title: Nurse of the Ozarks
author: Logsdon, Patricia
description: Blue-eyed Meri Abbot knew absolutely nothing about Cedar Grove, Missouri, but it was two thousand miles from Los Angeles, and that was all that mattered. Although charges had never been pressed, Meri's name was still linked to the biggest scandal that had ever hit Bell Mountain General, and Dr. Ted Conway, the neurosurgeon who had captured her heat, had hastily become engaged to someone else.
  
  Lonely and heartsick after the series of misfortunes culminated with her mother's death, Meri sent a letter to her great uncle and only living relative, Mel Abbott, inquiring about employment opportunities in Cedar Grove. She was hired sight unseen by Dr. David Robbins, physician and veterinarian to the town and the countryside. The bustling chaos of the bushy-browed doctor's office was a far cry from the hospital orderliness she was accustomed to, but Meri relished the hard work gave her a chance to become acquainted with the town's inhabitants. In time she even grew fond of her Uncle Mel, a crotchety old recluse, who lived in squalor beside the charred ruins of Riverhouse, his once gracious home.
  
  Despite her friendly overtures, however, most townspeople treated Meri with icy reserve. At first bewildered, then depressed, Meri determined to resolve the mystery when rugged Lynn Mathews, the chestnut-haired farmer who stirred feelings in her that she thought had perished with her broken engagement, introduced a new distance to their intimacy.