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

“I’m worried about her, though. We can’t be sure she’ll be able to take care of herself. You know that even better than I do. I mean, I don’t know what Pastor told you what she was like before, but she’s pretty much the only reason my father didn’t kill me before I could get out of here. She was the strong one, not me. And…I don’t know if I have it in me to be as strong as she needs me to.”


All the fears he’d kept bottled up since getting the call from Pastor bubbled to the surface. He’d sidelined them in favor of the distraction Andre presented, but they’d been there all along, percolating until he allowed them the room to expand. Though this might not have been how he imagined it occurring, he now knew secrets about Andre that few others did. It seemed only fair and right to give back the same. Now, they could entrust the other not to expose them for the frauds they were.


Chapter 28