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

“Yeah, I’m a pretty bad cook,” Hank said, behind me.


I looked over at him. “How’d you manage to burn toast? It’s got a setting on it, right?”


Hank held up two fishing rods. “These are crap, but I bet we can still catch us a few brown trout.”


“Something tells me you’re an amazing fisherman.” I walked up to him. “As a matter of fact, I bet the fish just swim right up to you.”


Hank shook his head, but there was a hint of satisfaction in his stare.


“I’m right, aren’t I?” I laughed and took hold of one of the rods. “You’re patient.”


“And you?” Hank was serious, his smile, gone.


“Am I patient?” I had a feeling that we weren’t talking about fishing anymore, but about long-distance relationships. He needed my reassurance. “Well,” I finally said, pulling him away and into the hall, “I’m a baker, Hank, so I’ve learned to wait and let things rise on their own time.”11


“Oh, here we go,” Hank said softly, looking over at me.


Chapter 25