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

“Hey,” Roy called out from the open door. “Careful. Don’t drive too crazy now.”


In the driver’s seat, I waved at him and put the car in reverse, pulling away with a screech of tires, but my senses were sharpened and my vision was clear. I drove through town, determined and strangely calm. 27


I parked right by Herman’s door and climbed out of my car, then paused a moment to collect my thoughts. What had transpired between those two? Couldn’t storm into that room like a panicked lover. Had to remember I was a fishing buddyand nothing more. I tucked my shirt neatly into my jeans and walked up to the door on the first floor of the two-story motel. In the small window, the curtains were draw shut. I knocked.


It was a while before Herman came scuffling to the door. “He ain’t here,” he said, his scruffy face appearing in the wedge. “I told you.”


Chapter 70