Personal chef Beau St. Clair, recently divorced from his cheating husband, returns to the small Ohio River town where he grew up to lick his wounds. Jack Rogers lives with his mother, Maisie, in that same small town, angry at and frightened by the world. Jack has a gap in his memory that hides something he dares not face, and he’s probably suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Maisie, seeking relief from her housebound and often surly son, hires Beau to cook for Jack, hoping the change might help bring Jack, once a handsome and vibrant attorney, back to his former self. But can a new face and comfort food compensate for the terror lurking in Jack’s past? Slowly the two men begin a dance of revelation and healing. Food and compassion build a bridge between Beau and Jack, a bridge that might lead to love. But will Jack’s demons allow it? His history could just as easily tear them apart as bring them together.

Dinner at Jack's

I set the phone down and shut off the one lamp I had turned on, simply so I could sit on my couch opposite the front window and look at the snow as it came down, its big flakes dissolving as they hit the river water, now black in the deepening twilight.


Ruth hopped up, grunting, on the couch beside me. “Purty, ain’t it?” she asked in an accent she must have picked up from our new landlord. I rolled my eyes.


“Oh, but I like it from in here. The way it comes down ever so gently.” Ruth yawned and farted. Then she turned in a circle and finally ended up in a neat little mound, like a pillow, with her blockish head on her paws. “It makes me feel all warm and cozy to look at it out there while I’m in here.”


Chapter 33