Vermont's Sweet Embrace

Love Without Borders, Book 1

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Silas has learned how to survive by keeping his distance—from his family, from a faith that once harmed him, and from anything that might ask him to be fully known. As an account executive in Indianapolis, he trusts numbers, policies, and systems that reward precision over presence. Belonging has always felt conditional. Love, even more so.

August believes the opposite.

A baker in the small Vermont town of Maplecreek, August lives a life shaped by care, ritual, and quiet devotion—to his craft, to his community, and to the people who wander into his orbit. The Daily Grind is more than a café; it’s a place where warmth is offered freely, where people are fed without being fixed, where no one has to earn their seat at the table.

When Silas is sent to Maplecreek to assess logistics for the town’s cherished Harvest Festival, the assignment is meant to be temporary and transactional. But Maplecreek is not a town that allows detachment, and August is not a man who remains a passing figure.

As festival preparations falter and corporate pressure mounts, Silas finds himself drawn—again and again—back to the café, to the square, to the man who meets him with patience instead of expectation. What begins as professional proximity slowly becomes something neither of them can ignore: shared glances, steady hands, the dangerous comfort of being seen.

Old wounds surface in unexpected places—a church sanctuary, a familiar voice on the phone, the fear that love must always come at a cost. And as the festival hangs in the balance, Silas must decide whether he’s willing to risk the life he’s built on safety for the possibility of something truer.

Vermont’s Sweet Embrace is a tender, slow-burn romance about chosen family, queer healing, and the courage it takes to let love rewrite the story you were told about yourself. It asks what happens when a man who has survived by staying small is finally invited—by another man’s quiet, unwavering presence—to take up space.

And whether he’s brave enough to stay.