A Home for the Hot-Shot Doc. Dianne Drake

       DEEP SOUTH DOCS!

       Swapping the Big City … for the Bayou!

      When two delectable doctors arrive in America’s Deep South, looking for a fresh start, they soon find themselves falling for the charm of Bayou life—as well as for the attractions of the beautiful women they’re working with!

      But big-city surgeons with their bright ideas aren’t always welcome in the Bayou. Especially when they’re super-hot, heart-stopping distractions for the dedicated Deep South nurses. These women have enough complications as it is, without falling for the new docs in town …!

       Dear Reader

      When I went to Louisiana for the first time a few years ago—specifically New Orleans, and all the deep, dark backwoods of the bayou surrounding it—I knew I wanted to set a book there. It’s a beautiful place, and there’s nothing else quite like it in the United States. In fact, descriptions don’t do it justice … but I’ve tried in this duet titled Deep South Docs.

      Both stories, A HOME FOR THE HOT-SHOT DOC and THE DOCTOR’S CONFESSION, centre around the Doucet family and their daughters, all of whom work in the medical field in some capacity. In this duet you’ll meet Mellette, who has to overcome one of life’s greatest tragedies in order to find true love again. And you’ll also meet Magnolia, who just can’t seem to find time for love in her life.

      Both meet men who try to capture their hearts, but it’s not an easy thing to do as the Doucet family is filled with eight mighty strong women and one man who sits at the head of it and who’s the biggest softie in the world. But, as both Justin Bergeron and Alain Lalonde discover, the fight is worth the effort … most of the time. At other times Mellette and Maggie are almost too much to handle.

      When I was taking a boat ride through the swamps in the Louisiana bayou, perhaps the thing that fascinated me most were these little communities of people who live out there in the swamp, almost totally cut off from society. I could see the shacks almost everywhere. In fact we even took a detour by our tour guide’s shack and saw a whole lot of alligators lounging in his front yard. He said that as long as he didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother him. Well, I don’t know about that, but it certainly made for an interesting trip. So did the alligators that would swim right up to the boat.

      I hope you enjoy your trip to the Louisiana bayous. It’s fascinating. And after this trip to the bayous I’m going to hang around to write a few more books based in that part of the world, so look for Sabine and Delphine’s stories coming next.

      I like to hear form my readers, so please feel free to contact me at [email protected], or visit my website at www.dianne-drake.com, from which you can link to either my Facebook page or my Twitter page.

      As always, wishing you health & happiness

       DD

      Now that her children have left home, DIANNE DRAKE is finally finding the time to do some of the things she adores—gardening, cooking, reading, shopping for antiques. Her absolute passion in life, however, is adopting abandoned and abused animals. Right now Dianne and her husband Joel have a little menagerie of three dogs and two cats, but that’s always subject to change. A former symphony orchestra member, Dianne now attends the symphony as a spectator several times a month and, when time permits, takes in an occasional football, basketball or hockey game.

      A Home for the

      Hot-Shot Doc

      Dianne Drake

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

       Table of Contents

       Cover

      Dear Reader

       About the Author

       Title Page

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       Copyright

       CHAPTER ONE

      NIGHTS LIKE THIS made him glad he was home again, if only for a little while. The far-off sound of bullfrogs bloating up and erupting with a courtly call to a lady love; the peculiar rhythm of the barred owl, who called to his own love from high atop the cypress trees; the warm breeze blowing in over the water and carrying with it the unique, earthy scent of the swamp … This all meant home to Dr. Justin Aloysius Bergeron. Home, but with that came so many mixed, even conflicting feelings.

      With a mug full of sassafras tea and its bitter, soothing flavor, and a plate of his own homemade beignets made from his grandmother’s recipe, Justin was ready to settle in on the porch swing for the evening and simply relax after a long day of doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing took a lot of effort for someone who was used to being active, all that sitting around and thinking. Down here, where life was slower, it wore him out more than a day on his feet in the O.R. did. Those were physically exhausting days, but here his exhaustion was emotional and far heavier. It dragged him down to a place where a good night’s sleep didn’t bring about any kind of recovery.

      At a month shy of thirty-six, Justin was at the top of his game back in Chicago. He was well respected as a general surgeon with a career pointed in the direction of chief of services, or so he hoped. Equally well respected as a medical mystery writer with a couple of prestigious awards under his belt and talk of a movie in the works. It took a lot of effort, cranking out all that career, which was why all this nothingness seemed so strange to him.

      He wasn’t used to it, wasn’t used to being lazy. But lazy was exactly what he was being, and it was turning him dull and lethargic, which, for the moment, suited him just fine. Because until he figured out his next move, nothing was truly all he wanted to concentrate on. He wrote in the early, early morning, as was his habit, but then there was nothing to occupy his time or to occupy his mind for the rest of the day. He was trying not to think outside the pages he’d managed to bang out. He was succeeding, intermittently.

      For sure, life was simpler here in the Louisiana bayou than it was back in Chicago, his home for the past decade. He hadn’t appreciated that singular simple fact when he’d lived here before. In fact, from the time he had been a teenager, all he’d ever wanted had been to get away from the simplicity. Go to the city. Any city. Seek out excitement and anything else that didn’t resemble the upbringing he was accustomed to—an upbringing with a down-home flavor that could only be found in the bayou. Or the backcountry. Or godforsaken nowhere. Or, as this area had been named by its early settlers, Big Swamp.

      And he’d done all that. Molded himself