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

“Damn fucking straight it is.” Steve dropped his cigarette butt onto the floor and ground it out under his boot. And then he flashed a grin at Justin. “Hey, you bring those kids back here tomorrow, huh? See if they remember their old Uncle Steve.”


“Okay,” Justin said, his stomach twisting because he knew better than to say no to Steve. “I’ll see you later.”


Walking into Del’s house felt like walking underwater. Everything was slow and dull and muted, and Justin couldn’t break through the surface.


“Hey,” Del said, his face lighting up with a smile. “What did he say?”


“That bad, huh?” Del asked with a sympathetic look. “It’s okay. You can keep borrowing mine if you need it.”


Right. The car. Justin had forgotten about that, and now he wanted to rewind the whole day back to the point where the car had been his biggest worry.


Chapter 54