Heart Throbs #35

When Norma meets Wade Chapman at a high school dance, she's thrilled—but a misunderstanding after their first date leaves him convinced she's not interested, and he moves away to start a career in Newark. Years pass, and now at nineteen, Norma accepts an engagement ring from the steady, dependable Tom Naylor, trying to move on from a love she thought was lost forever. But when Wade unexpectedly returns to town just days before her wedding, the two find themselves face to face, and old feelings surface with a force neither of them expected.

When Susan fled her hometown of Melrose years ago, she left behind a broken engagement to her childhood friend Harry Keen—a decision that still haunts her reputation. Now engaged to Ralph Johnson, a man she's genuinely fallen for, Susan returns home only to discover that whispers of her past betrayal have poisoned the town's view of her, threatening to destroy her new love before it can truly begin. As Ralph grows increasingly confused by the coldness around them, Susan must find a way to protect her happiness from the shadows of what she left behind.

Linda Clayton watches the dream house she and Danny Reed built together go up for sale, and her world crumbles—until a chance encounter forces her to confront the man she never stopped loving. When Linda agrees to marry the well-meaning Edward Oliver on the rebound, fate brings her back to that same house, and suddenly the past isn't quite as finished as she'd convinced herself it was.

Betty Hobson's engagement to Rush Larimore seems perfect—until a car accident leaves him blind and bound for a St. Louis clinic for months of uncertain treatment. With Rush asking her to wait, Betty struggles against her loneliness until Fred Beale, a charming coworker, sweeps her into a whirlwind romance that awakens feelings she didn't know she had. Torn between the man she promised to wait for and the man who makes her feel alive again, Betty faces an impossible choice that will test what love really means.