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

I stepped out on Drika’s front porch and draped the quilt I’d found in her linen closet over her shoulders. “There you are.”


“Thanks, darling,” she said, patting the empty seat next to hers. “Come warm me up.”


We’d finished dinner an hour ago and had been sitting on her wicker swing outside, but it was getting cold now that the sun had gone down.


“My pleasure.” I sat by her, wrapping my arm around her shoulder. I’d almost forgotten how well we got along and how healing her presence could be to me. I’d grown up with women, and short of having my mother or grandmother around, she was the closest thing I had. All through the evening, Drika had listened to my every word, her lively blue eyes studying my face with affection and acceptance. I didn’t have to hold back or try to be funny. I could confide in her my fears and doubts.


Chapter 44