Home of Her Heart (Hearts of the War Book 2) Read online

Klayne stood at the edge of the field and waved to them. He cut such a fine figure in his uniform, one Delaney didn’t think she’d ever tire of seeing. Her husband enjoyed his work training soldiers at Pendleton Airfield, and she was grateful every day he came home to her each night.

  “Come on, Moose. Uncle Klayne’s here!” Ryatt said, excitedly retracing his steps with the dog woofing right behind him.

  Delaney lifted the baby’s little hand and waved it at Klayne. In the months since she’d opened her heart to him, she’d discovered home wasn’t the ranch, the house where she’d grown up, or the town of Pendleton.

  Home would forever be the place she held in Klayne’s heart.

  With a contented sigh, she lifted the baby higher in her arms. “Come on, Hope. Let’s go home.”

  Lazy Daisy Cake

  When I was a newly married, clueless girl, one of my aunts shared a recipe for an easy cake that I’ve made many times over the years. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it’s been popular with brides both young and old for generations!

  Lazy Daisy Cake:

  4 eggs

  2 cups granulated sugar

  2 teaspoons vanilla

  2 cups flour

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  ½ teaspoon salt

  1 cup milk

  2 tablespoons butter

  Topping:

  6 tablespoons butter

  6 tablespoons brown sugar

  4 tablespoons heavy cream

  1 cup shredded, sweetened coconut

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  Beat eggs lightly and add granulated sugar slowly, until batter is pale yellow. Add vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Heat milk and butter together until butter is melted (the easiest way is in the microwave). Fold dry ingredients into the batter then pour in milk mixture and beat well until thoroughly blended.

  Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan (or a 10-inch cast iron skillet works, too) and pour in batter and bake for approximately 40 minutes, until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  For the topping, heat butter, brown sugar and cream in a saucepan, stirring to keep it from sticking to the pan. Bring to a boil. Add coconut and stir then spread on top of baked cake. Broil for three or four minutes, until coconut topping is golden and bubbling.

  Serve with whipped cream or ice cream for extra deliciousness.

  Author’s Note

  When I was writing Garden of Her Heart, I considered the other books I planned to write in the Hearts of the War series. As soon as I wrote about Ryatt Danvers losing his parents, I knew the story of his aunt Dee had to be next in the series.

  In truth, I started to write the beginning of the story with Delaney bringing Ryatt home after the funeral service. As usual, my characters had other plans. So much of Delaney and Klayne’s story happened months before that tragic event and needed to be shared with you.

  We knew from Garden of Her Heart that Delaney was someone held in high esteem by Ryatt and his little friend Petey. As I pictured her and her big, dynamic personality, I imagined the type of man who would be a good balance to her.

  Enter quiet, unassuming Klayne. A man without family or any roots. A man who is kind, gentle, and generous, but has never been given the opportunity to share that with anyone. For me, Klayne was an easy character to like and admire, despite his faults. For fun, I looked up the name Klayne and discovered those with this name supposedly have an urge for independence that causes them to find the “ties that bind” restricting. So perfect for his character, don’t you think?

  In the story, Klayne was one of eighty brave men who took on an impossible mission with courage and determination.

  The basis for the mission he went on to bomb Japan came from what I read about the Doolittle Raiders. Actually, the idea for that came from a friend of our Lil Miss. She came home from school one day, excited that a friend told her about some men from Pendleton, Oregon, who were famous during World War II and suggested I look into the Doolittle Raid.

  (Thank you, Bradey! What a fabulous suggestion!)

  According to Captain Cavedweller, I dove into the research so deeply, he wasn’t sure I’d ever resurface. The more I read about the men involved in the raid, the more I wanted to know about them.

  Essentially, the bombing of Pearl Harbor drove President Roosevelt to demand something be done, something big, something on Japanese soil that would show the enemy they might have struck first, but America would definitely strike back.

  The “foolish idea” that would become a top-secret mission started with a question about an Army bomber flying off a Navy carrier and bombing Japan, perhaps even Tokyo. As the idea gained steam, chief of the Army Air Forces, Lieutenant General Henry “Hap” Arnold, joined in the planning. He ran the concept by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle, his staff troubleshooter. Doolittle was asked to look into the type of Army planes that could take off in 500 feet, carry a 2,000-pound bomb load, and fly 2,000 miles with a full crew. The other stipulation was that the wingspan of the plane could not exceed more than 75 feet.

  Doolittle decided the B-25 Mitchell, a medium-sized bomber, could be modified to fit the specifications needed for the operation. In January, General Arnold requested Doolittle take over the mission.

  At first glimpse, one might have questioned why Doolittle qualified to lead such an important undertaking. The man was just five feet four, but he was a fighter. From his early days in Alaska where he fought bullies to his years as a professional boxer, Doolittle could hold his own. He also was a man of intelligence and cunning, holding a degree from the University of California as well as a master’s and Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering. Doolittle tested planes, pushing them to their limits, flying aerobatics that wowed crowds and gave him the ability to know what a plane could do.

  While General Arnold set plans in motion with Doolittle, the Navy was finishing work on a new carrier named the Hornet. Before anything further transpired, it was decided a test run had to take place to see if a B-25 could lift off a carrier. General Arnold ordered three B-25s with the best combat crews available report to Norfolk where the planes and crews boarded the Hornet. On February 2, 1942, two bombers (a burned out engine grounded the third) took to the skies, zooming off the Hornet’s deck.

  Assured flying B-25s off a carrier was possible, Doolittle moved forward with plans. He needed aircrews with enough pilots, bombardiers, and gunners to operate two dozen planes. At that time, only a few outfits in the country flew the relatively new B-25. Doolittle was directed to the 17th Bombardment Group, comprised of the 34th, 37th, and 95th squadrons, as well as the associated 89th Reconnaissance Squadron, all based in Pendleton, Oregon. They had planes he could use and Doolittle decided to recruit his fliers from the same group.

  Not a single airman in the group had flown in combat, few of the gunners had fired a machine gun from the plane, and many of the navigators had little practical experience, especially when it came to open water. Yet, orders rolled out on February 3, transferring all planes, aircrews, and ground personnel to Columbia Army Air Base in South Carolina.

  Aware of the dangers of the mission, Doolittle only wanted volunteers. He assembled a group commander and squadron leaders, informing them he was in charge of a dangerous mission, one that would require the bombers to take off in just 500 feet. Unable to give them more details, he trusted them to select two dozen crews, made entirely of volunteers. In early March, the crews were moved from South Carolina to Eglin Field in Florida. Some of the men joked they volunteered just to get away from living in tents in the cold and mud of Columbia.

  The crews trained in the modified B-25s, flying over the water, practicing bombing, navigating, and flying low. One of the men really did make a new bombsight out of scrap parts that cost mere pennies compared to the nearly $10,000 price tag of the Norden bombsight. He called it the Mark Twain in honor of the lead-line depth finders once used along the Mississippi River.

  A fe
w weeks later, Doolittle gave orders for the men to fly across the country to McClellan Airfield in Sacramento. Stories indicate many of the crews had quite a lively time on the flight from one coast to the other, flying low while scaring farmers, cattle, cars on the road, and others in their journey. From McClellan they went on to Alameda Naval Air Station where sixteen planes and all of the crews boarded the Hornet. Even though the crews still had no idea where they were heading (although many speculated the reason for the mission), Doolittle was afraid someone might leak information, so every man who had trained was taken along on the journey.

  Once they were far out at sea, Doolittle gathered the men and told them of his plans to bomb Tokyo and a few other cities. The men knew their odds were slim of surviving the mission, but they didn’t back out.

  The morning of April 18, 1942, after spotting a Japanese ship, the decision was made for the Raiders to take to the air much earlier than planned. Hundreds of miles away from where they originally planned to leave the Hornet, they added extra cans of fuel and hoped for the best.

  Of the eighty men who flew on that famous mission, 79 of them came from Pendleton Airfield. The only one who wasn’t was Doolittle. Fifteen of the planes crashed in or near China. Three men died in the crash landings, and the Japanese captured eight others. Three of the eight prisoners of war were executed later in 1942, and one died of malnourishment. Miraculously, the other four survived the war in some of the most horrific conditions one can imagine.

  The one plane that didn’t make it to China landed in Russia where the crew was interned for fourteen months until they escaped and made it to safety.

  The crew of plane number seven, piloted by Captain Ted W. Lawson crashed close to a beach when their engines failed. All but the gunner received severe injuries. This crew was the inspiration for the men with Klayne in the story.

  Captain Lawson had to have a leg amputated in primitive conditions, but somehow survived. After he made it back to the States, he wrote a book called Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. It was soon turned into a movie. I highly recommend both if you’d like a glimpse into the lives of what these unbelievably brave men went through on this mission. I also recommend I Could Never Be So Lucky Again by Gen. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle and James M. Scott’s Target Tokyo, an excellent, engaging book that takes you on the entire mission, right up through the release of the POWs and the reunion of the surviving Doolittle Raiders.

  Although the raid on Tokyo didn’t result in substantial damage to any of the cities bombed (in fact, Doolittle thought he’d be court-martialed when he returned to Washington D.C), it wreaked psychological havoc on the Japanese leaders who thought their country was untouchable. The raid also gave America a huge boost in morale that carried on through the coming dark days of the war.

  As I read the stories of these men… men who volunteered with no idea where they were going or what they were doing, just that many of them most likely wouldn’t survive, my heart swelled with admiration for each one of them. And not just them, but the families they left behind who had no idea of their fates for weeks (some for months and years) after the mission.

  As you may have guessed, the reason for setting this story in Pendleton ties closely to the fact the Doolittle Raiders were based at the airfield there before Doolittle transferred them to South Carolina.

  Those of you who are familiar with my Pendleton Petticoats series may recognize some characters such as Kade Rawlings, Tony and Ilsa Campanelli, and Nik Nash, to name a few. It was fun to think about them in their “golden years,” and what life might look like for them then.

  Since there was a brothel involved in the story, I just had to make it Miss Clementine’s place. Miss Clementine is based on the historical figure of Stella Darby, a real-life madam who operated her bordello from the late 1920s until well into the 1960s. She supported any number of charities in town, often donating clothing, food and funds to the poor.

  Pendleton is as unique and varied in its history as this story implies. The Umatilla Reservation really was located on one end of town while a hospital for the mentally ill resided on the other.

  Wheat ranches were and are a vital part of the area’s economy, with thousands and thousands of acres of golden, rolling hills visible in the summer months.

  In fact, my Dad worked on wheat ranches in the area when he was a young man in the 1950s. He talks about roguing the wheat, along with many other fascinating stories of his days on the sprawling wheat ranches.

  The magazine mentioned in the story that Delaney finds at the hospital with Klayne’s picture inside is actually the June 1, 1942 issue of Life Magazine. One of the Raiders wrote that he came upon that issue of the magazine en route to the States from China and was quite shocked to see a photo of himself included. I had more fun than I should have thumbing through the pages of the copy I acquired, studying the advertisements even more than the stories.

  The mention of the root cellar where Delaney stored the produce for the winter brought back memories of my grandparents’ cellar. At the back of their yard was a mound of grass-covered dirt I loved to play on. One day, Grandma wanted a jar of fruit and sent Grandpa and me out to the “fruit cellar” to get it. Grandpa lifted the heavy door set in the earth and took three steps down a set of wooden stairs before he pulled on a string and a single light bulb illuminated the dark, dank space. The rows and rows of jars filled with colorful fruit and vegetables made it seem like a magical place, at least to a six-year-old.

  In the course of writing this story, I’ve learned so much about World War II, about the courageous people who battled the enemy and those who triumphed on the home front. There were times Captain Cavedweller would come into my office and find me an emotional mess from reading what some of these people endured.

  I am grateful every day for the sacrifices they made that created a better world for the next generation, and the next.

  If you enjoyed this story, I hope you’ll keep an eye out for the next book in the Hearts of the War series. Yes, there most definitely will be more. The characters awaiting their turn to have their stories told definitely wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Thank you for reading Klayne and Delaney’s story. I hope you’ll take just a moment to write a review. I’d so appreciate it and readers searching for new books will, too.

  Click here to review.

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  Meet more of the Pendleton characters in their younger years in the Pendleton Petticoats series.

  Pendleton Petticoats Series

  Set in the western town of Pendleton, Oregon, at the turn of the 20th century, each book in this series bears the name of the heroine, all brave yet very different.

  Dacey (Prelude) — A conniving mother, a reluctant groom and a desperate bride make for a lively adventure full of sweet romance in this prelude to the beginning of the series.

  Aundy (Book 1) — Aundy Thorsen, a stubborn mail-order bride, finds the courage to carry on when she's widowed before ever truly becoming a wife, but opening her heart to love again may be more than she can bear.

  Caterina (Book 2) — Running from a man intent on marrying her, Caterina Campanelli starts a new life in Pendleton, completely unprepared for the passionate feelings stirred in her by the town's incredibly handsome deputy sheriff.

  Ilsa (Book 3) — Desperate to escape her wicked aunt and an unthinkable future, Ilsa Thorsen finds herself on her sister's ranch in Pendleton. Not only are the dust and smells more than she can bear, but Tony Campanelli seems bent on making her his special project.

  Marnie (Book 4) — Beyond all hope for a happy future, Marnie Jones struggles to deal with her roil
ing emotions when U.S. Marshal Lars Thorsen rides into town, tearing down the walls she’s erected around her heart.

  Lacy (Book 5) — Bound by tradition and responsibilities, Lacy has to choose between the ties that bind her to the past and the unexpected love that will carry her into the future.

  Bertie (Book 6) — Haunted by the trauma of her past, Bertie Hawkins must open her heart to love if she has any hope for the future.

  Millie (Book 7) — Determined to bring prohibition to town, the last thing Millie Matlock expects is to fall for the charming owner of the Second Chance Saloon.

  Dally (Book 8) — Eager to return home and begin his career, Doctor Nik Nash is caught by surprise when the spirited Dally Douglas captures his heart.

  Read the exciting first chapter of Aundy by turning the page…

  Chapter One

  1899 — Eastern Oregon

  Clickety-clak. Clickety-clak. Clickety-clak.

  The sound of the train kept perfect time with the runaway thumping of Aundy Thorsen’s heart. Each beat took her closer to an uncertain future and she wondered what madness possessed her to make such a rash decision.

  “Miss?” A gentle tap on her arm brought Aundy’s head around to look into the friendly face of the porter. “We’ll be in Pendleton soon. Just wanted to let you know.”

  “Thank you,” Aundy said with a smile, nodding her head. The porter had been helpful and kind, answering her many questions and making two rowdy salesmen intent on bothering her relocate to a different car.

  Aware that she was asking for trouble traveling alone, Aundy figured since she was taller than most men and not considered beautiful, she wouldn’t have any problems.