up. Big plans, sheâd discovered, were best left to starry-eyed innocents. Reality made its own claims. And to think she and Cole had worried that her naval career presented a greater risk of death. She, whoâd done two tours in the Gulf.