The Doctor's Healing Love (Contemporary BWWM Romance) Read online

  The Doctor's Healing Love

  Published By Tiana Cole, 2015

  ©2015 Tiana Cole

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

  Kindle Edition

  Table of Contents

  The Doctor's Healing Love

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About The Author

  Also from Tiana Cole

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  Chapter 1

  Chloe Feldman opened her eyes and gave a sigh of relief. It had only been a dream. She rolled over and looked at the clock on her bedside. She widened her eyes, as she made sure she was reading the right time. ‘Shit!’ Her alarm must have been set wrong. Not only was it her first day at a new job, in a new town, but now she was running late.

  She needed this position as the office manager at the only doctor's office in town. All her money had been spent on moving to this place, and far away from…. She stopped her mind from wandering back into those thoughts. It wouldn’t do any good to think about it.

  Crawling out of her bed, she made her way into the bathroom. It was bigger than any other bathroom she had ever had. But then, her whole entire rented house cost less than the apartments she had rented in these past ten years. ‘This small town living might actually be good for me,’ she thought, as she stripped out of her pajamas. She pushed the button on the radio she kept on a shelf and waited for the music to start. Once the beat started, she danced around the room, while gathering her towel, washcloth, and everything else she needed for a shower.

  Once the water was flowing onto her naked body, her mind had decided it was time to dwell on the dream she had just had. It was the same one she’d had for a while now. These dreams started the night when she discovered her ex-boyfriend, David, in her bed, screwing the next door neighbor. Since then, whenever she was stressed, her dreams would turn into nightmares of her walking into the bedroom she'd shared with the love of her life and finding his white ass pumping in and out of another naked woman. Even after that first time she'd discovered him being unfaithful, she stayed, and so did her dreams.

  She had hoped that when she'd left him for good, by moving away from the big city and to this little town, the dreams would stop. She was wrong. The only thing that had left her was the ability to believe there was a decent man alive. She swore that from the moment she moved to this town, she would focus all her time on herself. She’d found a place in town where she could take yoga classes. She’d joined the local library and had started to read, and she found that she enjoyed living vicariously through the characters in the books more so than she enjoyed living her own life.

  By the time the water in the shower had started to cool, she felt a little better. By thinking of her commitment to herself, she was able to push the horrible dream out of her mind. She quickly put her hair up in a clip and put a little bit of make-up on her face. She was thankful that she had prepared her clothes the day before, otherwise, she could forget about arriving any where near on time. She threw on a pair of black slacks and a white tank top with a tan blazer over the tank top. It only took her fifteen minutes to ready herself, and then she was out of the house and on her way.

  Chloe pulled her teal Volkswagen beetle into the parking lot just as a BMW pulled in beside her. Climbing out, she watched the man exit his car and grab a messenger bag, throwing it over his shoulder. The man was definitely handsome: tall with dirty blonde hair. She would take bets that his eyes were blue. She shook her head and then looked down, pulling her purse out from the passenger seat. No men: that was her promise to herself.

  The man was gone as she went about locking her door, and she then started to make her way to the building. This would be the first time she'd even got a chance to see the place she'd be working. Her new boss, Dr. Richard Marlen, hired her through an online interview and gave her the directions on the phone. Nervous butterflies took flight in her stomach as she got closer to her new job.

  When she reached the door, the man she watched getting out of the car was unlocking the door. He stopped when he saw Chloe walking up, and was looking her way.

  “You must be Chloe.”

  Chloe took the hand he offered. His grip was nice and firm. Their eyes met and she felt this stirring she hadn’t felt since she discovered her husband of two hours screwing the neighbor in the bathroom of the reception hall. Pushing those thoughts out of her head, she focused on the man standing in front of her. She was right: his eyes were blue. She couldn’t look away. When their hands separated, she stood there for a moment while he finished opening the door. As he started to head in, he turned back to her.

  “Are you coming in?”

  Chloe coughed, snapping herself back into reality and followed him into the building, trying desperately not to look at his ass, but she didn’t succeed. With a quick look, she couldn’t deny the fact that his ass was perfect, along with everything else about him. They headed through the waiting room and through a door marked 'private,' with Richard turning on the lights as they went.

  “This will be your office.” He stood beside a door and Chloe walked through it.

  The room was just big enough to fit a desk, a few chairs, and a couple of filing cabinets. There was a huge window behind her chair that Chloe could tell looked into a parking lot. Although it wasn’t huge, Chloe was excited to have her own office. She placed her bag on her desk and turned to look at her boss.

  “I need to put my things away, and then I will come back and give you a tour.” He gave her a smile and then headed further down the hallway.

  Chloe turned around and looked at her office -- her own office. She'd only had a cubicle at all the other jobs that she’d worked. This time, she was going to be the person with an office. A thrill of excitement went through her as she started to think about what she could do to this room. A plant could be placed in front of the window, and a few pictures could be hung on the wall to help create a more comfortable surrounding. The computer monitor needed to be moved and maybe even have the one filing cabinet placed…..

  “Ready for the grand tour?” he asked, popping his head back into the office.

  Chloe jumped and gave out a little squeal. He startled her. When she turned around, Richard was standing in front of her in scrubs that matched his eye color.

  Her new boss took her through the office, showing her where everything was found, along with some of the things he would like her to do when she first came in each morning. They would be the first two to come into the office in the morning, both of them being in at least an hour be
fore everyone else. He would also like for her to stay in the evenings too, if she would be up to it. The good thing was that on the weekends, she didn’t need to come in, even though they had Saturday office hours.

  As they reached his office, Chloe hoped she would be able to remember everything he was telling her.

  “Don’t worry about forgetting anything. Ask if you have questions, and I've already sent you an email this morning with most of this information.”

  “This morning?” Chloe knew there were morning people, but to have been up and sending emails already? That was insane.

  “I’m not a big sleeper.” He admitted with a shrug.

  They had just finished the tour, on their way back to Chloe’s office, when a short, blonde woman walked through the door. She was wearing scrubs, so Chloe assumed she was one of the nurses who worked with Richard. He had stated there were three in total, but typically they only had two working per day, giving them all two days off a week (since they did work on Saturdays), and sometimes Richard needed them to go with him for house calls.

  “Chloe, this is Julia. She is the head nurse.” He introduced the bubbly blonde.

  “Thank goodness. I had been bugging Richard for months to hire an office manager. There are just too many jobs that I am not qualified or have time for.”

  It took Chloe only an instant to like the bouncy woman, who she would be working almost every day with. And it wasn’t long before the other nurse, Sherri, came in and took her seat at the reception desk.

  So far everyone was pleasant, Chloe thought, as she finally took a seat behind her desk and turned on her computer. This town was definitely turning out to be the right choice.

  Chapter 2

  “Mrs. Fletcher, Sherri will set you up for your next appointment, and please remember to call if you start feeling dizzy again.”

  Richard walked the woman to the door and opened it for her. Chloe was standing at the copier, watching her new boss. This wasn’t the first time she had noticed the way he treated his patients. He was kind and caring. She could hear him talking with them as they walked through the hallways and when he first entered the exam room door. Hearing the way he interacting with everyone, it made her wonder what his life was like when he was growing up.

  “Chloe, have you figured out the schedule for next week?” Richard pulled her back to the here and now.

  “I believe so, although I wanted you to double check it.”

  “Set it on my desk, but I am sure it will be fine.”

  “Is there time we can sit down and talk? I have some things I would like to try and wanted to run them by you.”

  He looked down at his watch and then back at her. It was close to five p.m., and they had both been there since six a.m. that morning. It was definitely going to be at least another hour before she could even think about leaving. This was only her third day, and none of them had been there for less than twelve hours. The good thing was that she didn’t mind a second of it. It proved that when you enjoy what you do that you don’t mind putting in the extra time.

  “Would you want to come over to my house for supper tonight? We could go over the changes.”

  Chloe looked at her boss. Was he asking her on a date? Then she realized that this wasn’t the big city. People here are supposed to be nice and invite people over for meals. There didn’t necessarily need to be something involved with a simple dinner invitation. A small part of her wished that maybe it was a date, but then she reminded herself for the hundredth time since she started working here that she'd sworn off men and no one was going to break that promise she made to herself.

  “Sure.” She agreed politely.

  “I have one more patient and then paperwork to catch up on. Do you want to meet me back here and then follow me, or you can just meet me at my house.”

  “I probably will be here until you are ready to leave, so why don’t I just follow you?”

  “Sounds good.” He gave her a polished smile, which almost melted Chloe from the inside. He headed down the hall to the only closed patient room door. Before he entered the room, he turned and gave her another smile.

  “Dinner? That sounds nice.” Julia snuck up behind Chloe.

  “To go over the schedule and some other things.”

  “If that is what you want to believe,” Julia replied, as she continued walking. She turned and gave Chloe a little mischievous smile before going around the corner toward Richard’s office.

  Chloe took the papers she had been copying and headed into her office. Julia was definitely someone who liked to meddle in her boss’s life. This wasn’t the first time she'd made hints about something happening between Chloe and Richard, but every time Chloe shot her down.

  The moment she was seated in her chair, her focus went right to the paperwork she was trying to organize and she was lost in it.

  “I will be ready in five minutes.” Chloe jumped and looked up. Richard had startled her as he stood at her door. He had changed out of his scrubs and was now wearing jeans and a dress shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Maybe I should start wearing a bell.”

  “I’m just finishing up. Got really focused on this.” Although she knew she could have stayed at least another three hours, she started to shut everything down. She would just take everything home and work on it there. With a smile on her face, she started to gather all her files.

  She'd just finished putting all her paperwork into her bag when Richard stepped into her doorway again. “All ready?”

  “Yep.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and took a step toward him.

  “You’ve been here since early this morning: there is no reason you should be taking work home.”

  “You should be the one to talk,” as she pointed to the bulging bag hanging from his shoulder. “Most of my work is just reading. I want to get through those horrible manuals.”

  Richard allowed Chloe to go first as they made their way to the front door, and he turned off the lights as they made their way through the building. Chloe stood and watched as Richard locked the door. When he was finished, they walked together to their cars. “You can just follow behind,” he talked to her over his car hood.

  Chloe got into her car and smiled at the thought of what a gentleman Richard was. He could have made things strange by wanting to drive to his house and pretending that he would bring her back. Instead, he just told her to follow him so she didn’t need to depend on him to get home. Whenever she felt like heading home, she would be able to do so. She shook herself. This wasn’t David. This was her boss who had grown up in a small town. He probably wouldn’t even think about doing those types of things to a woman.

  On their way to his house, all of her attention was focused on following his car and not on the scenery. Her biggest fear was losing him, since she didn’t have his cell number or his address and she had no idea where she was. They reached a driveway and Richard pulled in. She followed behind, surprised by the modest house in which he lived. When she pictured a doctor’s home, she'd always imagined the big fancy apartments with a gate and passcode lock that she had heard about in the big city. But here, in small town Pennsylvania, doctors lived in houses that reminded her of what women in the fifties dreamed about.

  Chloe climbed out of her car, still taking in the surroundings. A white picket fence would have made this place look even more like the quintessential American-dream house. Richard came up and stood beside her, as she locked up her door and placed her keys in her purse.

  “I’ve only just closed on the house, so please remember that. I still want to get a fence up, and there is still some work needing to be done inside.”

  Chloe let out a little laugh, wondering how he possibly could have known what she was thinking. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She just shook her head.

  “Sorry. Was just thinking how with the addition of a fence, this house would look like it had stepped out of the fifties.”


  “My thoughts exactly.”

  He walked behind her up to the door and then used his key. He pushed open the door and held his arm out, gesturing for her to go in first. She took a step into the house and instantly wondered what land she had arrived in. She couldn’t have imagined a house that felt more exactly like a home just as you entered it. She was surrounded by warmth and the sweetest smell of harvested apples.

  “Make yourself at home, and I’m going to head to the kitchen.”

  Richard took off the suit jacket he had slipped on in his car, and threw it onto a chair, placing his bag on the floor and then walking past it. Chloe headed to the living room and started to look around the room. One wall was devoted to a mounted flat screen television and movies aligning shelves. Another wall was devoted to books on a bookshelf that reached the ceiling. This was the one that she really wanted to check out. She slowly looked at the titles, running her hand along the spines. He had a really good collection: classics mixed in with the contemporary works.

  “Would you like something to drink?” he yelled from the kitchen.

  “Glass of wine?”

  “Coming right up.”

  After making a few noises, he came into the living room, carrying a glass of wine. “Books: I love them. Just don’t always have the time to read them. Help yourself to one if you find something you like. It’ll be a little while until supper.” He told her as he sat the flute glass down on the glass table.

  He was gone before she could say another word.

  She went back to looking at the books until she came across one she had wanted to read for a while. She pulled it from the shelf and took it over to the couch. She slipped off her shoes and sat down, curling her feet under her. She opened the book and started to read. Every once in a while, she would look up from the book when she heard a startling noise coming from the kitchen. Most of the time it sounded like something was being dropped, and she would chuckle a bit before going back to reading.