Big, burly CEO Abe Behr is furious to discover someone -- probably a relative -- is embezzling from Behr Construction, a family-run business in the Sierra Nevada foothills outside Lake Tahoe. To confirm his suspicions, Abe takes the unprecedented step of hiring a non-family accountant, handsome Jeff Mason, to go over the books and help find the culprit. As they talk to Behr relatives and visit construction sites, Abe and Jeff are drawn to each other, bringing out new, softer emotions in workaholic Abe. Since he has sacrificed romance all his life to build the construction business, Abe’s surprised by his feelings for the handsome Jeff. He’s even more shocked when they come face to face with homophobia in the small foothills community where generations of Behrs have called home. Abe had always thought Stone Acres was a live-and-let-live kind of town. As he and Jeff get closer, he finds out how wrong he is when he comes out to both family and a community who think he’s making a big mistake. Will being the head of a large, powerful family and a pillar of the community be enough to win Abe his happily ever after with Jeff?

Behr Facts

All my productive thinking gets done there. Sometimes I catch dinner while I’m thinking.


The drive up was pretty this fall. The leaves were starting to turn color. The retailers at Apple Hill looked like they were getting ready for the family groups and tour buses to arrive. The apple harvest had outdone itself this year. The tourist roads would be packed. Those of us who knew the dirt-topped back ways and farm roads would use them to get around for the next few months.


I got to the cabin, dragged my folding chair and gear to the lake, and had wet two lines in record time. I sat under my favorite tree and thought about the company.


No two ways around it. A family member was probably ripping us off. The realization stung. I couldn’t understand why anyone would do it. Everyone from my brothers and me on down was making more than industry average. Most at the bottom rungs were making much more than twice what they would from anyone else in the area.


Chapter 6