Excerpt from Tornado Alley Fever

Finishing touches on my latest book: Tornado Alley Fever:

Annie brushed tears away from her eyes. Please God, no more trials! Give me my ticket to heaven—life with Luke right here on earth….She picked up the sound of the approaching Army transport. Far down the runway, but coming toward her, the plane’s wheels tantalizingly sailed long over the runway and touch down with a distant double- erk—erk from the protesting wheels on the two main landing gears. She breathes outward slowly, savoring the wheels-down. Annie’s heart squeezes tighter and tighter with every concrete section of runway as the plane taxies up to a stop, its propellers spinning soundlessly.

Ten base hospital attendants follow the two air base’s runway attendants as the privates push the big stairway up to the plane’s left fuselage, and stand at the bottom, waiting for the steward inside to crank the door open. The door opens and the attendants run up the stairs. In less than two minutes, five wounded soldiers are carried off the transport on stretchers—one right after the other, with two attendants carrying each soldier and loading him onto a hospital gurney. Five ambulances leave before anybody else comes down the stairs. Seven soldiers on crutches come next, making their way carefully, and manfully down the long flight of stairs and heading toward an old beat-up brown Army bus. Double that number walk down the stairs unaided, and then nobody appears at the top…