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

He jerked back and banged his elbow to the cabinet when he noticed Wyatt standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at him silently.


“Oh man…ouch…buddy, we need to put a bell on you,” Del said calmly, rubbing his elbow that smarted like hell.


“Why?” Wyatt came closer and looked at him quizzically.


“It’s a saying. It means that someone moves very quietly. We don’t actually need to put a bell on you,” he explained as he pulled the chair from the island and gestured for Wyatt to come sit. “Are you hungry?”


Wyatt nodded. He reached up to put his doll on the island and then climbed onto the chair.


Del got the food out of the drawer and made Wyatt a plate. He then gave the boy a glass—plastic one he’d found in the pantry, thank you Nanna for thinking about children—of milk.


“There will be really good bread soon,” he promised Wyatt, who nodded, grinning as he clumsily stabbed some eggs with a fork.


Chapter 28