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

And if my luck held out, I’d be right here to read them.Epilogue


The grounds were swarming with people and the atmosphere at the fair was electric. Looking out at the Anderson’s property, I knew Drika and I would be turning a good profit today. It was a beautiful, breezy July Saturday and it seemed the whole town had showed up. I was proud of the Frontier’s stand. Drika and I had gone all out with decorations and desserts, and this year, with Larry Bowles’s help, we’d earned a better spot under the oak tree, by the police stand. We had access to an electrical outlet and had hooked up a slush and frozen yogurt machine. The afternoon was looking promising.


“We’re out of strawberry slush,” Drika said, calling my attention to the machine. “Look at all the work we put into these viennoiseries, and kids are slurping down water and food coloring instead.”


Chapter 76