Two years ago, Chris and his boyfriend left the city to settle in a small town at the US-Canada border. Eager to start a new life, Chris bought the Frontier Café, but a year later, his boyfriend dumped him, leaving Chris the only openly gay man in town. Nowadays he's resigned to a life of romantic solitude.<br><br>Hank spent the last years traveling through the country for his job as a water plant engineer. Deeply closeted, he's careful about the men he meets. Like the rivers he studies, he runs fast through the land.<br><br>In town only for a few weeks, Hank is intent on getting the job done and returning home out west to take care of his father. But Chris’s warm manner and decadent desserts are no match for Hank’s defense mechanisms. For the first time in his life, he finds himself wanting to go with the flow.

No River Wide Enough

But I thought he wantedto look at me. I could feel my pull on him. Was this really happening? Here, at the county fair? Had to make eye contact with him again. Then I’d know.


“We open around six,” Drika said. “This is Christensen. My partner at the café and good friend.”


I was certain that if I touched his hand now, I’d get a shock. “Hi,” I said weakly, shaking Hank’s big hand. “Just call me Chris. Christensen is way too—”


“Oh, you,” Drika shushed me. “It’s a beautiful and lyrical name.”


“You all from the water plant in Forked River Creek?” Across the table from where I stood, Shirley was staring at Hank with keen eyes.


He shot her a quick glance. “That’s right, Ma’am.”


Oh, I could tell the Ma’ampart hadn’t scored any points with Shirley. She picked up another cupcake, and then looking straight at me, tore a bite into it.


Chapter 6