Mom's The Word. Roz Fox Denny

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      Hayley Ryan was definitely going to have a baby

      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: [email protected]

      Mom’s the Word

      Roz Denny Fox