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

“All right,” I sputtered. “It’s okay, we don’t have to—”


“I’m crazy about you, Chris,” Hank said, suddenly, turning his eyes my way. “There’s no way we’re saying goodbye.” He inhaled a sharp breath. “No way.”


“Then let’s not. That’s all there is to it. The rest…we’ll just have to wing.”


“Don’t forget you’re talking to an engineer here.” Hank laughed. “We’re not too good at wingingthings.”12


Blinking at the waning sunlight, I sat up and put my hand on the empty side of the bed. The sheet was still warm there. “Hank?” I called out, staring at the doorway. I checked the clock on the nightstand. It was a little after ten on Sunday morning.


Chapter 27