Every morning, for more than a year now, I have gotten up at 4:30, hot tea in hand, and sat down at an old kitchen table that was given a second life as a desk. The whirr of an impossibly slow computer the only sound in the dark; the dog forever nestled at my feet. This was my time … my time to dream, my time to create, my time to hope. It is in the wee, small hours of the morning that Nora and Gavin came to life. Her ability to always see the best in people, his insatiable desire to protect; these were the ties that bound them to me. The idea that they gave the other strength, that together they were invincible, that they always believed, always persevered ... always loved. This was the catalyst that compelled my heart to write. An epic battle of good versus evil played through my imagination, and I tried as best I could to capture it with the written word. The adventure so strong in my mind I often scared myself silly before work. My days run at an impossibly fast pace, but at night I found myself restless, ready to get back to the table. I would forego the temptations of TV, not allow the sirens call of another beloved book to lure me away, and I wrote. I wrote to serve as example to my daughter and my son. I wrote to heal past wounds. I wrote as a hope for the future. It is my heart's deepest desire that as you read, you too will be inspired to not look on love with the restless eyes of the ungrateful, but gaze upon it as the greatest gift of God.