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would probably please him.”
    “Probably. He’s talked about a restaurant and a chef. Mentioned catering too.”
    Joe chuckled and sipped his coffee. “Dean’s so disappointed that Roy doesn’t cook. There aren’t a lot of chefs around these parts. Trust me, if there were, Dean would already be all over it.”
    Mason nodded. He couldn’t help but feel that he was betraying Dean. He could help with something that obviously meant a lot to him. But because he was afraid, he kept his mouth shut.
    “Well, I’ll be going,” Joe said, as he stood up and put his cup in the sink. “Tell Dean that we’ve got everything covered until he’s well again.”
    “I will.” Mason stood up too. He had a feeling Joe had picked up on his weird mood and hated himself for letting it show. “And let me know if there’s anything I can help with.”
    “That’s a deal. I’ll see you later.”
    When Joe had left and Wyatt was engrossed in a cartoon on TV, Mason sat down at the kitchen table. One moment everything looked bright—like he was getting his life back on track—and the next he remembered who he was, what he’d been through, and exactly why he couldn’t have the life he wanted. And then there was no brightness left.
    Cooking dinner that night was one of the hardest things Mason had ever done. He’d found a passionate love for cooking in the big city, and it had brought him far. Then disaster had struck—twice—and Mason had refused to do anything that even resembled cooking since then, afraid that bad things would happen again.
    Fully aware that Wyatt was watching him and probably thinking that he was an idiot, Mason hardly took his eyes off the stove while he threw together a modified version of one of his signature pasta dishes of the past. The original didn’t have peas in it. This new version did. He’d call it Pasta a la Wyatt.
    “Is Daddy still sleeping?” Wyatt asked while he happily shoveled primarily peas into his mouth.
    “Last time I checked, yes. When you’re not feeling well, sleeping is the best thing for you.”
    Wyatt nodded. “Can we go play in the snow tomorrow?”
    “Absolutely.” Mason wondered if Dean had taken the time to play in the snow with Wyatt since it had fallen. He hoped so, but somehow had a difficult time picturing it. “We also need to go grocery shopping tomorrow.”
    “And make pancakes? Mommy made pancakes.”
    It was the first time Mason had heard Wyatt mention his mom, and he didn’t know what to say. Did a four-year-old understand what death meant? So he said the only thing he could, even though it involved the dreaded stove: “Sure we can.”
    Wyatt watched cartoons while Mason did the dishes. Then they read a story about a sword-fighting frog—and Mason seriously wondered where all the awesome bedtime stories had been when he was a kid—before Wyatt drifted off to sleep, looking too much like a little angelic version of his father. Mason sighed when he tucked the covers tight. He was losing his heart, and he was losing it fast. Those Walker boys were hard to resist.
    Mason walked down the hall to Dean’s door. Without knocking, he slipped inside the darkened room—he’d left only a small lamp on in the corner. Dean was twisted in the covers again, but he’d clearly been awake. The bottle of water and glass of juice on the nightstand were both empty. Mason didn’t want to wake him, so he tiptoed across the room and carefully laid his hand on Dean’s hot forehead, confirming what he already knew—he was still in a fever daze.
    And even rosy-cheeked from the fever, damp with sweat, and mussed from almost twenty-four hours in bed, he was beautiful. The higher powers had been kind to put Dean and Mason in the same path after almost a decade. Mason hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed Dean until he’d seen him again.
    They had been so young back then. Mason had more than loved and lusted after Dean. He’d idolized the seemingly confident son of the