Ozark Nurse Read Online Free Page B

determination to study medicine, the father had gone into a cold rage and had not forgiven him to this day.
    "Because you wanted to be a doctor?" Nora was shocked. "Most fathers would have been proud."
    But not Paul's. Having come to the country as an immigrant boy and achieved his shining dream of some day owning land, lots of land, he wanted his boy to take up where he left off. "He did everything to stop me," Paul said. "For instance, he threatened to disown me." And he probably would have if Paul's mother had not taken Paul's side.
    "When all else failed, he warned me that I wasn't cut out to be a doctor, that it was just a fool notion I'd gotten into my head, and one of these days I'd find it out, when it was too late."
    Paul also told her that he had never had a girl before. "Guess I was always sort of scared of girls." The crooked grin again. "When I'd try to wisecrack and kid them the way other fellows did, I'd feel like a fool. Maybe I was just shy."
    Or maybe it was simply that he had never met a girl who truly appealed to him until he met Nora. With her, he soon lost his shyness, and in double-quick time he decided that she was the girl for him.
    "It's the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me," he told her, on that very special night when he took her in his arms and asked her to marry him.
    "I've found the girl I want to live out my life with." His quiet voice throbbed with utter sincerity; his eyes were filled with the almost prayerful wonder of a serious, completely honest man who had found his true love.
    "I do love you with all my heart, darling. And this I swear to you—I'll never let you down."
    Everything should have gone beautifully from then on and undoubtedly would have, except for Nora's obligations at home. Paul was all for an immediate marriage, but Nora couldn't agree to that.
    She wanted it; she longed to belong to Paul in every sense of the word as soon as possible. But she could not, would not, shove her responsibilities onto Paul's shoulders. And how could she shove them off her own?
    "It will take some time to work things out," she told him, admitting that she paid the food bills, the tax bills, most of the repair bills on their old house, not to mention a lot of other incidentals.
    "I just don't get this," Paul said, and as she tried to explain she understood that they were heading for their first quarrel. "Doesn't your mother have any income at all?"
    Well, yes. There was the pension she received from the trucking company whose driver, falling asleep at the wheel, had been responsible for the collision which had caused her dad's death.
    "But Mother isn't very good at handling money. It seems to dribble through her fingers."
    "And when the bills come in, you're elected to pay them?" He sounded angry.
    Neither was he greatly impressed when she explained she was an adopted child, and therefore felt a terrific sense of obligation to repay for all that had been done for her.
    "So what are your plans? To spend the rest of your life repaying this debt, so-called?" He was angry again. "What about us? What about me? I'm not interested in a meaningless little romance. I want a wife. If I can't have you the way I want you, and soon—"
    But in the end, Nora had persuaded him to have patience. "I'll work things out somehow, Paul, if you'll just give me a little time."
    But the "little time" drifted on into many months, and Nora was no nearer a solution. In fact, with the return of Jerry and his family, things were more complicated than ever.
    And now there was this baffling change in Paul, who showed such terrifying signs he was going to pieces as a surgeon.
    "Nora." Her patient's sleepy voice summoned her to the bed. "Could I have a drink of water, please. Real cold."
    She held the glass of water while he sipped it through a straw. "Thank you, my dear." He sounded as grateful as if she had done something wonderful for him. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Nora."
    She smiled teasingly. "Oh,