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

Del checked on the kids who were still asleep. It would be snack time soon, and then they should make dinner. He couldn’t wait to cook with Abigail again. They’d always been in the kitchen together ever since she was little. It might not have been her passion in life, but she loved to help and enjoyed when he explained to her why something tasted good with something else.


“Why do you look weird?” Abigail asked as she joined him in the kitchen after a while.


“I just realized that I’ve technically done the whole ‘explaining to kids how to cook’ thing before.”


“Oh?” She pointed at the fridge. “Can I grab a drink?”


“Yeah, can you get the apple juice out for the kids, too? And I did it before with you when you were little. Every time we were in the same house, we cooked together.”


Abigail quite obviously thought back as she handled the drinks. “Yeah, I think I remember that. We even made something in this kitchen when great-grandma was alive, didn’t we?”


Chapter 56