Mom's The Word

That made it a thousand times more foolish for her to be out here, in Jacob Cooper’s opinion. “You’re pregnant,” he said simply. “Why didn’t you tell me that? It puts a different spin on everything. You can’t stay here!”

Hayley wheeled away from him and extended shaking hands toward the fire. “It’s for me to say what I do, Jacob,” she said with renewed ferocity. “Go away and leave me alone.”

“Damn, Hayley. I worried when I thought it was just you. But you and a baby…It’s craziness for a pregnant woman to be this far from a good road. You need—”

“Thank you very much for your flattering opinion of my capabilities. But I don’t answer to you. It’s my baby. My responsibility. My decision.”

“Oh? So the kid doesn’t have a father?”

Hayley’s face crumpled. “He doesn’t want to be a husband or father. Besides, he forfeited all rights when he walked out on me.”

“I didn’t mean to open old wounds. It’s just—if it was me, I’d want to know I had a baby in the works. A man deserves the chance to do right by his child.”

A haunting smile came and went. “Not all men have your sense of responsibility, Jake.”

Dear Reader,

Before I moved to Tucson, I subscribed to the city’s newspaper because I wanted to find out more about the community. I read an article that intrigued me so much, I cut it out and saved it. The article concerned a woman who’d discovered blue opals on a remote site near the Mexican border. This idea kept nagging at me, insisting there was a story to be told.

This is not Cheri Saunders’s story, although her real-life adventure is, of course, fascinating, and you might learn part of it if you visit Cheri at the Jay-R Opal Mine Art Gallery in Huachuca City, Arizona. My tale about Hayley Ryan and Jake Cooper is totally a work of fiction. I don’t even know where the Jay-R Opal Mine is located; I suspect it’s a well-kept secret.

Any mistakes in descriptions of digging the ore and polishing or setting stones are mine alone. I did visit the wilderness ranch area around the old ghost town of Ruby. It was desolate and, in the true sense of the word, awesome. I think I know how Hayley—a pregnant woman determined to make her way alone—would feel while she camped there.

This is really a story about love. And about how Hayley, left pregnant and destitute by a scoundrel husband, learns to trust Jake with her life and that of her child. I hope you enjoy my efforts on Hayley’s behalf.

I love hearing from readers. You can write me at the address below or e-mail me.

Roz Denny Fox

P.O. Box 17480-101

Tucson, Arizona 85731

e-mail: rdfox@worldnet.att.net

Mom’s the Word

Roz Denny Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Denny. I couldn’t have written any of the previous books without your love and support. But with this one I really owe you—for driving to ghost towns where there weren’t any roads. For finding a spring that, according to the map, was supposed to exist but turned out not to be so easily located. And especially for not complaining when the water was too deep to cross and we needed to reach the highway we could see in the distance. You probably felt like leaving me there, but you still had a smile after bouncing twenty long, dusty miles over terrain that was really only accessible on horseback. Thanks, with all my heart.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU’RE PREGNANT, Hayley.” Kindly old Dr. Gerrard looked over the top of his half glasses at the young woman seated on the examining table. “Given your circumstances, my dear, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings.”

Hayley Ryan stopped pleating folds in the loose-fitting paper gown and gasped as she spread both hands protectively across her stomach. “But I…I’ve been losing weight. Not gaining. Are you sure your diagnosis is correct?”

The doctor patted Hayley’s suntanned hand. “My practice here in Tombstone may be winding down, child, but I haven’t been wrong in predicting blessed events in thirty years. Why, twenty-six years ago your mama sat in this very room, asking the same question.” He chuckled. “Nine months later out you popped.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that…that you don’t know what you’re doing.” Hayley swallowed hard to keep from crying. “It’s just that this isn’t the best time in my life to be learning I’ll soon have another mouth to feed. I’m not sure how I’ll take care of myself let alone a baby.”

Dr. Gerrard sobered at once. “I know. Gossip’s running rampant about how your husband left town with that sassy-faced Cindy Trent from the nail-painting place.” The doctor removed his glasses and gazed with unfocused sympathy into Hayley’s turbulent eyes. “What kind of man, I’d like to know, leaves his wife while she’s still grieving from burying her grandpa? I said it before, girl, and I’ll say it again—Joe Ryan’s worse than a snake-oil salesman.”

Hayley glanced away. She could do without having that fact driven home. A little more than a year ago, Grandpa O’Dell and many of his friends had cautioned her against marrying Joe. If she had a dime for every person in Tombstone who’d warned her Joe Ryan was the kind of guy who blew into town on his own wind and would likely blow out the same way, she wouldn’t be sitting here now, alone and worrying about how to feed herself and the baby Joe had planted before he pulled his vanishing act. “It’s easier for me to see now that Joe only married me so he could get his hands on the Silver Cloud mine,” Hayley murmured.

“Big Ben O’Dell would turn over in his grave if he knew that four-flushing louse stole his mine and left you in this fix.”

“What’s done is done. There’s no use crying over it, Dr. Gerrard.” Even as the words left Hayley’s lips, tears slid down her cheeks.

“This isn’t something I’d normally suggest—” Dr. Gerrard hesitated “—but you might think about terminating the pregnancy. I don’t perform the procedure, but I’ll recommend a reputable clinic in Phoenix. I calculate the child is due around Christmas.” He turned and picked up a calendar. “Let’s see, it’s June. You’re eight to ten weeks along. You’ll have to decide soon. The surgery does carry some risk, but you’re still within the limits set by the state.”

Hayley looked horrified and linked her fingers across her stomach. “I appreciate your concern, really I do. But the good Lord entrusted me with a new life. I expect He’ll eventually put my feet on a path that’ll allow me to take care of myself and this baby.”

“I wish I had your faith, Hayley. If the Man upstairs takes care of His own, He shouldn’t have let Joe and that floozy forge your name on the Silver Cloud’s deed. Wasn’t more’n six months ago that Ben told me he felt so poorly he’d decided to sign it to you. Joe was sittin’ right here. If you ask me, that’s when the lowlife hatched his plan.”

“Probably so. Then I suppose you could say I brought this mess on myself,” she said glumly. “Gramps didn’t like Joe to drive him to his breathing treatments. That day, Dee Dee Johnson phoned and asked me to go to the gem show in Tucson with her. I’d never been to a gem show, even though I’ve lived in Arizona all my life. I practically begged Joe to take Gramps for me.”

“Don’t be taking the blame, girl. Joe’s the bad apple. He and that deputy-sheriff pal of his would steal a cross from the church if they thought they could melt it down and sell it for a dollar.”

“You don’t mean Shad Tilford?” Hayley frowned.

“The very same.”

“He…he’s in charge of my complaint. Sheriff Bonner assigned Shad to my case when I asked the law to go after Joe for half the money from the mine sale. Shad hasn’t been very helpful. He insinuated it was Joe’s right, as my husband, to sell the Silver Cloud. He finally said he’d issue a warrant to bring Joe in for questioning.”

“Humph! I’ll wager Tilford got a cut of the money Joe received from the deal. I’ve suspected for some time that our deputy’s a little shady. How he ever wound up wearing a badge is beyond me.”

“Francesca said he was an L.A. city cop before he came to Tombstone.”

“Just ’cause a chicken’s got wings don’t mean it can fly. I know Francesca has her fingers in a lot of pies in town, but how does she know Tilford didn’t dummy up those fancy recommendations he flashed at the city council meeting?”

Francesca Portolo was one of the former lady friends of Big Ben O’Dell, and as such, she’d had a hand in raising Hayley. Hayley’s dad had died in a mining accident when she was only a few weeks old. When she was three, her mother succumbed to breast cancer. Hayley’s maternal grandfather, Ben O’Dell, a local prospector who’d—more than once—lost his shirt mining for silver, gold and copper, became guardian and caretaker of his grandchild. He, in turn, relied on the women who fostered dreams of becoming the second Mrs. Ben O’Dell to raise Hayley.

She had a soft spot in her heart for all of them, but Francesca, owner of the local fabric store, had taught Hayley how to sew and cook. In addition, she’d shown a lonely little girl tricks she needed to know about becoming a woman. So Hayley tended to believe Francesca.

“Like I said, Dr. Gerrard, I’m in a fix and it’s not likely to change. Gramps had more downs than ups, but he was never a quitter. Nor am I. To tell you the truth, I’m relieved to hear it’s a baby making me sick and not cancer, like killed Mama. If my health’s otherwise okay, I’ll get by without Joe.”

“You’re fit as a fiddle, Hayley, though a mite on the skinny side. Ask Esther at the front desk for the booklet I give all my prospective mothers. Tells you pretty much everything you need to know about prenatal care. Follow the book’s advice and eat right. You’ll have a healthy baby.”

“Thanks, Dr. Gerrard. I guess my biggest worry, then, is how to earn the money to keep the rent paid, eat right and pay for my delivery.”

“Your grandpa and I went back a long way. I’ll arrange terms to make it easy on you, Hayley. Tell Esther that, too.”

Hayley smiled, the first real smile since her grandfather’s chronic asthma facilitated a persistent bacterial pneumonia from which he never recovered. Thank God, she thought, the world still held a few good men like Dr. Gerrard.

As Hayley left the clinic with the booklet and a supply of prenatal vitamins clutched in her hand, she set her sights on doing whatever was necessary to make a life for herself and the new life growing inside her.

Which seemed easier said than done when she returned home and found the mail had brought overdue notices on her utilities. Not only that, rent on the house was due in three days. She phoned Sheriff Bonner and voiced her concerns about Shad. Bonner said she had to be patient. They’d issued a warrant for Joe. It seemed he’d disappeared.

On hanging up, Hayley reviewed her options. She had the thousand dollars’ guilt money Joe had left on the kitchen table. In the note he’d clipped to it, he’d said the money should tide her over until she found work. Of course, Joe ignored the fact that in a community-property state, he owed her half of the two hundred and fifty thousand he’d received from a mining consortium. Even so, it wasn’t his taking the money that hurt so much. It was his betrayal. Never very outgoing, Hayley hadn’t made a lot of friends her own age before Joe had come to town selling mining explosives. She’d been flattered by his interest. He was good-looking and charismatic. And he’d centered his attention on her.

Gramps had said disparaging things about Joe. So had several of the old-timers in town. Now Hayley wished she’d listened. But no one, especially not Gramps, understood how lonely she’d been for most of her life. Ben O’Dell had been a tough old codger who liked his solitude. He often took off for weeks on end, prospecting. When he was home, he was preoccupied with the Silver Cloud mine.

Mining was virtually all Hayley knew, too. And mining was tough. There hadn’t been money for college at the time she graduated from high school. While her contemporaries moved on, Hayley had been stuck in Tombstone. Was it any wonder that at twenty-five, she’d latched on to Joe like a drowning woman with a life preserver? It was painful now to admit she’d been hood-winked—that she’d been stupidly trusting despite all the warnings.

Not a chance she’d make that mistake again. No, siree! Hayley Ryan was through with men. Anyway, she had bigger worries now. A thousand dollars wouldn’t pay two months’ rent, let alone keep up with utilities and buy food.

She needed a long-term plan. She needed a job. But…doing what? Hayley drew stars on the back of her electric bill. Shoot, she didn’t have a lot of skills, and Tombstone wasn’t exactly a job mecca. Sometimes months went by without an opening being listed in the paper. If she knew anyone in Tucson or Phoenix, she could go there, where unskilled jobs were more plentiful. Thing was, she didn’t even have transportation. Joe had traded in his car and Ben’s sedan on a flashy convertible—or so she’d heard. The pencil lead broke as she bore down on the last star.

“Lord,” she muttered, propping her chin in one palm, “if you’re going to show me a path, now would be as good a time as any to do it.” Idly she sorted a stack of bills while gazing blankly around at the meager accumulation of a lifetime. Dinnertime came, but she had no appetite. Although now she had to think about someone besides herself. The first item in Dr. Gerrard’s prenatal care booklet said to eat nutritious meals.

Hayley finally settled on a salad with some grated cheese for protein. She was in the middle of halfheartedly tearing apart limp lettuce when someone knocked timidly on her door.

For a moment her stomach pitched. Had Joe repented? As quickly, Hayley knew she’d never take him back even if he crawled in on hands and knees.

It wasn’t him she saw, anyway, as she peeped through the window beside the door. It was Virgil Coleman, one of her grandfather’s retired mining buddies.

“Virgil, hi,” she greeted the crusty gentleman who stood on the porch, crumpling a battered hat between his gnarled hands.

“Hate to bother you, little lady, you being in mourning and all.” The old fellow carefully picked his way through condolences, as men his age were prone to do. Clearing his throat, he added, “My oldest boy, Hank, is coming tomorrow to move me up to his place in Flagstaff. We’re putting my property up for sale. I wondered if you’d mind moving Ben’s old pickup and camp trailer out of my shed? The Realtor said I gotta clean the place up.”

“Pickup and camp trailer? I thought all of Gramps’s equipment went to the consortium that bought the mine.”

“Ben never used this stuff at the Silver Cloud. It’s his prospecting outfit. In fact, the whole kit and caboodle was once your dad’s. So I guess you know it’s old. Truck still runs okay, though.”

“I’d forgotten those things.” Hayley could barely contain her excitement. “The unit is self-contained, right?”

When Virgil scratched the fringe of hair that ringed his bald pate, Hayley elaborated. “I mean, the trailer has a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, doesn’t it?”

“About the size of a postage stamp, but yep. Once Big Ben stepped inside, he filled the place. I reckon it served his purpose, though. A man huntin’ ore travels light. He made do with it when he worked his claim down Ruby way.”

“Wait—are you saying Gramps had a mine other than the Silver Cloud?”

“Not a mine, but a claim site.”

Hayley was floored by the news. And thrilled. And suddenly hopeful. “A duly registered claim?” she asked, her heart beginning to flutter excitedly.

Virgil stammered a bit. “’Spect so. Don’t rightly know. If Ben worked it, I knowed he’d have filed right and proper.”

“A name, Virgil.” She grabbed the old man’s scrawny wrist. “If you know what he called his claim, I can find the location in the recorder’s office.”

Shaking his head, the old man backed out the door. “Wish I could help you more, missy. Ben was real secretive about that claim. So can I tell Hank you’ll pick up the truck and trailer tomorrow or the next day?”

“Yes. You bet. Virgil, you just made my day.” Hayley flung her arms around his wasted shoulders and gave him a resounding kiss on his leathery cheek. Typical of an old miner, Virgil blushed and hurriedly stammered out a goodbye.

Hayley spent only a moment hugging herself in glee and dancing around the room. Then she went to the one place she thought her grandfather might have kept a record of the claim. The same antique strongbox where he’d stored the deed that Joe had stolen. But even if Joe had found placer or lode claims for the Ruby site, she’d still have the pickup and trailer.

As she took down the box with hands that shook, Hayley recalled reading a magazine in Dr. Gerrard’s office about campers who parked their RVs for free out on the desert near Quartzsite. If nothing else, it’d be a place she could live rent free until the baby arrived. A place where she could stretch the money Joe had left her.

It’d be too much to hope for—to think she might actually have claim rights to a parcel of land.

After a deep breath, Hayley began unloading the strongbox. She found her birth certificate and her parents’ certificate of marriage, along with old family photos. She paused to look at one of her mom before reverently laying it aside. Taped to the back of her grandmother’s photo was her worn gold wedding band. Old-timers in town said that Hayley, except for her lighter hair color, resembled her grandmother, a full-blooded Apache.

Hayley lightly traced the woman’s high cheekbones and straight black hair. She saw a resemblance both to herself and her mother. It was easy to see why Grandpa had never given his heart to another woman, even though he’d taken numerous females to his bed. There was a strength and beauty about her grandmother that made her very different from softer ladies Ben squired around town.

Hayley neared the bottom of the box and her hopes of finding a claim dimmed. Suddenly, stuck to the lining, there it was. A claim form, yellowed with age, stapled to a hand-drawn map. Hayley could tell by the dates stamped on the form that Ben had refiled on the same site for ten years. To retain rights to any claim, a miner had to do a minimum of a hundred dollars’ worth of work on it every calendar year. The recording calendar ran from July 1 to June 30.

Yikes! She had a week left to ready an outfit and refile on the property.

A week! Yet it felt like a beautiful, wonderful, stupendous reprieve. Hayley hugged the papers to her breast and skipped across the threadbare living-room carpet. She had no idea what Gramps thought he’d find near the old ghost town of Ruby. But certainly something worth going there for year after year.

Gold? Arizona had a rich history of gold deposits. Ben had fascinating stories to tell about placer-gold and flour-gold strikes. He’d taken Hayley prospecting in her younger days. Those trips had been idyllic. Out of her memories, Hayley suddenly formed a vision of cottonwoods shading a lazy stream. It was a vision she couldn’t shake throughout a sleepless night or as she walked over to Virgil’s the next day to claim her truck and camp trailer. Once again life held purpose. Purpose and dreams.

By the end of the following week, she’d paid her bills and said her goodbyes to the people who mattered. Only a very few people knew she’d bought stores for a lengthy outing. Cradling her still-flat stomach, she smiled. “Hang in there, wee one. Your mama’s going to find gold. You’ll never have to worry about where your next meal’s coming from—and you’ll never have to rely on a man to take care of you.”

Monday morning she left Tombstone behind and aimed the old pickup toward the county seat to renew Ben’s claim.

When she got to the courthouse in Nogales, she filed for a divorce from Joe Ryan and posted her filing fee on the claim. Her dreams didn’t stretch so far that she dared believe she’d ever become a millionaire, though she did allow herself to hope that Ben’s secret claim would produce enough ore to provide her child with the kind of life she’d always wanted herself. Including a house. A permanent home in some friendly city that no one could ever take away.

After leaving the courthouse, she began the trek to Ruby. Twice she had doubts—although she never considered turning back. Once when she lost sight of the jutting red rock known as Montana Peak, which she’d been using as her compass since leaving the highway, and a second time when she passed the ghost town of Ruby. One-hundred-degree heat sizzled off the dented hood of the pickup. The remnants of dilapidated buildings depressed her. They stood as grim reminders that this scorched earth had beaten stronger men and women than Hayley Andrews Ryan ever thought of being.

She touched her stomach, where the flutter she felt was fear, not the movement of her child. What insanity had possessed her to come to this desolate land alone? Pregnant and alone.

Then, when the vegetation became greener and Hayley spotted a frolicking white-faced cow and calf, she reminded herself how alone she’d been in Tombstone. “There’s just you and me, kid,” she murmured, patting her stomach again.

The trailer bumped when she hit a rocky dip. Hayley bounced on the seat and settled back with a giggle. “I hope you like roller coasters, kiddo. The track from here on is a real washboard.”

According to the map, she was near the claim. While she’d hoped for an oasis of deer grass and cottonwoods, what lay ahead was an occasional mesquite, ironwood and rock. Sheer cliffs of reddish rock. Turning left around a promontory, Hayley saw a cascade of water falling between the two sentinel rocks drawn on the map. The falling water formed a natural spring. But it didn’t feed the Santa Cruz River as she’d hoped.

A crushing disappointment descended as Hayley stopped her rig in the clearing also indicated on the crude map. So her grandfather hadn’t been panning for gold. What riches had enticed him to come to this desolate place year after year—and to keep it such a secret?

She pulled the trailer beneath the shade of a huge mesquite. Maybe this wasn’t the place, she thought as she climbed down from the cab.

But a hand-carved wooden sign carefully wedged in a stack of rocks said Blue Cameo Mine. Tears sprang to her eyes and it suddenly seemed absolutely right that she be here. A cameo carved in blue was the only memento she had of her mother. Another legacy stolen by Joe Ryan. Losing the cameo had hurt worse than his selling the Silver Cloud.

Ben O’Dell had carved his name in the sign. That was how prospectors staked a claim. Hayley could expect to find a similar mound at each of the claim’s four corners. Twenty acres in all was the limit one person could work.

Night was sneaking up on her. The sun had slipped behind the Sierrita Mountains. Tomorrow would be plenty of time to take stock of the land Hayley planned to call home for at least the next six months. What she needed to do in the remaining daylight was unhitch the pickup and level the trailer. With luck, she’d have time to gather a bit of wood and build a campfire. The trailer’s utilities ran on butane, but she wanted to save that for when inclement weather drove her inside. She hadn’t passed a convenience store or gas station, in the past thirty miles. Twenty of those miles had been unpaved road. Yes, she’d do well to save her store-bought resources and live off the land for as long as possible.