In the five years she had been away from her native New England, young nurse Sandra Colson had adapted quite well to her new life in Minnesota, had made friends, and had become a respected member of the staff at St. James Hospital. And yet, every fall, when the leaves started to turn color and drop from the trees, she could not free herself from the memory of New England and what might have been. What might have been if Dr. Bruce Jennings had been true, if he had meant all those things he had said.

But that was five years ago. Surely Sandy had picked up the pieces of her emotional life since then. Yet how much had she learned from that unhappy experience? Wasn’t she really in the same position with Dr. Rich Harvey, a young obstetrician working at St. James? Oh, it was true, he had never promised anything and their relationship had been strictly professional, but Sandy couldn’t help her feelings. The fact he was engaged to Aileen Gorman, her supervisor, a nurse who worked with clocklike efficiency, made things even worse. Every day Sandy had to face them both, and to see Aileen’s triumph reflected in the engagement ring she wore.

When Dr. Harvey offered her a part-time job in the Lamaze natural-birth clinic he intended to start, Sandy got a chance to use the extra courses in obstetrics she had taken. She also got a chance to see exactly how strong the armor she wore around her heart really was.

The trouble between lively, sandy-haired nurse Jane Chapin and handsome Washington attorney Joshua Blake began when they met at the Continental Broadcasting Studios. It was a simple case of mistaken identity — he thought she was an impudent receptionist and she thought he was an aspiring page boy. But what followed turned out to be an intricate matter of international intrigue that involved them both in a dangerous series of romantic double crosses; curious quirks of fate and terrifying realities that threatened both their lives and their love. The truth was the only thing that could save them — but they would have to ignore their own gnawing doubts long enough to find it.

As a surgical nurse in Bay City General, Paula Winters had witnessed a miracle from time to time. But surely Dr. Steven Kramer’s interest in her was more than a miracle. In fact, it was impossible for someone as young and handsome as Dr. Kramer to like a girl as fat as she. Or so she kept telling herself. Then Paula realized Steven was being friendly to her only because her father and brother, both prominent doctors, could help him with his medical career.

Even after she lost her excess pounds and gained some new admirers, she was trapped in a lonely quandary. For Paula still couldn’t accept Steven — and she just wouldn’t settle for anyone else!

Nurse Lori Barnes agreed to work at a Nigerian clinic for the summer partly to help people — and partly to forget an unhappy romance in the States. She did her usual superb job as a nurse and was especially good with the children. But Lori soon learned there was no way of escaping romance problems. Though she’d been determined to avoid all men, she was now intrigued by two of the aggravating creatures: Dr. Fletcher Wilson, who was extremely handsome and knew it, and Grant Evans, a wealthy landowner whose distrust of women was as great as his rugged magnetism. Both of them promised to give her disappointment and heartache. Why couldn’t Lori forget them, ignore them, be sensible? Why?

Lovely Paulette Castle, R.N., tossed her red hair defiantly. She wasn’t the first young woman to be jilted, nor would she be the last. Now she was vacationing with her best friend at a resort-hotel in the Southwest. Occasionally, despite the much-needed change of scene, she felt the tears smarting behind her eyes.

But an unexpected emergency at the resort drove everything else out of her head when the attractive hotel doctor, Ross Lane, asked for her help in taking care of an accident victim — a handsome young man named Boyd Sheridan.

As the patient slowly recovered, Paulette wished she could forget her ex-fiance, but he kept cropping into her thoughts…But time passed, and Paulette felt closer to the new men in her life.

Then, in a revelation like that of the bright morning sun she realized whom she loved as she’d never loved before — and whom she was going to marry.