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

“Of course,” he said. “Of course I will.”


And Justin’s heart swelled with love.  10


Del was the first one to admit watching the kids wasn’t easy. He’d definitely be the first one to say it was incredibly fulfilling as well.


As he put Scarlett down for a nap in the travel cot that had somehow appeared in his living room—okay, yeah, he’d gone and bought her one—and Wyatt colored at the kitchen table, Del felt peace.


Harper would come home from school soon, and then he’d supervise her homework and make dinner for everyone. Justin was at work and he had a long day, because some extra deliveries had come in for…something farming related? The season was changing, so that made stock change and yeah, Del didn’t have enough brain cells for retaining that sort of information.


Chapter 34