Justin O'Dwyer is 19. Four days ago, his mother died of a drug overdose, and now Justin is back in Enterprise, Oregon, trying to figure out how to raise the younger siblings he's afraid of losing to the foster system. Justin is completely out of his depth. Harper is six, and hates him. Wyatt is four and doesn't remember him. And baby Scarlett, at fourteen months, has never even met her big brother before. When Scarlett gets sick and won't stop screaming, and when Harper runs off in the middle of the night, Justin is at the end of his tether. In desperation, he knocks on a neighbor's door begging for help.<br><br>Del Abbot is 38, and living in his grandparents' old place in Enterprise after his marriage broke down and he lost his restaurant in the divorce. He's a chef, even had his own show on cable for a while, but now he's looking for a new start, if he could just figure out what exactly that entails. When the O'Dwyer family barrels into his life one night, Del can't refuse to help. What begins as a trip to the hospital becomes a regular child-minding gig while Justin struggles to find his feet. And the more time Del spends with Justin, the more they both want more than friendship. But small town life comes with its own bigotry, and, in Justin's case, that bigotry has always been close to home.<br><br>When an act of violence threatens to destroy the small family they've built, both Justin and Del need to put aside their pasts and reach for their future together.

Family Recipe

“It’s bittersweet,” Del finally said, after blowing his nose. “Trim was…”


“Yeah, I know Delly.” And she did know, she’d been part of the process when he’d been figuring out the menu, digging archives and family cookbooks for things he might’ve missed in the first ten times he’d done it over the years.


Del cleared his throat. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll give Paul a call, let him know Clyde is poaching.”


“All right. You hang in there, Del. Love you.”


“Love you too. Tell the family I said hi.”


They ended the call and Del got up to get himself a glass of lime-mint water from the fridge. He didn’t drink these days, but he’d once loved mojitos and well, sometimes it was all about the little pleasures.


He wandered to his office in the back of the house with his drink and cell phone, and sat down heavily. He felt old suddenly. Instead of dwelling on it, he called his lawyer.


Paul Winters answered almost immediately. “Del, hi.”


Chapter 6