Hickam - Red Helmet

Advance Praise forRed Helmet

The latest from Rocket Boys author... takes an inside look at coalmining, from shoveling gob to negotiating international trade deals, through the lens of modern romance.

Publishers Weekly

A new book by Homer Hickam is always a cause for celebration, and Red Helmet is no exception. Set in the Appalachian coal country that Hickam knows down to the bone, every line of this rousing tale of true love and underground adventure is filled with the authors huge heart and boundless energy. I loved riding the twists of both the plot and the relationship as Cable and Song explored all the depths two people can find when they enter dangerous, exciting places like a coal mine... or a marriage. By the time I closed the book, Id been entertained as all get-out and had my faith in humanity bolstered. Homer Hickam is a national treasure.

Joshilyn Jackson, author of Gods in Alabama and Between, Georgia

Americas working men and women are Hickams heroes; he is the Mark Twain of our age, and perhaps the best mainstream writer still tapping keys.

Stephen Coonts, New York Times best-selling author of The Traitor

Red Helmet is a tremendously compelling read, and further proves what most of us know already: Homer Hickam is a born storyteller. He writes about real people, and what genuinely matters mostlove. Song Hawkins and her precarious hold on life, both spiritually and physically, make this a truly memorable book.

Bret Lott, best-selling author of Jewel and A Song I Knew By Heart

Other books by Homer Hickam include

The Far Reaches

The Ambassadors Son

The Keepers Son

We Are Not Afraid

Sky of Stone

The Coalwood Way

Back to the Moon

Rocket Boys / October Sky

Torpedo Junction

2007 by Homer Hickam

Destiny, by Jim Brickman.

Hymn on page 213 by J. Bartholomew.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Thomas Nelson, Inc. books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Publishers Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hickam, Homer H., 1943

Red helmet / by Homer Hickam.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-59554-214-4 (softcover)
1. Married people--Fiction. 2. Businesswomen--Fiction. 3. Coalminers--Fiction. 4. New York--Fiction. 5. West Virginia--Fiction. 6. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.I224R43 2008
813'.54--dc22

2007043926

Printed in the United States of America

08 09 10 11 QW 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

To mine rescue teams everywhere.

Part One
HIGHCOAL

If you dont have love, buddy,
it dont matter what else you got
house, car, all the money in the world,
because you aint got a blame thing.

Overheard in a coal mine, not so long ago.

Listen to me, Norman. Im not going to say this twice. You call Bill Roberts back and you tell him I said hed better get his little business plan together or Im going to do it for him and he wont like that, Norman, he wont like that at all!

Song frowned deeply as she listened to her assistants reply through the cell phone clipped on her ear. Norman could be such a wimp! When he was done whining on behalf of the owner of the latest company acquired by her father, a company headed toward failure without some serious reorganization, Song rolled her eyes and stamped her bare feet in the sand. Hell do it, Norman, and hell do it on time exactly the way I told him to do it unless he wants to be on the street looking for a new job. And Norman? You might be out there with him. Now, shut up and do what I tell you! Now!

Uh, Song?

Song cut her eyes toward the man standing beside her. What?

Well... , the man drawled, the preacher just asked you a question.

Oh! Song clutched the flowers in her hand and looked into the deer-caught-in-the-headlight eyes of the woman standing in front of her.

Would you mind repeating that? Not you, Norman! Im doing something here. Just hang on. Better yet, hang up!

Now? the woman asked plaintively.

Now, the man beside her said before Song could.

Will you take this man, to have and hold...

Song nodded. Yeah. Got it. Sure thing. I do.

Attagirl, he whispered to her.

Song looked up at him. Cable, Im sorry. I just had to take care of this. I told Norman not to call for the next hour. Norman, hang up! Dont call me back until you get this solved. Good-bye!

Cable laughed. I love you.

Song squared her shoulders. I love you too.

The minister prattled on, rings were exchanged, and then she said, I now pronounce you husband and...

Im married!

That was Songs astonished thought as she heard the final words from the barefoot minister. Her second thought was, This is crazy. She looked into the lake-blue eyes of her groom. Boy, are you in trouble! she said to Cable while inwardly, she said, So am I.

Her entire life, Song had wanted to love and be loved. Her smart tongue, her New York attitudethats what she had shown the world. But now, here he was. This man, finally, at the right time and the right place, who saw through her, saw her as she really was, or at least as she thought she could be. Nothing else mattered at that moment but him. At long last. Her phone played its little song. She quickly turned it off.

Cable kissed her and she eagerly kissed him back while their fellow just-marrieds laughed and applauded. When they came up for air, Song threw herself on him in joyful abandon and, heedless of her white sarong, wrapped her legs around his hips and gave him another long, enthusiastic kiss. Whoops and cheers covered them like a wave. Song threw her head back and laughed. It was perfect. The sun was just dipping below the crystal blue sea. Love had finally reached her. It had taken long enough but, never mind, it was hers.

She whispered in his ear, Do you really love me, Cable?

I surely do, Mrs. Jordan, he answered with an easy grin.

She still couldnt accept it. Why?

His killer dimple made an appearance. Why do you think? Because youre you.

Which was exactly the reason Song had asked the question. Loving her, she believed, had to be a hard thing. She was a complicated woman and exuded toughness in a small, durable package. Men didnt like women who were complicated, and they didnt like a woman who was a fighter by trade and inclination. Yet there he was and here she was, standing together wiggling their toes in the sand on a lovely beach on the island of St. John, also known famously as Love City. It was that, and more. Perhaps due to the dangerous combination of romance and rum, St. John was also known as the isle of marriage, which, as had occurred between Song and Cable, sometimes happened between couples who had planned nothing more than a little fun time in the sun.