Mom's The Word

Roz Denny Fox

She's all alone–and pregnant!Things have not gone well for Hayley Ryan. Her beloved grandfather is dead. Her no-good ex-husband not only abandoned her for another woman but stole Hayley's inheritance–and left her pregnant. All she has now is a piece of property to camp on–and a secret mine that might or might not produce.He's a rancher with strong family ties–and he's looking for a wife!Jake Cooper is part owner of the Triple C Ranch is southern Arizona. Hayley Ryan's site is adjacent to the Triple C. The first time Jake rides into her camp, she points a shotgun at his head–and without even knowing it, takes aim at his heart…Jake's determined to persuade Hayley to trust him and marry him. As for Hayley's baby-to-be–he'd love the chance to be a dad!

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: rdfox@worldnet.att.net

Mom’s the Word

Roz Denny Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://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