Her Mistletoe Miracle

Her Mistletoe Miracle
Roz Denny Fox

Enjoy the dreams, explore the emotions, experience the relationships.A mother-to-be far from home… As a member of the Montana’s Angel Fleet, Mick Callen has rescued climbers before. But this time is different – because he’s more than a little attracted to one of the women he’s rescued. However, Hana Egan’s situation is complicated; not only is she badly hurt, she’s pregnant. Hana has no father for her baby, and Mick wants to take care of her.Theirs might not be the most conventional route to love and family, but miracles can happen at Christmas!

“I want us to be married beforeyou have the baby.”

“Mick, that’s not possible.” Hana tried to sit up, but a nurse pressed her back.

“Hana, listen to me. If we’re married, the baby has my last name. The birth certificate will say Callen. This baby will be ours – yours and mine. I’ll be the one, the only, father.”

Hana’s tear-swollen eyes sought the doctor. “Is it crazy or is it possible? I’d like that…a lot.” With her free hand she touched her stomach.

Dr Walsh shrugged. “It’s crazy, all right. You’d need a licence and that takes time…”

“We have our licence. They processed it today. It’s…uh, at the house.”

“Then we can do it,” the doctor said. “Somebody find the hospital chaplain and get him up here at the double. Mick, you run home and get the licence.”

Mick nodded, then slid his hand up to cradle the back of Hana’s head. “I know this isn’t the way we planned it…” He grinned. “But at least we’ll have a Christmas wedding.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Roz made her first sale to the Romance line in 1989 and sold six Romance titles, writing as Roz Denny. After transferring to the Superromance series, she began writing as Roz Denny Fox.

Roz has been a RITA® Award finalist and has been placed in a number of other contests; her books have also appeared on the bestseller lists. She’s happy to have received her twenty-five-book pin and would one day love to get the pin for fifty books.

Roz currently resides in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband, Denny. They have two daughters.

Dear Reader,

When I first thought of writing a story that centred on twins who fly mercy flights in a wilderness area, I imagined it as two stories in one book. But I hadn’t even finished the synopsis of Marlee’s story before I realised her brother Mick needed a life, a love, a book of his own. My editor agreed.

Mick had been wounded in Afghanistan, healed, and had rebuilt his grandfather’s charter flight service to what it had once been. Mick Callen enticed his sister to come home, only to have her leave again when she found her true love. The twins’ grandfather died over the summer. I just couldn’t leave Mick alone and lonely.

Certain books come together more easily than others, and Mick and Hana’s story was one of them. I love both of these characters. Plus I like writing about families who face the challenges real people face in real life.

I hope you enjoy reading this book. The men and women (and the various organisations) who make mercy flights accessible to people in remote sites share a unique strength and compassion. I admire them one and all. However, Mick’s story, like his sister’s, is pure fiction and not patterned on any of the many real mercy flying services.

Roz Denny Fox

PS I love hearing from readers. You can reach me at PO Box 17480-101, Tucson, AZ 85731, USA or via e-mail at rdfox@worldnet.att.net.

Her Mistletoe Miracle

ROZ DENNY FOX

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

CHAPTER ONE

MICK CALLEN MOVED a step higher on the twelve-foot ladder that was propped against the battered Huey. It was the only helicopter in a fleet of three aircraft belonging to Cloud Chasers, Mick’s company, which delivered freight throughout remote northwest Montana.

He stretched to dab lubricant on the far side of the rotor pitch. The pain in his hip at the movement was a sharp reminder that he’d reached too far for the titanium socket a surgeon had installed a year ago. He adjusted his weight and breathed more easily. Damn, how long would it be before he’d remember he didn’t have the same range of motion anymore? But setting limits wasn’t easy for a man who, at thirty-five, ought to be in the prime of his life.

Frustrated, he raised a greasy hand to swipe a stubborn lock of hair out of his eyes, then caught himself and first rubbed the grease down his coveralls so he wouldn’t have a black streak through his blond hair. Mick shifted again and rested the can on the top rung. From this vantage point he could see a row of white-capped peaks in the distance. A slice of the Rocky Mountains.

Intent on servicing the Huey, Mick hadn’t noticed the added nip in the morning air until this minute. The sky was a deep, cloudless blue. Pappy Jack would’ve said it was a perfect day for cloud chasing. Hence the name of their company.

A pang seared Mick’s chest. This pain wasn’t related to the injuries he’d sustained in the military when he’d been shot down during his last mission in Afghanistan. Nor was it the result of the many subsequent surgeries. Mick recognized this ache. He’d diagnosed it weeks ago as he tinkered with his plane engines. This pain struck each time he left the house to work solo.

Since mid-May he’d shopped solo, cooked solo, ate solo, flew solo and walked Wingman, his mutt, solo.

Here it was, already late October. It had been six damned months and he still expected to see his grandfather moving around the property. Pappy Jack Callen, Mick’s mentor and grandfather, had always been the real heart and soul of Cloud Chasers.

At Jack’s funeral late last spring, scores of residents from the nearby community of Whitepine had come to pay their respects. More than a few of Pappy’s old friends had claimed Mick and Jack were lucky that Pappy had said good-night as usual one night and then simply didn’t wake up the next morning. They said that when they died, they hoped it happened that way.

Except they weren’t the ones who’d found Pappy lifeless in his bed. Mick had. And not a day passed that he didn’t think of a hundred things he should’ve said the night before to the man who’d long been the rock for Mick and his twin sister, Marlee. Pappy had been everything to them after they’d lost their parents in a senseless car accident some twenty years ago.

Marlee assured Mick over and over in the days following the funeral that Pappy knew they loved him. But his sister, newly married and pregnant, didn’t have endless empty hours to fill with nothing but rambling thoughts. Should’ves, could’ves, would’ves. These seemed to define Mick’s existence lately. Not the touchy-feely type, he’d never been a big one for vocalizing how he felt. A fault he’d have to live with, or change. Damn, but change didn’t come easy, either.

At eighty-six, their grandfather had lived a full life. Jack Callen proudly boasted a distinguished military career. He’d married the love of his life. Had built his home and business from the ground up. He’d raised a son and shepherded twin grandkids toward becoming fine navy flyers and otherwise all-around productive citizens.

By comparison, Mick felt his own life was going nowhere fast.

His new brother-in-law, Glacier Park forest ranger Wylie Ames, said what Mick needed was to find a good woman. His sister took every opportunity to nag him to phone Tammy Skidmore, a nurse in Kalispell who’d shown enough interest to hand him her phone number the day he’d checked out of the hospital.

He scowled as he slopped grease on the underside of the rotor. Huh, maybe he should pick up the phone and call Tammy. But something held him back. Mick jokingly told Marlee it’d be hard to date a woman who had jammed needle after needle into his bare butt. Although that didn’t ring true. Mick had lost all modesty after his accident. With Tammy, at least, if they ever reached the point of doing the deed, he wouldn’t have to explain the ugly puckered skin that ran from hip to ankle where he’d been riddled by shrapnel. Mick probably didn’t have a single physical asset Tammy Skidmore hadn’t clinically observed, so that was pretty much a nonissue.

And if he crossed Tammy off his list of available females he was left with slim pickin’s. Available, suitable women didn’t grow on trees and there was little more than trees in this backcountry. Though a couple of old schoolmates in Whitepine had let him know at Pappy’s funeral that they were back in circulation. One was too straitlaced to suit Mick. The other lacked any scruples.

A little voice in the back of his mind niggled. What about Hana Egan?

What about her? Last fall, Pappy had told his twin sister that Mick was “sweet” on the smoke jumper. Mick had tripped over his teeth to deny it.

“Mick!” Hearing his name drifting up from the foot of his ladder jerked Mick out of his daydream. He hastily jammed a lid on the grease bucket and began to make his way down the rickety ladder.

Stella Gibson was waiting for him at the bottom. Judging by her worried expression, she’d anxiously followed his slow progress. The matronly widow, who lived in a cabin down the hill, had helped Mick in a variety of capacities since his medical discharge from the navy. She’d cleaned the house and left enough meals in the refrigerator to keep him and Pappy from starving.

Those months when Mick had been laid up, when Marlee moved home and flew his route, Stella took care of Mick, Pappy and sometimes Marlee’s daughter, Jo Beth. But she had never made a secret of the fact that she was looking for a permanent job. It was only after Marlee married Wylie, and Pappy passed away, that Mick got smart and hired Stella to work half-time cleaning house, and the other half keeping order in Cloud Chasers’ office. That was a task his sister repeatedly said he was bad at.

Hands on hips, Stella was obviously ready to give him a motherly lecture. “When I left yesterday, Mick Callen, you told me Josh Manley would be in today to service the helicopter. Why are you up on that ladder?”

Mick set down the bucket, pulled a rag out of his back pocket and wiped the excess goop off his fingers. “Yeah, well, Josh’s mom phoned. His girlfriend conned Josh into driving her and a coworker into Kalispell today. Apparently they’re all invited to an early Halloween party at the home of his girlfriend’s boss, who happens to have an opening for a corporate pilot. I know Josh really wants that job. He’s a good pilot, and I can’t use him full-time.”

“If he gets the job, who’ll help you, Mick? Between the upswing in freight orders and the mercy missions with Angel Fleet, it seems to me you need a full-time flying partner.”

“With winter coming on, it’s a matter of weeks before I’d have to cut Josh’s hours. That’s the nature of the freight business in upper Montana.”

“Running in high gear these last six or seven months, I never thought to ask. Will my hours be cut over the winter?”