Don't Ask Me Again - Paperback

Victoria Harper's passion for surgical nursing isn't compatible with romance. No hospital will hire a married woman, and if she marries her first love, she'll be relegated to rolling bandages.

Pragmatic, persistent Matthew Berger knows Victoria would always resent him if she gave up her career to marry him before she was truly ready. After three declined proposals in five years, he built a life alone rather than try to fill the space she left behind.

During the Great War, adventure beckons overseas. Victoria's work at a base hospital in France keeps her almost busy enough to forget the man she gave up to follow her passion-until he arrives on an ambulance from the Western front with a devastating injury, an ocean of memories, and a flicker of hope.

As Matthew recovers and their old flame reignites, Victoria's dreams point her in a direction she never considered. The devastation of war might show her how to prove a married woman's worth. Old rules could be broken, but only if she has the courage to break them-and if Matthew will give her one more chance to say yes.

-------

"I don't think I can marry him, girls."

Ingrid tried to sit up. "What?"

"It's good to put the hurt feelings aside and appreciate his friendship, but the same problem exists today that existed when I left, and it's the same one you'll all face, too. Married nurses don't do what we do. Most married women don't work at all."

Nora tapped out a staccato scale on the piano, treble down to bass, one note per name. "Maggie. Catherine. Aurelia. Eliza. May. Iris. Annabelle. Jane. And that's just from our little hospital in the last year. You get married, you go home. Red Cross policy."

"And there's no work for them at home, either," Frances said. "Back in London, even with a war on, they won't hire a married woman in the hospitals. It is just a shame the world is not very accommodating to married women with brains. If we are widowed, our minds are miraculously restored, we are cured of our hysterics, and we are useful again."

"But for Victoria now, that's it?" Ingrid asked. "Here is Matthew after all this time, like fate. Can it really never be?"

Victoria turned and met her gaze. "It has only been a few days. I enjoy his company but I must be realistic. The world has changed, but if the needs of war and half a million wounded men don't make a married nurse acceptable then I don't know if it's changed enough."