The Guardian's Mission

The Guardian's Mission
Shirlee McCoy

Ma'am, I'm not one of the bad guys. So says the handsome man Martha Gabler encounters near her isolated mountain cabin. Tristan Sinclair claims he's an ATF agent working undercover. And that if she doesn't play along as his unexpected girlfriend, they'll both end up dead.Nursing a broken heart, Martha knows a thing or two about love that isn't real. Still, she calls up all her faith and turns her shaky trust over to Tristan. Soon she's hoping he'll take on a new mission: guarding her for the rest of her life.

“Hey! Hey, what’s going on? Why’s she running?”

Gordon Johnson’s question was one Tristan Sinclair could have answered easily—the woman was running because she’d walked into a cabin she’d thought was empty and into a man she didn’t know. She was terrified and trying to escape.

He could have answered, but he didn’t.

If Johnson realized the woman wasn’t with Tristan, that she hadn’t been invited to their little party, she’d die and the mission would end.

He raced after the woman and yanked her to a stop, praying she wouldn’t start screaming. Johnson had a reputation for acting first and thinking later. One bullet, that’s all it would take to spill innocent life out onto the rain-soaked earth. Tristan could prevent that from happening if the woman played along.

If she played along.

SHIRLEE MCCOY

has always loved making up stories. As a child, she daydreamed elaborate tales in which she was the heroine—gutsy, strong and invincible. Though she soon grew out of her superhero fantasies, her love for storytelling never diminished. She knew early that she wanted to write inspirational fiction, and began writing her first novel when she was a teenager. Still, it wasn’t until her third son was born that she truly began pursuing her dream of being published. Three years later she sold her first book. Now a busy mother of four, Shirlee is a homeschool mom by day and an inspirational author by night. She and her husband and children live in Maryland and share their house with a dog and a guinea pig. You can visit her Web site at www.shirleemccoy.com, or write her at P.O. Box 592, Gambrills, MD 21054.

The Guardian’s Mission

Shirlee McCoy

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

—Matthew 7:13–14

To my dear friend Darlene Martha Gabler.

Though we are far apart, you are always in my thoughts and prayers.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

First-aid kit?

Check.

Water? Protein bars? Check. Check.

Chocolate? More chocolate? Tissues? Triple check.

Not that Martha Gabler was going to need the tissues. She wasn’t. She was over her crying jag and done feeling sorry for herself. It was time to move on, to embrace singleness with the same joyful excitement with which she’d embraced being a part of a couple.

The fact that in one year and three months she’d hit the magical age that separated young-enough-to-hope from too-old-to-keep-looking didn’t matter at all. So what if women in Lakeview, Virginia, married young? So what if reaching thirty without heading down the aisle was tantamount to walking around town wearing a placard that read Past My Prime?