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From high school crush to enemy number one
Gemma has always been a rescuer. Birds with broken wings, abandoned baby raccoons...anything that needs help. But when it comes to her lifelong crush, doctor Nathan Smith, she has to curb her natural instincts. All of them. Nathan doesn’t trust midwives, and he doesn’t want her help.
Back in town to restore the community hospital his father bankrupted, Nathan’s just as determined to shut down the birthing center. How can Gemma Whitmire save her center and prove Nathan—and the other critics—wrong? And more important, how can she stop falling for him?
“You’re a midwife.”
Gemma stared at him, at his sudden stiffness, the way his brown eyes had narrowed. Alarm bells clanged in her head, but she spoke calmly. “Yes, I am.”
“And you’re planning to open a birthing center?”
“Yes, in your father’s old offices next to the hospital.” She lifted her chin, held his gaze. There had been a time when she would have backed down, apologized, tried to explain her position. Those days were gone. “Exactly as you plan to establish a family practice and reopen the hospital.”
“Not exactly.”
“Both facilities are for people’s health.”
“No, the hospital cures people and keeps them well—”
“Fortunately, giving birth isn’t an illness.”
Their eyes met—hers defiant, his resolute. Gemma’s heart sank as she imagined the swirl of objections that were about to come at her. She’d heard them all before, fought them all before.
Somehow, it was disappointing to know she was about to hear them from Nathan.
Although I was born and raised in an Arizona copper-mining town, both of my parents were from Oklahoma, where I still have many relatives. Visits to rural southeastern Oklahoma fill me with happiness and nostalgia as I recall summers there—swimming in the creeks, exploring with my cousins or lying on the bed on the screened-in porch listening to bobwhite quail whistling in the underbrush. Although the area has never really been my home, it feels like home because of all the loved ones I have there.
Gemma Whitmire has returned to her hometown of Reston, Oklahoma, to work as a midwife and to open a birthing center. At the same time, Dr. Nathan Smith, who has no use for midwives, has come home, too, with plans to reopen the local hospital that was forced to close due to his father’s embezzlement. He also hopes to make peace with his troubled family history.
I hope you enjoy Nathan and Gemma’s journey to overcome their differences and find their happy-ever-after.
Happy reading,
Patricia
At Odds with the Midwife
Patricia Forsythe
PATRICIA FORSYTHE probably would never have become a writer if a seventh-grade teacher hadn’t said that Patricia’s story characters were, well, crazy. Patricia didn’t think that was such a bad thing. After all, she has a large extended family of decidedly interesting and unusual people who provide ideas and inspiration for her books. In Patricia’s opinion, that only makes them more lovable and worthy of a place in literature.
A native Arizonan, Patricia has no concept of what a real winter is like, but she is very familiar with summer. She has held a number of jobs, including teaching school, working as a librarian and as a secretary, and operating a care home for developmentally disabled children. Her favorite occupation, though, is writing novels in which the characters get into challenging situations and then work their way out. Each situation and set of characters is different, so sometimes the finished book is as much of a surprise to her as it is to the readers. She is the author of many romance novels with many more to come.
This book is dedicated to my beloved little sister, Betty Forsythe. Even though she never had an easy life, she brought endless joy to everyone else’s.
Contents
FEET SLAPPING THE PAVEMENT—right, left, right, left—Nathan Smith pounded down High Street, turned west onto Main Street and took the hill that led out of town. He hadn’t been this way yet on his thrice-weekly runs, but there had been a time, when he was eighteen, that he couldn’t seem