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

Wyatt was, of course, still Del’s mostly quiet little shadow, and Scarlett demanded attention off everyone, but she was particularly taken with Del’s sister Bernie, who was also staying with them at the moment. But somehow the house didn’t feel crowded at all.


The house felt like a home, and the people in it felt like a family.


One night, after Del had helped Justin up the stairs to bed, Justin lay under the comforter in the darkness and tried to flex his still-painful fingers. Weird that they hurt the most, given he’d had major surgery at the same time. “Del?”


“I can’t go back to work for a while.”


“I know that.” He reached out and brushed his fingers down Justin’s cheek. “Given what you’ve been through, I’d rather you didn’t go back to something that physically demanding anyway.”


“I don’t have a lot of options.” His throat ached to admit that aloud.


Chapter 68