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

Before he could kiss me, I pushed his hands off and backed up to the door. “Don’t,” I said, stopping him with a piercing stare. “Do you wanna destroy everything I’ve built here? Do you?”


Donnie’s eyes brimmed with tears. “No…but, I—”


“Go,” I whispered, opening the door behind me without turning around. “Your mom’s waiting for you and—and the cob.”


“Please, don’t tell anyone,” he said, stepping back. “Please, Chris. Don’t tell my aunt or my parents about tonight. Please, okay?”


“I’m sorry. Please don’t tell anyone.”


“Okay. Okay. I won’t. I promise. Good night. Just leave.” I stepped inside the house and shut the door. Shaken, I stared at my phone on the hall table.


Whatever I did now, I’d be betraying someone’s trust.


Chapter 49