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

The news of their mother being dead had…made sense, sadly. It had crossed Del’s mind that she was on a downward spiral when he’d seen her in town a few times. It seemed that Justin was trying to take over.


Del wasn’t sure how he felt about the way Justin had tensed visibly when Del had mentioned Clyde. He couldn’t tell if it was a homophobic thing or just a surprise, and decided there was no reason to dwell on it.


They drove back home in silence, Del thinking hard all the while. Justin was clearly in over his head. The kids were having issues. There was no actual warmth between Justin and the little ones, and with what Del could remember hearing, Justin hadn’t been around for a while. It had to be a horrible situation.


Chapter 13