Let Your Heart Answer — Clarissa Ross

Had she finally met a man that she loved enough to go against her family's wishes?

Rich's Man's Daughter...

Grace West had always obeyed her rich father's wishes - to the point of accepting Dick Browning's marriage proposal.

Then union organizer Geoff Bailey came to Branton, a man as brash as Dick was cool, a man who challenged the rule of Mr. West himself.

Whom did Grace truly love? It would be come a tragic question - that only time and her heart could answer.

Grace gave her fiance a teasing look. "Jealous?"
"I guess I have a right to be," Dick said stoutly. "Bailey isn't young class of person."
"You told father, didn't you?" she said.
Dick's broad face showed confusion. "Told him what?"
"About finding Geoff Bailey and me on the club veranda kissing."
"I don't want to talk about it," Dick said.
She sighed. "It isn't a very pleasant subject, I agree. I really expected more of you, Dick."
"You know I'm crazy in love with you," he pleaded, reaching out for her.
"I suppose that's your excuse," Grace said resignedly. "I'll try to make myself believe you were justified." But her thoughts, despite herself and at least for the moment, returned to dwell on Geoff Bailey...

Adam West, the owner of a large and prosperous factory in Branton, has always been the stern and unquestioned authority in both his business and his family. And his daughter Grace West has always obeyed his wishes, even to the point of becoming engaged to the most promising crew-cut executive in the company. Two separate arrivals in the town shake Adam West's complacency in his snug little world. Geoff Bailey, a union organizer, challenges his right to rule supreme in the factor. Marie West, Grace's younger sister, along with her new husband Mike Blair, question West's tyranny over the lives of his own children.

Before the arrival of Geoff and Marie, Grace West had no asked herself whether marriage to Dick Browning would be the right thing. Their romance was not a tempestuous one, but they would be happy, she was sure, when they settled down and had the common interests of home and children to bind them together. But as Grace watches Dick become a yes-man to her single-minded father, she begins to wonder if she can respect a man who is all too willing to submerge his own beliefs in order to become a rubber-stamp copy of Adam West.

Marie, under the happy guidance of Mike Blair and the effect of the free life they enjoyed together in New York City, had broken away permanently and had made her own decisions about what values are important in life. And Grace gradually pieces together the tragic story of her Aunt Florence, whose sense of duty to family kept her from the life and love she might have had. Ray Daniels, a wise old scholar, with his knowledge of history and literature and his ability to hold fast to his principles, is also a strong influence as Grace West moves toward the time when she can let her heart answer.