Nurse Lacey’s Promise

By Florence Stonebraker

“They had a long discussion as to whether or not Joan should fix Ted’s favorite spaghetti sauce. If she did, she was a fool. What she should feed the bum if he showed up was a dish of steamed worms.”

Experienced pediatric Nurse Lacey Drake knows a troubled child when she sees one, and seven-year-old Ricky, the son of Dr. Jeff Ward, is locked in a world of hurt. Recovering in the hospital after being lost in the woods for days, Ricky clings to the flimsy hope that his mother, who was killed in a car crash two years ago, is still alive. When Ricky’s father Jeff starts to get phone calls from a woman he thinks is his dead wife, Jeff begs Lacey to marry him, to save him from losing his mind—and save little Ricky from his dragon of a grandmother.

Lacey is not in love with Jeff—and she’s certainly not in love with Chief of Pediatrics Nat Harrington! “Dr. Harrington is immune to women,” she declares. “I’d be an idiot to give a single romantic thought to a man like that, wouldn’t I?” So when she promises to marry Jeff to cure his broken heart—and sweet little Ricky’s—will her unselfishness allow her to find love with Jeff, even as Nat, against his better judgment, begins to warm to Lacey’s undeniable allure?