Libby Williams - Nurse Practitioner — Virginia K. Smiley

To prospect of a vacation at Lake Ozonia in the Adirondack Mountains was tantalizing to Libby Williams. She had just completed a rigorous training program, earning herself the title of nurse-practitioner, certified to perform more medical services than a regular R.N. Now she was looking forward to a week's relaxation, far away from the hustle and bustle of urban Rochester, with impishly charming Merry, her four-year-old ward.

But when Merry developed a sore throat that looked like strep--especially dangerous, since she had suffered rheumatic fever two years ago--Libby had to stop en route in the mountain town of Whitestone to seek medical assistance. On the advice of Matt Franklin, the disconertingly candid, ruggedly handsome bulldozer operator on a highway construction crew, Libby sought out white-haired Dr. Martin Samuel, the only physician in town.

Confined to a wheelchair following a stroke, "Doc Sam" had been forced to close his clinic and had been trying, with no success, to hire a younger doctor to come to Whitestone and reopen it. Delighted to learn of Libby's "super nurse" status, he urged her to settle in Whitestone and run the clinic.

To Libby's surprise she needed little persuasion. Refusing to admit that her decision was in any way affected by the penetrating dark gaze of Matt Franklin, Libby did know that she dreaded returning to Rochester, for a void had come into her life there when her steady, sandy-haired Dr. Kevin Davis, had started dating a pretty ward secretary.