He inherited the land my family has wanted for generations.
I was supposed to help him decide what to do with it.
Neither of us planned to fall in love before he went home.
Nate
Sera Dempsey is the first person I meet in Paradise.
She’s also the woman who rescues me from a vineyard road, informs me that my car has no business being there, and explains exactly why the eighty acres I inherited matter to everyone in Black Bear Valley.
I came to Paradise expecting to sell the land and return to Vancouver.
Then I read the letter Lloyd left me.
Now I want to understand why a former patient believed this place could give me something my career never has. That means spending time at Black Bear—and with the woman who runs it.
Sera is capable, relentless, and far more tempting than anyone who already knows I’m leaving should be.
One dinner becomes another. A kiss becomes a temporary affair. My short stay stretches through the holidays, and somewhere along the way, Paradise stops feeling like an interruption.
But my life is in Vancouver. My patients need me. My family expects me to return.
And the woman I want has no intention of leaving the vineyard she’s spent her life protecting.
I thought eighty acres was the decision I came to make.
I was wrong.
Sera
Nathaniel Pierce owns the one piece of land Black Bear has never been able to buy.
He’s a Vancouver neurosurgeon with an expensive car, a demanding career, and no reason to stay in Paradise once he decides what to do with his inheritance.
I should keep this professional.
Instead, I show him the valley. I invite him into my home. I let myself believe that something temporary can remain uncomplicated.
It can’t.
While Nate is making room for me in Vancouver, my grandmother’s estate is pulling my family apart. Lawsuits threaten Ric’s plan to protect Black Bear, and the winery’s future depends on choices none of us control.
I can’t walk away from my family. I won’t abandon the business hundreds of people rely on. And after seeing the life Nate has built, I know asking him to give it up would eventually destroy everything between us.
So I make the decision he refuses to make.
I let him go.
But Nate Pierce didn’t become one of the best neurosurgeons in the country by accepting the obvious answer.
If he wants a life with me, he’ll have to find a way to build one that doesn’t require either of us to surrender who we are.
Dr. Pierce is a standalone romance with a guaranteed happily ever after. It’s the fourth book in the Dempsey Follies series and continues the saga of the unforgettable Dempsey family, their embattled inheritance, and the outsiders who keep finding reasons to stay in Paradise. Start anywhere—but once you meet the Dempseys, you’ll want the whole family.
What you can expect from Dr. Pierce
- small-town woman / big-city doctor
- opposites attract
- inherited land everyone wants
- temporary romance
- “this was never supposed to last”
- two ambitious workaholics
- protective hero
- high-stakes family inheritance
- emotional breakup and hard-won reunion
- high heat