A Nurse's Secret

A Nurse's Decision

Nurse Melinda Bonner once declared that she had enough love for every child in the hospital. But she discovered that one little boy, the shy, dark-skinned Pietro, had a special place in her heart. An orphan, alone in the world except for a stern guardian, little Pietro came to the hospital under perplexing circumstances. And the unusual interest shown in the little boy by the glamorous film star, Peter Fife, only added to the puzzle - and to the plight that Melinda found herself in. Could she choose between the demands of her sworn duty - and the needs of her heart?

Original Publisher: Lancer
Original Year of Publication: 1968
Page Count: 221

The February 2026 #TBRChallenge is "Vintage," which is, of course, the name of the game here. I decided to consult my LibraryThing, and pick the oldest original paperback romance that I had on my shelves, which turned out to be this book. It's actually a MMPB republish of a hardcover novel from 1960 titled Nurse Melinda, which frankly makes more sense than this title. Melinda doesn't really have any secrets, even if she believes that she's hiding her hero worship of the head physician at her hospital (spoiler alert: she's not).

Nurse Melinda, our titular character, actually lives in an on-site dormitory at the hospital where she works. She wears a white uniform and cap, and takes great pride in her vocation. She is a nurse on the orthopedics floor of the children's hospital, and believes that empathy and affection are just as important to the healing process as surgical procedures. The head physician of the hospital, Dr. Grayle, does not agree, and often has to warn his nurses not to get too close to the patients, because the setback of losing staff they may have bonded with when they leave the hospital. Melinda manages to stand up to Dr. Grayle (and not lose her job, much to her surprise), and secretly delights in accompanying him to lunch. She is beyond half in-love with him, her feelings being of the hero-worship variety, and though she believes she is being discreet, she isn't. All of her fellow nurses know how she feels, and eventually empathize with her when Grayle announces his engagement to another woman.

Anyway! At the start of the story, Melinda is intrigued by a new patient on her floor, a little boy who has been admitted for multiple procedures to treat his club foot. Pietro Gardella is very small, even at 5 years old, and seems very withdrawn. He has the dark hair and olive skin of an Italian, which does him no favors, and the only person who visits him is a very strict, shabbily dressed English woman named Stella Landsdowne, whom Pietro is obviously afraid of.

Melinda's apple cart is upset not only by Dr Grayle's admonitions to not get attached to the child, but also by the sudden appearance of a real-life teen idol, Peter Fife, whose presence turns all of the other nurses and candy-stripers into a screaming, baying, teenybopper mob. Fife has been visiting all of the hospitals up and down the coast of California on a publicity tour, bringing along an entourage of press people and a huge basket of toys for the kids. Melinda finds this all extremely distasteful, and pretty much loathes Peter on site. Only the idea that Dr Grayle gave this little stunt his blessing makes Melinda bite her tongue and show Peter & co around.

Peter also takes a curious interest in little Pietro, and actually sits and talks with him in Italian. Pietro's obvious adoration of Peter rankles Melinda's nerves, and she absolutely refuses to discuss Pietro with Peter. She's epically upset when Peter announces that he wants to adopt the little boy.

Melinda finally stops insulting Peter long enough for him to tell her why he's so interested in Pietro - because the little boy is actually his long-lost son, the product of a young marriage while he was on a filmset in Italy before he was drafted into the service. His wife's parents hated him, so when he went to war, he was gone for good as far as they were concerned. It's taken Peter these long years to even find out what happened to his wife (she died in childbirth), and the publicity tour of hospitals has actually been him stealthily trying to find his child.

Around this time, Pietro has had all of his surgeries, and has fully recovered and thus, is about to leave the hospital. Neither Melinda nor Peter want Stella Landsdowne to take Pietro, but as she is the boy's legal guardian, she takes him with her when she starts a new job as the housekeeper for a wealthy family in Pebble Beach.

Pietro is so love-starved, and so homesick for the friendly environment of the hospital, that he decides to run away to try to find Melinda again. He hops into a random car at the estate, and when the driver finds him a few hours later, he is summarily booted out into the woods. A friendly but extremely poor dirt farmer finds him and brings him back to his shack, where his wife feeds him and the other kids include him in their games.

When Stella realizes that Pietro is gone, she informs Melinda, who tells Peter Fife. They all fear that he's been kidnapped, mistaken as a child of the wealthy family that Stella works for. Peter decides that his son is more important to him than his burgeoning movie career, so he holds a big to-do press conference and spills the beans to the media, much to the shock and horror of his publicity manager (who blames Melinda for this decision). The publicity manager fears that Peter has just torpedoed his movie career, and with it, the manager's.

The dirt farmers learn about Pietro's being missing a few days after he arrives, and they are cautious and wary of informing the world-famous teen idol Peter Fife, but they do so, and Peter is happily reunited with Pietro, who learns that Peter is his father. Peter had been leaning on Melinda during the kidnapping crisis, and Melinda begins to soften towards him, once she realizes that Peter the man is not Peter the carefully constructed image.

Stella immediately gives up any claim on the boy, and the publicity manager manages to salvage Peter's movie role, so he sweeps Pietro up to Idaho for the rest of the location shoot. In six weeks, Pietro's personality does a total 180, and by the time Peter gets around to thanking the Perkins family for saving his son, Pietro is acting like a little shit to everyone, kids and adults alike. Melinda is, of course, reproving, telling Peter that spoiling his son will basically ruin his character, but Peter turns it all around on her and asks her to marry him, so she can take them both in hand. Melinda says yes, they kiss, the end.

The entire time I was reading the book, I was trying to figure out who Peter Fife was based on - like Elvis, he is a singer and actor who served in the war, and who meets mobs of screaming, teary-eyed girls everywhere he goes; but unlike Elvis, Peter can't sing worth a flip, doesn't want to sing, and hopes to shed his teen idol image ASAP. This novel originally being published in 1960 is the clue: I'm pretty sure Peter Fife is a thinly-veiled version of Fabian Forte. Melinda strongly dislikes Peter for most of the novel, and is super judgmental about his fame and his career. She is downright nasty to him, especially when they first meet, but somehow Peter just falls head over heels for her. And, of course, there is the super-problematic "solution" to all of Pietro's troubles being that he needs a strong hand from a mother figure, because daddy is too hopelessly clueless and indulgent to actually parent. Bleh!

Obviously this book rode the wave of "nurse romances" during this period, and though the characters are kinda meh (or completely unbelievable, like Pietro's sudden turn into a jackass at the end), the story itself flowed smoothly and hit its beats. There is no variation on the theme - I mean, the second Peter takes interest in Pietro, I guessed the reason why - but it is nonetheless a pleasant read.

⭐⭐1/2