From a clinical perspective, Dr. Kate Hastings found acquiring a disease she had been treating for over twenty years fascinating. Emotionally it was terrifying. Especially when her access to the operating room was curtailed and her colleague has drastically cut her patient load.
The life-altering diagnosis coincides with Kate's thirty-year high school reunion, a reunion that has Kate reminiscing about her first love and her plans to have Clayton Beech by her side through the rigors of med school, a lengthy surgical residency and the rest of her life.
An idealistic Clayton Beech, an expert in languages, a player of jazz piano and football, dreamed of saving the world. Exploring this calling, he signed on for a stint with the Peace Corp. Clay planned a life of service, always with Kate by his side.
However, futures cannot be planned. Neurosurgeons get sick, lovers leave with no explanation and saving the world might best be done alone.
A no-show at the reunion, Kate discovers Clay is the head of an important healthcare organization in East Africa. With time on her hands and the growing conviction that they should have always been together Kate follows his trail to London. It is in London that she discovers that it was she not Clay who made a serious mistake that destroyed their dreams.
After almost thirty years their lives are continents apart. Can Kate find a way to correct past wrongs? Can she merge into the life they should have had although Clay is adamant that he has no time to take her on safari and does not want her in Africa?
With the sole responsibility for a large NGO weighing on his broad shoulders and wanting to be with Kate weighing on his heart Dr. Clayton Beech knows that until he makes the most difficult decision of his life, neither weight can be lifted. Until he makes that decision, Kate is a distraction he just cannot afford.
