Should he tell her about Matthew?
As quickly as he’d thought of it, Zeke discarded the idea—even though he knew she taught little kids. Why would he bare his soul to a virtual stranger when he’d said almost nothing about his son’s condition to his coworkers, men who knew him a lot better than Grace Stafford ever would? She’d either find her grandfather’s plane and leave, or not find what she’d come for and go home to her life in San Antonio. He and Matt would remain in Galveston, battling the social worker who believed he should put Matt in a school miles from home.
When they’d walked a full block in silence, Grace assumed she’d been correct, that Zeke’s earlier question about her teaching had just been a way to pass the time.
He floored her again when he buried his hands in his pockets and said, “I’m not too interested in small talk. Tell me—do today’s first-graders learn to read, write and do math? Do all your students attend kindergarten first? I’m curious, Grace. I honestly can’t remember back to first grade. But then, I never had a teacher as pretty as you.” He gave her a mischievous grin.
That smile went to Grace’s head.
Dear Reader,
The idea for this story landed in my lap the day I sold my first book. I was working at a community college in Washington State, and Jean Floten, our college president, had just returned from an exciting vacation adventure off the coast of Florida. While her staff was celebrating my first book sale, President Floten’s secretary coaxed her to share a funny, interesting and touching tale about how she, her husband, Bill, and a friend had brought up an historic plane from the bottom of a lake. After listening raptly like everyone else at the table, I casually warned her that one day she’d see parts of this story in one of my books—to which she replied, “That would be great.”
It’s taken a long time to get this particular book off the ground. In my mind I moved the Grumman Duck many times before a cohesive story took shape. My apologies to Bill Floten for giving the role of finding and bringing up the plane to the heroine. I realize Bill has spent years lovingly restoring a plane I blithely gave away in my book. However, for the sake of this particular love story, my fictional hero and his son offer Grace Stafford far more than a barnacle-covered pontoon aircraft. They give her their hearts, their love and a chance to have the home and family Grace has long desired. Little Matthew Rossetti sure needs a mom like Grace, too.
I hope you and the other readers of this story take Zeke and Matthew Rossetti, and Grace Stafford, into your own hearts. And if you happen to pass through Bellevue, Washington, there are probably still staff at the college who can tell you about the Flotens’ real-life adventure.
Roz Denny Fox
I love to hear from readers. You can reach me at P.O. Box 17480-101, Tucson, Arizona 85731. Or e-mail me at [email protected].
A Mum for Matthew
Roz Denny Fox
My thanks go to Jean and Bill Floten for raising the real
Grumman Duck from the bottom of a freshwater lake in
Nassau, where it crashed more than forty years prior to their
adventure. I borrowed the concept from their experience,
but in all other ways my story is strictly fiction.
Cathie Morton also receives my gratitude for once telling me
that if I ever decided to write about a child with
profound hearing loss, I should contact her—which I did.
She kindly directed me to more information than I ever
dreamed existed. So to Cathie, my deepest thanks.
Any errors in this book are mine alone.
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 SIXTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
ON THE DOT OF NINE, Zeke Rossetti exited Harborside Drive and screeched to a stop in his assigned parking space at the Kemper Offshore Oil Research and Development Center. His dust trail continued to settle even after he bailed out of his Chevy pickup, which looked the way Zeke felt after three days of doing battle with the child welfare service. Horse-faced Bonnie Burnham had made it her life’s mission to remove Matthew from Zeke’s care, starting the day his ex-wife had made noises about suing for full custody. Ms. Burnham was supposed to be Matt’s caseworker, but she’d disliked Zeke from the get-go, so she schemed to take Matt away. Or at least that was how Zeke saw it. But once again, a family court judge upheld his petition. However, each encounter shook his confidence a little more—were he and his mom doing right by not boarding Matt at a special school?
Leaving his son to return to work this morning had been pure hell. Matt had awakened during the night screaming because of the pain in his ears. Zeke could never tell the true extent of the agony that caused his son to waken so frequently.
Last night, a new emergency-room doctor had ordered the usual medications. Zeke worried about the long-term effect of so many antibiotics repeatedly thrown into his son’s system. And yet, when the almost-four-year-old buried his head in Zeke’s chest and sobbed because he hurt somewhere he couldn’t even name, Zeke hurt, too. He’d become adept at hiding his own tears.
Grabbing his jacket and thermos from the Chevy’s jump seat, he loped across a plank walk that led to his workplace. This was his favorite time of day. The sun was on the rise. There was a salty tang in the air. The morning tide rushing into Galveston Bay made the uneven boards shift under his boots. By the time he reached the entry, Zeke had his sea legs under him again.
Out in the bay beyond the clapboard building, the hiss of steam and a reassuring bam-bam of the drilling rig that floated on a platform above the water line, even though it pumped oil from below the bay’s sandy bottom, centered Zeke’s mind on work. He really did love his job, and considered himself damned lucky that Pace Kemper had hired him to ramrod this drilling operation.
The offer had come at the lowest point in Zeke’s life. Mere weeks after Trixie Lee had abandoned motherhood and him. She’d hightailed it in the middle of the night, leaving him with a sick baby and working a dead-end mechanic job for her brother in a backwater burg. Which was why Zeke felt doubly lucky that Kemper, who ran his corporation from a Dallas high-rise, exhibited a willingness to be flexible with Zeke’s schedule. That allowed him time off whenever Matt took sick.
Of course, he was even more fortunate that his mom, Celia Rossetti, had without a qualm quit her nurse’s aide job to keep his house and tend his son. His mom had once been in his shoes, as a single parent. And since Trixie left him to muddle through parenting alone, Zeke had a new appreciation for everything Celia had faced, especially considering the wild kid he’d been. Zeke didn’t fool himself; his mom was the best thing standing between him and Ms. Burnham. He found it difficult to think about child welfare without wondering where they’d been in the early months, when he and Trixie Lee had struggled to deal with a