Funeral home owner and undertaker Dual Hood knows a good thing when he sees it, so when Charlie Soder applies for the job of embalmer, he snatches up the young man in a heartbeat. Charlie, fresh-faced and just out of college, also knows a good thing when he sees it, and immediately sets his sights on his new sexy boss.<br><br>It doesn’t take long for sparks to fly and romance to blossom. But Dual worries what folks in his small Mississippi town will say, and whether his family-owned business will suffer if word goes round about his new love interest. He isn’t at all certain he has the courage to do the right thing and grab love before it slips through his fingers.

The Undertaker's Secret

I knew what I had to do. I had to tell Mama. I had to be open and upfront and honest—and let the chips fall where they would. It would be risky. The business would be at risk. Customers might start going elsewhere. They might not like the thought of their undertaker being a gay boy-loving, light in the loafers poof. Business might dry up so badly that we’d have to close our doors—or sell the business to someone else.


Then what would I do? All I knew was the funeral home business. I had no other skills. The thought of going to work for someone else held absolutely no appeal.


The more I thought about it, the further driven into paralysis and inaction I became.


I knew what I had to do—but it was a horrible risk. A horrible gamble. It was the sort of decision that could never be unmade or undone. Once word got around in Port Moss and the surrounding communities…that was all she wrote. There was no way to walk it back, or pretend it didn’t happen.


Chapter 17