The Doctor's Date
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Sequel to The Doctor's Secret
Copper Point Medical: Book Two
The hospital's least eligible bachelor and its aloof administrator hate each other… so why are they pretending to date?
Dr. Owen Gagnon and HR director Erin Andreas are infamous for their hospital hallway shouting matches. So imagine the town's surprise when Erin bids an obscene amount of money to win Owen in the hospital bachelor auction—and Owen ups the ante by insisting Erin move in with him.
Copper Point may not know what's going on, but neither do Erin and Owen. Erin intends his gesture to let Owen know he's interested. Owen, on the other hand, suspects ulterior motives—that Erin wants a fake relationship as a refuge from his overbearing father.
With Erin suddenly heading a messy internal investigation, Owen wants to step up and be the hero Erin's never had. Too bad Erin would rather spend his energy trying to rescue Owen from the shadows of a past he doesn't talk about.
This relationship may be fake, but the feelings aren't. Still, what Erin and Owen have won't last unless they put their respective demons to rest. To do that, they'll have to do more than work together—they'll have to trust they can heal each other's hearts.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cullinan returns to Copper Point, Wis., for this heart-rending sequel to The Doctor's Secret, featuring another romance between colleagues at a small-town hospital. Although anesthesiologist Owen Gagnon and hospital HR director Erin Andreas frequently spar at work, Erin hides a secret: he has harbored a crush on Owen since they were teenagers. When he bids $25,000 for Owen at a bachelor's auction to raise funds for a new cardiac ward, Owen thinks it's just a ploy to upset Erin's controlling, conservative father, who heads the hospital board of directors. But once Owen gets to know Erin, giving him his first kiss and getting him to move out of his father's house and into Owen's the men shift from being pretend boyfriends to real lovers. Each one helps the other cope with past trauma and abuse (described sufficiently to feel real, but never in gratuitous or titillating detail), and they build their relationship in a truly romantic way, listening to and protecting each other. Owen's massage skills, his patience with Erin's sexual inexperience and nervousness, and a grand gesture during a belated Valentine's date make this contemporary swoon-inducing. Cullinan stretches out the story with a lengthy subplot about hospital funds being embezzled, which gives the characters another way to bond, but the story's magic is in how their affection for each other helps them individually achieve self-confidence and self-love. This tear-jerker is a captivating winner.
