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

“I think that’s life for you. We just deal with the shit it throws our way,” Del said dryly, then let out an “unf” when Justin’s thumb pressed against a knot next to his shoulder blade.


Suddenly Del wanted to turn his head and kiss him back for real, but the kids were across the pretty open lower level and…just no.


“So I had this thought,” Justin said as he went back to digging his fingers into Del’s shoulders, obviously ready to change the subject.


“Yeah. Have you thought about doing YouTube or something like that? With this project of yours?”


Del let out a sound no child should ever hear. “Hmm, what do you mean?”


“Jesus, well now I know how you sound in bed.” Justin chuckled. “I mean doing instructional videos, vlogs, that sort of stuff? People make decent money out of it and it might help with the cookbook sales.”


At this point, based on what his kind-of agent had told him, he really needed something else to attach to his book. Maybe this was it?


Chapter 44