Prologue

      AS EMERGENCIES WENT, this one was definitely a Code Blue. Joni Montgomery leaned back against the nurses’ station counter at San Antonio’s Santa Rosa Hospital and stared at the phone in her hand as if it might morph into an octopus at any moment. After all, things like that happened in nightmares, didn’t they? And this couldn’t possibly be real.

      She put the phone back to her ear and tried to sound calm. “Now, Mama, maybe you misunderstood. G.P. couldn’t possibly be coming here this time of year. She’s always in Charlotte for the V.A. Air Show.”

      “I wish I was wrong, but I know what she said. Your grandmother Pettigrew is coming to San Antonio in two weeks and she’s staying until she finds you a husband.”

      Joni ground her teeth and thrust one hand into the pocket of her nurse’s smock. She could have sworn she’d stashed some samples of extra-strength headache pills there earlier. All of a sudden, she could feel a mother of a headache coming on. “Why does she have to do this now? In fact, why does she have to do this at all? Doesn’t she think I can find my own man?”

      “Apparently not. She said she’s waited twenty-six years and she’s not going to wait any longer for you to find a suitable husband.”

      Joni squeezed against the counter to allow an EKG cart to pass. “Mama, you know the kind of man G.P. thinks is suitable.” She closed her eyes, picturing the parade of race-car drivers, fighter pilots and bull riders her grandmother had sent her way. There’d even been one bomb demolition expert. Give a man a dangerous job or a reckless attitude and he was prime husband material as far as G.P. was concerned.

      “She thinks you need more excitement in your life.”

      “Being an emergency department nurse isn’t exciting enough?” Joni looked at the row of crash carts ready for use, the curtained exam rooms and the half-dozen doctors and nurses moving busily among them. One Saturday night around this place made a person long for the mundane and ordinary.

      “What’s wrong with a boring man?” she asked. “You married a boring man.” Joni’s father was a tax assessor whose idea of excitement was Friday night at the video store.

      “Your father may seem boring to you, but he’s actually very romantic.”

      Joni resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Her entire family was addicted to romance, leaving Joni the odd woman out. “Romance is overrated,” she said, not for the first time. Other things were much more important in a relationship: dependability, stability, integrity. Things she hadn’t found in the right combination yet, but she was sure she would, given time to do things her own way.

      “Romance is not overrated to your grandmother. And not to you, if you’d only admit it.”

      Joni groaned. “I won’t do it, Mama. I won’t marry some adrenaline junkie just to please G.P.”

      “You’ll have to discuss that with her when she gets here. I only called to warn you.”

      “Thanks, Mama. For the warning, anyway.” She hung up the phone and slumped against the counter. She’d scream, but that tended to upset the patients. So she settled for reaching behind the counter and helping herself to the staff supply of M&M’s. Headache pills were fine for some things, but serious crises called for