Mom and Dad, again, thanks for the money. I love you both!
We love you, too, honey.
Bye, for now.
Bye.
Heather ended the call and sighed. She wished she could celebrate
her twenty-seventh birthday with them. Instead, she was spending it
with her boyfriend. She had high hopes for a marriage proposal and an
engagement ring. The evening promised to be the happiest of her life.
Her suitor was Doctor Tom Vance, age twenty-nine, one year
out of his family practice residency. The young doctor was any woman's
dream: tall with dark eyes and hair, a square jaw, and an athletic build. He
was a hunk in every sense of the word, and a very busy doctor in a small
northeast Indiana town.
The town's other two general practitioners were long in years. They
looked forward to retirement. Together with the town's civic leaders, they
recruited Dr. Vance. He would carry the medical torch into the future,
especially if he married a local girl, particularly registered nurse Heather
McDonald.
