Remaking Josh

Description

A Tidewater Short Story. Contemporary, Stand alone, HEA.

Josh found his hap­pi­ly ever after with hus­band Rick and their mala­mute Anna, only to lose it again. Rick died in a car crash, leav­ing Josh with an unsup­port­ive fam­i­ly and nowhere to turn. Months after the inci­dent he still has­n’t found a way to cope, but he’s tired of the black pit of depres­sion. He takes a late-sea­son trip with Anna to their cab­in on the edge of Tidewater, hop­ing to find a way to move on. He does­n’t expect to res­cue some­one else.

Eli’s work for Fish and Game has brought him up to the moun­tains once again. He thrives here in the snow and the wild, but even he knows when it’s time to find help. A dead truck bat­tery, no sat-phone, and an incom­ing storm dri­ve him toward the only cab­in around. He col­laps­es at Josh’s door near frost­bite. Josh takes him in, but the storm hits hard that night and in the close quar­ters Eli finds a man more in need than he’s ever seen.

Josh is torn between Rick’s mem­o­ry and the unex­pect­ed, pow­er­ful attrac­tion he has for Eli. He’s not ready for any­thing new, but he des­per­ate­ly wants the com­fort and under­stand­ing Eli pro­vides. Tidewater’s win­ter storm just needs to snow the two dam­aged men in long enough for them to real­ize they can heal each other.