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

There was the sound of wheels on gravel. He must have turned into the vacant lot by the end of the street. The driveway there was unpaved. I was frozen still, listening to the sound of a car engine turning off. A door opening and shutting.


Moments later, when he knocked, I jumped back and stared at the door. Couldn’t leave him standing there for too long or someone would surely spot him. I quickly pulled my door open and without even making eye contact, signaled for him to come in.


This was it. He was here. The scent of his aftershave turned me on.


“I’m sorry for driving by your house like that.” Hank’s breath was short as he stepped closer. “I couldn’t work up the nerve to stop…But tonight, I couldn’t take it anymore.” His voice was husky, his blue eyes, full of heat. “Did I imagine our…connection the other day?”


Chapter 11