Thomas Durling escaped his small-town upbringing for over ten years, until a single phone call drew him back. Told his mother has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, he returns to the small northern Michigan town he once called home to find a mute stranger taking care of her in his stead.<br><br>On the surface, Andre seems harmless enough, but Thomas has enough problems trying to deal with his mother’s illness. He doesn’t need a gorgeous young man to distract him, especially in a town that drove him away once already with its homophobia.<br><br>But Andre has nowhere else to go. A wolf without a pack, he’s been on the run since witnessing his father’s murder, always looking over his shoulder, never looking ahead. Taking care of Thomas’s mother has given him a welcome sanctuary, as well as a place he can call home for a couple months. He wants to stay, but more importantly, he wants to help, even if Thomas isn’t ready to accept that they could actually be friends ...

Moon-Touched

“About six months before we broke up, Gil started acting differently. Little things, like getting up earlier to work out, or blaming me when he’d lose something. I just wrote it all off. A health kick, since let’s face it, we weren’t getting any younger. The arguing I figured was from living together for so long. That five-year hump people get to where everything the partner does gets on your nerves. It just hit us earlier than usual. That’s what I told myself, anyway.”


Andre watched him steadily. His hands had relaxed a fraction on his pad and pen, and his shoulders seemed less stiff. The anxiety that had been on his face before was now more a knowing curiosity. He could probably see exactly where the story was going, even when Thomas had been a blind idiot as it happened.


Chapter 20