Behind the scenes in a giant hospital, she discovered that medicine and men could be an explosive combination.
As staff nurse in a fast-paced university hospital, Jane Arden was sure her new job would leave her no time for men.
She was also sure she’d never forget the man she’d loved all her life, and had lost in a tragic plane accident.
But then she learned that time has a way of healing all wounds…and a new love a way of replacing the old.
Jane’s exciting new career at Cape Canaveral suddenly threatens her life as a woman.
As Jane embarked upon the most exciting adventure of her career, she was forced to postpone her marriage to handsome Jeff Wallace.
Jane had no way of foreseeing the personal crisis that would confront her as a “space nurse.” Nor could she have anticipated the lasting impact of the two attractive astronauts she met at Cape Canaveral.
Fascinating Clyde McLaren, a strong candidate for the moon shot, was brilliant and quite friendly. Or did he want more than friendship?
And what of the dashing continental Lieutenant who made it clear that he was more than interested in her? Just where did his interest lie?
Jane Arden, a graduate nurse, is facing the prospect of her first job. She has been offered a position at City-County Hospital in Elmwood, Ohio, where she has just completed training — a prospect which has the added advantage that she can remain at home with her mother and father, her twin Jay, and her younger brother, Skippy.
But like most of her classmates at City-County Hospital, Jane is anxious to try her own wings. And when her sister Roberta, working as a fashion model in a smart shop in Palm Beach, invites her down for a visit — and adds that there is a shortage of nurses in Florida — Jane decides to look over the situation for herself.
Besides Roberta, there is another attraction for Jane in Florida. David Hyatt, “the boy next door,” is stationed at an air base not far from Palm Beach — and Jane, realizing that David’s recent letters have been rather cool, thinks it is time for a heart-to-heart talk with the jet pilot whose choice of a job is as distasteful to Jane as Jane’s nursing is to David.
To her surprise, Jane is met at the airport not by her sister, the glamorous Roberta, but by a strange young man who has been sent to meet Roberta’s “kid” sister. Nicky Powers, when he gets over his astonishment at Jane’s grown-upness, is decidedly pleased with his assignment. But when Jane learns that Roberta is living in a guest cottage on the grounds of Nicky’s uncle’s large estate, she feels that this beautiful artificial world into which she has stepped is no place for her.
When a nursing job is unexpectedly thrust upon Jane, she meets the challenge with her usual resourcefulness. But even Jane is stumped by the change in David Hyatt. This tall, good-looking captain in the Air Corps is so unlike the old David that Jane feels he is more of a stranger than Nicky Powers. And when David gets her promise to marry him immediately, and follows it up with a demand that she give up her nursing career, Jane is face with her first real test.
Jane was faced with the crisis of her life — either give up a new and growing love, or shatter her cherished career?
When Jane Arden took over as Head Nurse at the Friedmont Hospital, she knew that the job had many pitfalls. But it was an exciting challenge in a field she loved.
Then she met Jeff Wallace, the young, outspoken Chairman of a strife-torn Hospital Board. Jane needed his support and his friendship. She saw him more and more.
At first when people started to talk she didn’t care. But she had enemies who wanted to get rid of her any way they could. Suddenly Jane realized that her whole career was threatened — as well as her growing love for Jeff.
Was it already too late?
It was only after some hesitation that pretty Carol Lee took the assignment with old William Elliott. the case that had brought her to Bayport, that of the aged Elizabeth Stafford, who had broken her hip, had been a short-term one, and now Carol wondered about the advisability of secluding herself — possibly for a long time — with Mrs. Stafford’s friends, the Elliott family, on their exclusive island home, Myrtle Island, across the bay from the mainland.
But Carol was charmed by the Elliotts’ great white-columned mansion, and when she met the prospective patient, the harsh but human cardiac case Mr. Elliott, she knew that in caring for him she would gain valuable experience both in medical practice and in bedside manner. And the other members of the Elliott clan, as well as many of the other local island residents, most of them with the money to go with it, were most cordial, welcoming her with enthusiasm into their social lives.
And within days after her decision, Carol is glad she has taken the case, for she finds herself excitingly involved in the romantic life of the young people of the islands. Breathlessly, she discovers that Ronnie Beaufort has swept her off her feet. And between dates, when she is again down to earth, David Elliott is there, taking up more of her time. Two attractive and eligible young men, as completely different as possible: Ronnie, a reckless, extravagant, fun-loving yachtsman; and David, the thoughtful and scholarly owner of the bookstore in Bayport. Of the two, David provides the more intellectually satisfying company, but Carol cannot help being fascinated by the exciting, zany Ronnie. Before many days she decides she is in love with him.
But a chance discovery by Carol and David, of a new still mysteriously set up on an abandoned estate on one of the local islands, greatly disturbs the tranquility of life in the Carolina lowlands. And not long after, a violent hurricane sweeps across the South, a storm that separates the frantic Carol from her patient, marooning her on another island, one in grave peril from the raging, rising sea.
The climactic events that rapidly ensue bring Carol startling information about the Beauforts and the Elliotts…and, finally, about the true object of her love.