The Single Dad's Guarded Heart. Roz Denny Fox

dispatcher said they’d handle everything. My son and our hired hand tore up a sheet and wrapped Gordy’s chest real tight. But the blood has soaked through. I’m so worried. Is it okay if Josh goes with his dad? He’s old enough—sixteen.”

      “The problem is, Mrs. Maclean, I have my daughter with me, and this is the smallest of Mick’s planes. Can you tell me approximately what each of them weigh?”

      “I’m guessing Gordon’s one-eighty. Josh is maybe one-fifty.”

      Marlee did some rapid calculations. “The only space I have available is the cargo area behind the seats. From the look of it, your husband needs to lie flat. I’ll depend on your son to anchor his dad in place on bare floor. Do you have a sleeping bag we can use to cushion him?”

      The woman directed the teenage girl to run to the house and check in the hall closet with the camping gear. No one said much thereafter.

      The hired hand and Maclean’s son worked to stabilize Gordon in the spot where the freight had been. When the man cried out, Marlee took a deep breath and stepped back. Irritated by her uneasiness, she told herself this mercy mission work wasn’t so very different from rescues she’d flown for the navy. Once she made that connection, her jitters dissipated.

      “He’s not far from help now,” she said to Mrs.

      Maclean in much the same way she’d reassured field medics who’d entrusted her to save lives.

      However, her discomfort with the situation returned when she had to gather speed across the lumpy gravel road. As stoic as Maclean had tried to be when the younger men had manipulated him into the awkward space, his face now turned pasty white and sweat drenched his forehead. Even with earphones on, Marlee heard him scream seconds before she soared aloft. Jo Beth, however, calmly turned sideways in her seat and reached back to pat the injured man’s shoulder.

      Marlee dredged up a warm smile for the child. She’d thought Jo Beth needed a break from all reminders of her dad’s long illness. Then Mick had announced he needed surgery, and now this unexpected mission for Angel Fleet. Neither fazed her daughter.

      Some fifteen minutes out of the airpark, Marlee sensed more than saw that Gordy Maclean’s breathing had become shallower. What if she lost the first patient placed in her care? She unhooked a fleece-lined jacket Mick had draped over the back of the passenger seat. “Cover your dad with this,” she told Josh, as she coaxed more speed out of the Arrow. She recognized shock. God knew she’d seen enough men and women suffer from it during her two deployments. The big difference now was she wasn’t facing flying bullets.

      So why was she a nervous wreck by the time she called the tower at the Kalispell airpark? She consciously restrained any shaking in her voice as she spoke to the controller. “I’ve got a man on board who needs immediate medical attention.”

      “We’ve been expecting you, Arrow one-three-six-niner. Ambulance and medic are parked at runway four. You’re cleared to land. Do you have any special requests?”

      “Blankets, blood, Ringer’s,” Marlee responded automatically. She knew this emergency routine well. More’s the pity, she thought.

      The red lights of the ambulance cut through the thickening dusk, moving toward them slowly as Marlee set the Arrow down in the smoothest landing she’d made all day. This time she didn’t let visions of the smug Wylie Ames intrude—much. She braked, removed her headphones and was out the door, racing around the tail section to throw open the cargo doors well before the propeller stopped spinning.

      A paramedic team hustled to load the patient onto a rolling stretcher. One medic strapped on a blood pressure cuff while another attended oozing wounds, then swabbed Gordon’s arm before inserting needles for blood and Ringer’s solution, which would keep him hydrated and hopefully from going deeper into shock.

      Marlee lent a much-needed third pair of hands. It wasn’t until she heard Jo Beth’s shoes hit the tarmac behind her that she realized she’d reacted as she would have at her old job. In so doing, she’d left her daughter to fend for herself. Awash in guilt—of the type Rose Stein had heaped on her at their recent custody hearing —Marlee removed herself from the scene at hand.

      She gathered Jo Beth against her. Mom and daughter stood with arms wrapped around each other, watching medics load the gurney and boost Josh into the ambulance. The doors slammed and the vehicle roared off into the night with sirens blaring.

      Her part in the rescue was over and she didn’t personally know Maclean. But she recalled the fear etched on his son’s face. Marlee had spent more time in Josh’s shoes than she cared to think about. The kid was sixteen. What if his father’s injuries were too massive, and Gordon died in spite of their efforts?

      “Mama, you’re squeezing me too tight.”

      “Sorry, Jo Beth.” Marlee loosened the arm anchoring her daughter to her. Stifling a sigh, she raised an unsteady hand and rearranged her hair, which had come out of its clip during the afternoon.

      “Why don’t we go inside to see if we can rent a car to drive to the hospital?”

      The child looked up and nodded solemnly. “That would be good, Mama. Josh might need us. He’ll have to sit in the hospital waiting room all by himself.”

      The understanding filling the eyes of her five-year-old surprised and concerned Marlee. “Honey, Grandmother Rose never left you alone in the waiting room. Didn’t you stay next door when Daddy went for his treatments?”

      “Sometimes he had ’mergencies at night. Grandmother didn’t have time to wake up Mrs. Griffith.”

      Marlee battled more nagging guilt. Of course, over time she’d come to realize Cole had kept the truth about how sick he was from her. He’d outright lied during her last ten-month deployment. But Jo Beth’s admission meant Rose hadn’t been honest, either. She had denied the extent of Cole’s illness. It stood to reason his mom would do that, she thought, as she opened the door to the so-called terminal office.

      A single clerk stood at the counter working a crossword puzzle. “May I help you?” he asked, glancing up.

      “I just landed the Piper Arrow. Do you have a car available to rent or if not, the number for a cab?”

      “That Mick Callen’s plane?”

      “Yes, he’s laid up at the moment. I’m his sister.”

      “And you don’t trust that eyesore he parks here? Can’t say I blame you. Mick claims he leaves it in my lot so his grandpa can’t hop in and take off.”

      Marlee found a smile. “Is it a ’62 Caddy, robin’s egg blue and cream?” At the man’s nod, she said, “Mick and I learned to drive in that old tank.” She studied a cork board filled with tagged keys behind the clerk. “I don’t suppose Mick keeps a key to it here.”

      The young man turned and lifted one from a pushpin and handed it to her. “Now I know all pilots thrive on danger.”

      “How late is someone here?”

      “I’m here till midnight. If you come back later, park the car in the same spot and shove the key through the mail slot in the door.”

      “Is midnight when the tower shuts down?”

      “Yep. And that’s when we turn off all runway lights except for number one. That stays lit for emer gency landings.”

      “We’ll be back long before then.”

      Marlee helped Jo Beth into the back of the Caddy, and dug for a seat belt wedged under the seat.

      “Mama, this backseat is the biggest I’ve ever seen. I bet it’s as big as my bed.”

      “This was your grandpa’s car. They made them bigger in the old days.” If Jo Beth had been older—a lot older—Marlee might have joked about modern cars not being nearly as good as this one for making out.

      Behind the wheel, she cursed